Teaching the Law School Curriculum - Institute for Law Teaching ...

Storytelling in the Classroom
Evidence 205
Brief Gems
Storytelling is a useful pedagogical tool in the law school classroom. I use short stories as a review device for
the basic rationales encompassed within the Federal Rules of Evidence. My storytelling is intended as a reviewand-recall
device in anticipation of detailed testing on the evidential concepts through multiple-choice questioning
during the semester. The short story reviews the rational connections within and the overall structure of
the particular Rules under review. One example of my storytelling is my use of review narratives based on the
life of John Henry Wigmore as a mechanism to demystify the process of legal thought in general and evidence
doctrine in particular. I explain in detail how to construct review narratives/storytelling and include four short
stories based on Wigmore’s life in my article, Teaching Evidence: Storytelling in the Classroom, 41 Am. U.L. Rev.
453 (1992).
Mock Trial
Beryl Blaustone, City University of New York School of Law
The entire class can be divided into teams of three or four students and asked to try a mock case before real
judges or practicing attorneys at the end of the semester. This exercise offers students several opportunities — to
synthesize the course material and develop a “big picture” of the Federal Rules of Evidence; to study and review
the course material; to appreciate that the students learned something about evidence during the course; to experience
a different set of lawyering skills; and to try a complete case, a significant accomplishment and positive
law school experience. I use an evening during the last week of classes to hold the trials. Each team of students
is asked to supply witnesses and jurors.
I regularly use a mock trial problem, styled United States v. Rick O’Ruben, a straightforward convenience store
robbery prosecution. Each team is asked to do very brief opening statements and closing arguments and somewhat
longer direct and cross-examinations of the witnesses. (The students receive only brief explanations of openings
and closings, whereas the students practice direct and cross-examinations during the course in the context
of learning the Federal Rules of Evidence.) Each side is expected to call two assigned witnesses (usually the eyewitness
and the investigating officer for the prosecution and the defendant and defendant’s wife for the defense).
The facts are clear and easily grasped. A convenience store, Magruder’s, was robbed on a Wednesday evening
at 8 p.m. The primary prosecution evidence derives from the testimony of the store clerk, Sally, the only eyewitness,
but also includes the robbery note (with smudged and unknown handwriting on it), a gun found at the
scene (with the defendant’s fingerprint on it), and a paper scrap with part of the license plate number of the getaway
car written on it by the store clerk. The number written down by Sally on the piece of scrap paper almost,
but not quite, matches the license plate number of the defendant’s car. Sally identified the defendant as the robber
in a later photo array.
There are several problems with the prosecution’s evidence. Sally’s eyewitness identification was not entirely
accurate and included variations in the length of time of the robbery, what the robber looked like, and what the
sequence of events was. Several fingerprints were found on the gun, with only one identified as the defendant’s
print. (The defendant admits that it is his gun, but that it was stolen prior to the robbery.) The handwriting on
the note could not be positively identified as the defendant’s.
The defendant, Rick, is married, with two young children. Rick was an auto mechanic for many years but was
laid off several months prior to the robbery. He just recently resumed working as a mechanic in another garage.
On the Wednesday night in question, the defendant claimed he was playing tennis in his weekly game with his
friend, Tim, who, at the time of trial, was in the Navy on a ship in the Indian Ocean. The defendant previously