Pictured: A BB Gun and box of BB-pellets. People have treated these as toys for years, but they can be used to kill.
BB guns are a type of rifle that are treated as toys since they only use air to shoot small metal balls, rather than relying on the explosive force that gives bullets their fatal speeds.
An unfortunate incident involving a BB gun in Tampa, Florida led to a 17 year old dying after he was shot in the eye with one. Although the majority of accidents involving BB guns are the result of the gun handlers failing to use eye protection, that wasn’t the case here. The young man died as a result of his family-friend in the back seat – who was 8 years old – accidentally causing the gun to go off.
The two had been riding in the car with the 17-year-old friend-of-the-family in the front seat, and the adult driver’s children (including the 8 year old) riding in the back. The incident began as the adult driver pulled up to an ATM and exited the car, leaving the minors unsupervised.
The youngest in the back seat, the 8-year-old was attempting to move the BB gun not knowing that it was loaded. When the child moved the gun, it fired off a BB striking the 17-year-old front-passenger in the eye.
BB guns are widely seen as toys. In reality, they are capable of major damage to property and (as is the case here) to lives. The companies that manufacture these devices often recommend the use of eye protection and to keep them out of the reach of young children. Keeping a BB gun in the back seat of a car and accessible to unsupervised minors is a scenario that is not recommended.
The 8-year old who caused the gun to go off didn’t mean for it to do that. Reports say the child explained they had been moving it out of the way so that they wouldn’t step on it and cause it to break when the incident occurred.
Regardless of the circumstance, there is a 17-year-old boy who lost his life because of an oversight of the adult in the car keeping a BB gun in their back seat.
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Questions:
1: Why should someone be charged – or why shouldn’t they be charged – in the death of the 17 year old in this case? Who is really to blame if anyone: the 8 year old, the adult driver who had left the BB gun in the back seat to begin with, or no one? Explain your answer.
2: If the adult driver had left a real firearm in the back seat, what would change about the case – how might it be handled differently?
3: In the state of Nevada, what are some of the minimum and maximum consequences would the adult face for leaving a minor in the back seat with a loaded firearm accessible?
4: If the boy had been an adult themselves and shot a minor, what are the maximum and minimum charges they could face, if any?
Law Firm Claims Rival Sucked Up Business
By Copying And Hijacking Their Website
We are taught not to copy a person’s work since it can get us in trouble. According to an article by Above The Law, a law firm is suiting another firm on the basis of copying and hijacking their website.
In Illinois, Motta & Motta is suing Dolci & Weiland over the alleged hijacking and plagiarism. The suit claims that Dolci capitalized on Motta’s reputation by using website hashtags and headers to mislead search engines into believing Motta’s website is Dolci’s website. According to the suit allegations, Dolci & Weiland’s website mirrored Motta’s copyrighted design and content and even copied (verbatim) articles and blogs on Motta’s website.
In school, we are taught many basic principles such as reading, writing, mathematics, but we also introduced into many ethical values as well, such as responsibility, quality, leadership, respect, and honesty. One way these ethical values are exercised is through integrity and not committing plagiarism. This article brings up some interesting points relating to privacy, defamation, and fraud and how Dolci’s law firm was acting unlawfully. Instead of Dolci taking the time to create their website and content, they are now facing a lengthy legal process that is going to cost them a lot of money!
————————– Questions:
1) In what situations is it against the law to impersonate someone online?
2) When would impersonating a person online be a form of fraud, or why would it not be a fraud?
3) The law firm that claimed to be victimized specifically mentioned hashtags in their complaint. Hashtags are basically hyperlinks: text that results in being connected to related information. If the law firm sued only over the plagiarism of the hashtags on their website, why do you think they would or would not have a good chance of winning their case in court? Be specific by using other lawsuits or trademark and copyright news articles as examples when creating your response.*
*Hint #1: Are companies guaranteed websites with their names?
*Hint #2: What are some examples of trademarks, copyrights, and the differences between the two?
Be sure to provide full explanations for each of your answers. For more details, you can read the article this piece was sourced from here:
When it comes to meat products, this is a major market within the United States. Not Counting Lady Gaga wearing a slab of red meats, Americans on average consume over 100 pounds of meat per year. But, what does meat have to do with law?
On August 29th, 2018, a Missouri law was passed to require that only products that come from slaughterhouses, once-breathing animals can be marketed as meat. Specifically, the law labels meat as something that is harvest from production livestock or poultry. The law is intended to inform the public on what exactly is in the product.
For instance, in cases in which plant-based products (soy, eggplant, etc.) are made into burgers, they cannot be labeled as such since they did not come from a slaughterhouse and were not “once-breathing animals.”
