Crim Law 101

My first-year criminal law course is not quite what I expected. Instead of Law & Order, it's maybe more like...Deadwood. All the stuff that everyone was excited about -- the right to an attorney, Miranda, unreasonable search & seizure, habeas, the 5th Amendment -- all the good stuff that lends that particular glint to Sam Waterston's eye is Criminal Procedure.

Crim (as opposed to Crim Pro) is more like, how was larceny defined under the common law? Which, OK, sounds a little dry. But it has its moments.

Like the definition of 2nd-degree murder, which in many places includes reckless murder -- when you kill someone in a way that isn't quite intentional but is so deeply thoughtless it means you are probably a zombie. The language that many states use is "recklessness manifesting an extreme indifference to human life and an abandoned & malignant heart."

Abandoned & malignant -- isn't that evocative? It's like you left your heart on the bus one day and it got dumped at the terminal and then it just sat there, growing increasingly enraged, until one day it struck out on its own to do evil. Or like your heart turned to ash sitting right inside you. I think I have seen this happen to items that get left in the fridge...I'm pretty sure that we have some abandoned & malignant pesto from L's birthday that is trying to climb out of its bowl...