My last Death Penalty class consisted of a group debate. The professors assigned one of three Supreme Court cert petitions to each student  and we wrote response briefs.

Today we defended our briefs in group debates. I spent the majority of our debate challenging Nancy Grace: “The defendant recruited four guys to invade Joana’s home, pistol whipped her husband, threw Joana in the car, and stole her bayyybay!”

Here are tidbits from the other discussions:

Professor G: “So in your paper you decided to overrule Strickland.”
Jill: “I sure did.”
Professor G: “So what was the thinking behind that?”
Jill: “…uh. I don’t know.”
(Class laughs)
Jill: “But there WAS thinking!”

Jill: “AEDPA is horrible. This paper was the most complicated thing I’ve ever written. I crossed eyes and passed out a few times.”
Jack: “It’s only complicated if you’re trying to get around it!”

Jack: “AEDPA has an exhaustion requirement but the state waived it! I really wanted to quote Spiderman here because with great responsibility comes great power, and they were just LAZY and waived their exhaustion defense! It’s not my fault the state is a Dufus!”

Stay professional, University of Minnesota law school….