A similar bill is currently being reviewed within the Senate. The US Department of Agriculture is considering to establish beef and meat labeling requirements and to exclude products not derived directly from animals raised and slaughtered from the definition of “beef” and “meat”.
The reason for this law, on a federal level, is to better inform consumers and there are no labeling requirements currently for labeling beef or meat. The major concern is from a non-profit corporation from Montana called the “United States Cattlemen’s Association” and are concerned with the ‘synthetic products’ being introduced into the market and being marketed as ‘beef’.
The controversy over this case comes from people who consider plant-based products as ‘meaty’ or ‘soy roast beef’. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit say that this categorizing infringes on the First Amendment rights and prevents the clear and accurate labeling of plant-based and clean meat products. The plaintiffs claim that this is a way for them to stifle plant-based meats in grocery stores.
A similar lawsuit was filed in Florida. A state law required milk product to be labeled as “skim milk” only if it had the same level of Vitamin A as whole milk. Dairy farmers begged to differ and sued, saying that their product was skim milk and should be deemed as such. Ultimately, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in the dairy farmer’s favor since the farm’s “use of the words ‘skim milk’ to describe its skim milk is not inherently misleading.”
————————– Questions:
1) What does the US Department of Agriculture do?
2) How do you feel the First Amendment does or does not apply to this case?
3) Should plant-based products be allowed to use the word ‘meat’ in their name, and why do you feel that way?
4) Missouri limiting what can be labeled as ‘meat’ is not the only example of ‘restricted speech’ on food products. Either Federally and nationally, or even just in a single state, list one other example of food having law-based requirements about how it can be named and labeled (or alternatively, one kind of food label that has NO legal requirements, even though you think it should have some!)
Be sure to provide full explanations for each of your answers. For more details, you can read the article this piece was sourced from here:
ATM Stolen From Courthouse:
Criminals Cash Out on The Law!
Thieves in one Texas community attempted to steal courthouse ATMs three times in just one week! During the third attempt, thieves used a stolen pickup truck to smash the back door of the courthouse, attached some sort of strap to the ATM and dragged the machine out of the building.
It is unknown if the suspects who stole the ATM on the third attempt were behind the previous two incidents, but the timing is certainly suspicious. Whether they were the same people or different ones, the people behind each of those incidents will face serious consequences once they are caught!
If the thieves had taken the time to think about their actions or if they’d been fortunate enough to know some basic things about the law, they’d realize the risks that come with getting caught involved with these heists are ridiculous!
Very few criminal charges result in a trial for the defendant. That means the accused rarely has a chance of being acquitted (being declared ‘not guilty’ of the crime he or she has been charged with). That’s because trials are expensive and don’t guarantee an outcome. Most of the time, lawyers for both sides will negotiate a deal to avoid a trial and to guarantee they get the best outcome they could hope for if things did not go their way in court. In criminal cases, a lot of time that can mean the person being charged still ends up going to prison, they just go for less time than they would if they had been found guilty in a trial.
One of the tools a prosecutor has to motivate defense teams to negotiate is their ability to ‘stack charges’. In the ATM story, you might think “Ok, the thieves will be charged with stealing the ATM”. It’s not that simple though!
Consider all these things that we already know about the ATM theft incidents:
– The thieves stole a truck to use for the ATM theft
– The thieves used a stolen truck to commit the ATM theft
– The thieves were trespassing in the courthouse after hours
– The thieves broke into a property
– The thieves damaged a property
– The thieves broke into a courthouse, which may interfere with courthouse proceedings
– The thieves damaged a courthouse which may interfere with courthouse proceedings
– The thieves used a vehicle to intentionally damage a courthouse
– The thieves stole the court’s property
– The thieves stole an item worth thousands of dollars
– The thieves stole an ATM, which can also be considered a form of bank robbery
– The thieves may have spent the money in the ATM
Those aren’t just 12 facts about the case – they are 12 possible charges that could be filed against a person for one criminal incident. That means the person would be charged with 12 crimes from the one event! That also means the defendant would face 12 different punishments if they were found guilty of each charge!
Don’t forget: Thieves had attempted to steal ATM’s from courthouses in the area 3 times that week! If someone was convicted on all of the charges for just one of those incidents, an angry judge could sentence them to spend what would likely be the rest of their lives in prison. If they were found guilty of all the crimes related to all 3 ATM incidents that week, things might be even worse for them!
———————— Questions:
1: What is the minimum punishment a person could receive from the state if they were found guilty of all 12 charges for one incident, if it happened in Nevada?
2: What is the maximum punishment a person could receive from the state if they were found guilty of all 12 charges for one incident, if it happened in Nevada?
3: What is the maximum punishment a person could receive from the state if they were found guilty of all 12 charges for all three ATM incidents, if they happened in Nevada?
