A legal writing problem is much more than a mere assignment; it is an interactive learning experience that serves as a primary text for an entire course, facilitates learning, and results in work product that can be assessed to determine what students have learned. As such, professors must thoughtfully consider how the problem will facilitate student learning in light of the outcomes identified for the course. This Article argues that when designing a problem, legal writing professors should design the problem around rule structure because rule structure is what drives the organizational options and rhetorical choices available to the writer—other concerns, like area of law or “fun facts” are secondary considerations that may influence problem details but that should not govern the architecture of the problem itself. Designing a problem around rule structure leads to predictable sophisticated learning of analysis and organization, which makes it the most important consideration in problem design.

Law often functions as a mirror of societal values at a given point in time, but it is also a tool of social construction operating to either reinforce generally acceptable norms or to redefine norms that are no longer generally accepted. Through its use of the subjective fear standard, Florida’s Stand Your Ground functions as a tool of social construction in that it reinforces deeply entrenched racial bias and perpetuates racism by condoning and ratifying behavior consistent with the suspicion heuristic. In this way, it not only declares as acceptable those behaviors that are influenced by racial bias, but it also perpetuates racial bias by further burying individual awareness that the bias even exists.

Study after study confirm that Black men, by virtue of their race, are the most feared individuals in society. The theory of embodied rationality confirms that Americans experience a fear response based on race, a germane, innate biological characteristic that cannot possibly accurately communicate whether the other person is a threat. The suspicion heuristic explains the negative decisions and behaviors that result from the irrational fear created by deep-seated, largely invisible, racial bias.

Viewed through the lens of embodied rationality and particularly the suspicion heuristic, Florida’s Stand Your Ground statutory scheme condones, ratifies, reinforces, and perpetuates both overt and implicit racial bias. American culture is long overdue for major shifts in how it views and perceives race. Until law forces individuals to face the realities of racial bias, however, deep-seated beliefs about the value of Black lives, and the lives of other minorities, will continue to breed in the dark recesses of our minds.

Florida’s Stand Your Ground has stood center stage since the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin. On the one hand, certain sectors of society are calling for its repeal, and on the other, proponents vigorously defended its value and efficacy. Despite the public outcry for reform, every attempt to repeal or change the law has been defeated. This Article examines whether Florida’s Stand Your Ground law is inconsistent with commonly-held societal values, and if so, what might prompt a change in the law.

To that end, this Article relies on the jurisprudential framework established by Myres S. McDougal and Harold D. Laswell which identifies the law as an expression of community interests and a source of authority rooted in community values. The common interests, or values, identified by McDougal and Laswell are power, enlightenment, wealth, well-being, skill, affection, respect, and rectitude. This Article examines these values in the context of Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws and analyzing them from competing perspectives to conclude the law is inconsistent with commonly-held community values.

This Article concludes by exposing the legislature’s reticence to repeal the statute as a reflection of its entrenched mode of thinking. It calls for opposition voices to collaborate in advancing reform messages aimed at deconstructing the entrenched categories and restructuring them to prompt an amendment to or repeal of Florida’s Stand Your Ground statutory scheme.

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Gideon decision, this article guides the rhetorical study of the party briefs as a strategy for cultivating individual voice in legal writing. It is a rhetorical study of the party briefs filed in Gideon v. Wainwright, a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the constitutional right to counsel in state criminal proceedings and provides specific lessons to be used in the classroom setting to enhance students’ understanding of advanced persuasive techniques such as logos, ethos, pathos, and storytelling. Each lesson has been created through the lens of cognitive theory, in particular the concept of categories as organizers of perception. This article proposes that categories can either be reinforced or redefined to accomplish rhetorical purposes, and having a meta-cognitive understanding of that power is essential effective advocacy.

This Article establishes that over-criminalization serves to marginalize unwanted groups of society, and particularly regarding the sex offender registry, it results in social death. The author relies upon the notion of crime as a social construct to establish that the concept of “sex offense” changes over time as society and culture evolve. From there, the author incorporates the work of Michele Foucault involving the relationship of power, knowledge, and sexuality to show how the trend toward more repressive social controls over sex-related activity is related to a shift in this relationship. The Author identifies three characteristics and the associated traits which arise when over-criminalization exists, and further shows how these characteristics and traits are present with respect to the sex offender registry. This Article offers critical insight into the relationship between over-criminalization and repressive control systems and concludes that over-criminalization exists when repressive governmental controls seize power and render non-existent informal social controls. It follows that the sex offender registry is a repressive governmental control that has concentrated power in the government and criminal laws while shifting power away from informal social controls to result in the social death of those unwanted, those labeled sex offender.