Sample Essay Exam Question I

Sample Essay Exam Question I
A 22-year old heiress of a wealthy family was kidnapped by a small band of revolutionaries, who
held her captive in a closet for several weeks and repeatedly threatened to kill her unless she sent taped
messages to her family. After 10 days of such threats and abuse couple with deprivation of food and
sleep, the heiress [hereafter H] heard a commotion and several shots in the room adjoining her closet.
Fearing that she would be killed, she opened the closet door and observed the following scene: a member
of the revolutionary group [hereafter M] was lying in a pool of blood; another member of the group
[hereafter A] was standing over him with a smoking pistol. Seeing that H had emerged from the closet, A
pointed the pistol at her and said, “Now you’ll have to die because you can pin the murder on me. I won’t
kill you now since you’re still valuable to us. But you’ll never leave here alive; we can’t afford to let you
go now. We will kill you eventually – maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next year. There’s
only one way out for you. M is dying, but he’s not dead yet. If you kill him, I will be able to trust you.
What’ll it be? Do you kill him, or do I kill you? M has only 5 or 10 minutes to live, so you have two
minutes to make up your mind.” Fearing that she would be killed, H said she would kill M. She was then
given a pistol and told that it had one bullet in it. Still covered by A’s pistol, she was told to shoot M –
through the head, which she did. (Murder an intentional killing of another with malice aforethough, intent
to kill murder, deliberate and with thought before hand, might try to claim self defense as she is being
held by these peple or duress (not defense to murder under CL) (Murder under MPC 210.2) Solicitation
for murder by A and when H agrees this is a conspiracy and he helps her commit it by giving her the gun.
Would be able to be charged for murder as well. Sell Defense under the MPC not under the CL.
Over the next several weeks, H became convinced that she was guilty of first degree murder, and
she began to identify more and more with the group. Soon she was allowed out of the closet. A month
after the shooting of M, the police received an anonymous tip that H was being held in the house where
she was, in fact, being held. The police (without a warrant) surrounded the house and burst through the
front and back doors with their guns drawn. H was sitting at a table with A when the raid took place;
nobody else was in the house at the time. As the police came through the door, A handed H one of the
two sub-machine guns that was under the table, shouting, “It’s the pigs; they’re going to kill us! We have
to protect ourselves!” H and A began shooting and one policeman was killed before A and H were
subdued and taken prisoner. The bullet that killed the policeman came either from A’s gun or from H’s
gun, but it cannot be determined from which because the guns were mixed up in the excitement.
Conspiracy to commit murder recklessly and then charged with murder reckless and maybe 2 nd degree
manslaughter under MPC. Intent to enter into the conspiracy and helped carry it out with the intent to
further the conduct. No self defense and they had become comfortable sitting at table could have used
this opportunity to escape but chose to fight and shoot. Accomplice to murder for both
After A and H were arrested, handcuffed, and removed from the building, the police (without a
search warrant) conducted a search of the entire house, claiming that they were looking for other
members of the group. In the process of searching for other members, they opened closets, drawers, and
cabinets, and seized numerous papers, including a diary kept by A from the beginning of the kidnapping
and a diary kept by H beginning the day after the shooting of M. A’s diary reveals that on the morning of
the shooting of M, A discovered that M was an undercover agent for the F.B.I. Deciding that M had to be
killed, A contributed to have H kill him. A knocked M unconscious and spilled animal blood around his
body and then fired two shots into the air. H then killed M as A planned (as previously described). A’s
diary also revealed that he had put LSD into H’s drinking water the day before the killing of M. H’s diary
revealed that she did not know that M was an informant and that she believed that M was alive but dying
at the time she shot him. Her diary also reveals that she did not think that A would kill her immediately if
she refused to shot M (NO IMMINENT FEAR SO NO DURESS ), but she did think there was a good
chance she would be killed at some future time. The diary also reveals that H hated M because M had
constantly threatened to rape and kill her in the early days of her kidnapping and that H felt pleasure when
she shot M. (Motive and retribution would be found guilty and possibly under MPC too as no duress
offense) There is a statute, enacted just before the kidnapping of H, which provides for a mandatory
sentence of death for the first degree murder of a law enforcement official. (First Degree Murder for M
and H, knew the police were coming agreed to do it, and also killed undercover agent who was a law
enforcement official. No self de
Your boss has asked you to write a memorandum outlining the issues in this case, including the
crimes that the defendants can reasonably be charged with and the defenses they can reasonably raise. If
any facts are unclear or if facts that you deem critical are not stated, indicate what they are and how they
would affect your analysis.

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