4: What federal laws were broken by the ATM thieves, and what is the maximum federal punishment they could receive?
5: If the thieves were caught and found guilty of all charges related to the final robbery in Nevada’s state court, and then they were found guilty of all the possible federal charges in Federal Court, what is the maximum penalty they would face?
Would You Like a Side of Gender Discrimination with Your Order?
An upscale French restaurant called L’Orangerie, in West Hollywood, California got a lot of bad attention in 1980 after a woman named Kathleen Bick and a man, named Larry Becker sat down for dinner and were handed two menus. Why? Because the menu handed to Larry was green, and the menu handed to Kathleen was white. Color wasn’t the only difference between the two menus though: The white menu that had been handed to Kathleen was what the restaurant called a “ladies menu” and it listed all the items that could be ordered, but there were no prices next to each item! The green menu that had been handed to Larry had the same items, but this one included the prices next to each item! For example, a serving of lamb would have cost $26 at the time (that would cost about $82 today!).
The different menus reflected a European tradition: Just assume that the man always pays for the woman’s meal. Other ‘high-end’ (fancy) restaurants in the United States did the same thing at the time, but it wasn’t a super-popular thing to do so Larry and Kathleen didn’t know to expect it. The two got really mad (why after all should Kathleen be treated any differently) and they just left the restaurant without ordering. Kathleen stated that she felt “humiliated and incensed [angry and enraged]”, when given the ladies menu. Instead of ordering lunch, they ordered a lawsuit by calling a lawyer: Gloria Allred (who happens to be really famous – Google her sometime)!
When asked by their lawyer to explain the menus and why Kathleen had been treated differently, the restaurant owner just said “It is the French way”. That lack of an apology or good reason, along with the owner’s refusal to end the dual menu when Ms. Allred requested it led her to file a lawsuit on behalf of Kathleen and Larry. Gloria said the two had been discriminated against based on their genders. If that did happen, then it would have violated California’s Civil Rights Act (a law against discriminating against people).
For money, the lawsuit only asked the restaurant to pay $250 for the inconvenience, which wouldn’t have been a big deal, but it also demanded that they stop using 2 menus. The restaurant owners defended their practice as the same as other practices some men did for women at the time like “…lighting a cigarette or standing up when she enters the room.”. The courts were getting ready to hear the case, but Ms. Allred didn’t want to wait, so she decided to try something else. Allred and her clients set up a table with an elegant place setting in front of the L’Orangerie restaurant, and called a bunch of reporters. They showed up and covered the outdoors protest dinner extensively on television, radio and in newspapers. The strategy worked and eventually the restaurant ended their dual-menu practice. That led to Gloria dropping the lawsuit with her clients’ permission.
Restaurants in the United States that still practiced the dual menu, which were few and far between already, were warned in a 1981 publication that they may lose in court if they continued this practice, and it seems most of them stopped doing it. It is not 100% known if any restaurants in the United States that still follow this practice. If they do, let’s hope that Gloria Allred doesn’t know about it.
———————— Questions:
1: Why do you think the two plaintiffs in this case either exaggerated or didn’t exagerate their reaction to the dual menu practice?
2: Why do you think they were or were not justified in feeling discriminated against?
3: If this had happened to you, why would you have sued or not sued the restaurant?
4: Here in Nevada several years ago, the Las Vegas Athletic Club faced a complaint with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission after a woman was given a free membership to the club but her husband was forced to pay an enrollment fee for the exact same thing! The couple filed a Civil Rights complaint against the gym, claiming discrimination because of his gender. The commission isn’t the same as a court, but it can issue fines. In this case, it found that the practice was discrimination. Many businesses have similar practices – they encourage women to attend for lower or free rates, and charge men full price. They argue that it is fair because men have been treated better for years (like having the right to vote long before women) so it’s just ‘making things even’. What do you think: Why are ‘deals’ given to women a bad form of discrimination, or why aren’t they so bad?
Be sure to provide full explanations for your answers. For more details, you can read the articles this piece was sourced from here:
https://api.atlasobscura.com/articles/ladies-menus-no-prices-lawsuit
https://www.clubindustry.com/commercial-clubs/commission-rules-against-las-vegas-athletic-club-0
Hawaii Community’s New Law:
Don’t Text While Crossing the Street!
Have you ever caught yourself not paying attention to your surroundings because of an electronic device? Mayor of Honolulu, Kirk Caldwell, has signed a bill to make it illegal to look down at an electronic device while crossing the street or highway. The ban is aimed at making the streets safer and ensuring that pedestrians pay more attention to their surroundings. A first violation gets you a $15 to $35 fine. It’s a $35 to $75 fine for a second offense. A third offense could cost you as much as $99.
This is something that was aimed at public safety.
—————————-
Questions:
1: Why do you think this law is likely or unlikely to take off as a law in cities across the United States?
2: Choosing to walk and text in the street at the same time seems like a personal choice – if a person wants to be dumb and risk getting hit by a car, that could be up to them, right? Give two examples of laws that are similar to this one, explain what makes them similar, and then explain why you think those restrictions became laws in the first place.
3: Why do you think this is a reasonable or unreasonable law in general (meaning why you think it is a good or bad thing that this law exists)?
Bad Joke Actually a Hate-crime When
Student Lists Two Others as ‘Slaves for Sale’ in Florida
Pictured: A screengrab showing an offensive ‘joke’-post to the website Craigslist in which two high school students were shown under the headline ‘Two Slaves for Sale’.
No matter if something is done with an intent to hurt someone or just casually as a joke, if one person’s simple fun results in another person’s harm, that action may be considered legally as an act of bullying, criminal harassment, or both. Obviously being the victim of bullying is never fun. If that fact is not enough to stop someone from reconsidering their actions, they should keep in mind that unintentional harm is still harm in the eyes of the law. Consider this incident:
A student at a Florida’s Fleming Island High School (who remains unnamed due to his age), took a picture of two African American females in his class and then posted an ad featuring that picture on Craigslist. The ad had been placed in the ‘Home and Garden’ section of the used goods website and had been titled “Two Slaves for Sale,” [as seen in the picture above].
The post went viral overnight as hundreds of complaints were made on social media. Reports say that the high school student responsible for the ad was identified and then immediately expelled from school and sent to an alternative education program offered by his district.
The post however, was not the first incident involving heavy racial ties for the Fleming Island High School. The school’s students had been reporting issues and incidents of “racial targeting” on their campus (by fellow students and by school staff) for years before the craigslist incident took place.
One of the students pictured in the ad, Skye Fefee, told reporters that she was deeply disturbed by the act and wondered how something like this could happen not only to her, but those around her too.
Regarding the school administration and how they handle racial incidents including her own, Fefee stated “The administration doesn’t pay attention to this. They need to better monitor the students,“. She went on to state that her school’s administration needs to be more proactive, taking steps that prevent students from being hurt by those committing acts of hate.
The student responsible is a juvenile and wasn’t charged with any crimes.
Despite being a juvenile, the student responsible for posting the advertisement to Craigslist was lucky to have not been charged with a crime. Some districts would find the student criminally liable for bullying, and if the school was federally funded the student could have been risking facing federal hate crime charges (no matter his age).
—————————-
Questions:
1: This article talks about an issue involving hate speech. Should the first amendment affect hate speech? Why or why not?
2: If you or someone you know was targeted in a “joke” like this, what would you/how would you stop it?
3: Do you think the first amendment protects too much? What changes would you make or not make to the first amendment?
4. If this event had happened at your school, what are the minimum and maximum penalties the student would have faced at your school for posting that kind of hate-ad to Craigslist?
5. If this event had happened at your school, what are the minimum and maximum criminal penalties the student would have faced for posting that ad?
Woman Sues Over Too Much Air in Candy? Yes, Really!
Do you find yourself at the movie theatre paying what seems like 4x the price for candy than what you would pay for it at a convenience store? Do you get even more frustrated when you open that candy up and find that the box was much larger than it needed to be for the contents inside?
Well, one woman had enough with what she felt was a 50% candy, 50% air ratio in her box of candy! She is suing the makers of Mike & Ike’s for false advertising. Rather than sue the movie theatres (which don’t package the candy), the woman decided to go straight to the source and sue the candy’s producers. While it’s not a criminal matter, if the company is found to have deceptively advertised they may face legal consequences beyond any decision which may be handed down in civil court.
While the story is fun and a bit goofy (it is a story about a lawsuit over candy after all), it also highlights the importance of understanding that courts aren’t just for criminal law – civil law is a big part of court too.
If you’ve been wronged in a situation, would you know if you could sue to be ‘made whole’? The courts exist to help society maintain fairness among its members, but they can only be put to use if the citizens know how to utilize legal services.
Questions:
1: Even at a movie theatre, a box of candy won’t cost more than $10. In many states, to file a court case you have to spend around $30 just to file paperwork that launches a court case against another person. Even after you file, it can take months before a case ends up in a courtroom! What are some reasons this woman would have taken the time to sue the candy company?
2: It seems like a person can be sued for anything these days! Why do you think that is fair or unfair?
3: Lawsuits in civil court (where people sue each other) tend to happen when two people do not agree on something. No one goes to jail just because of a lawsuit in civil court, but money can be awarded to either the person suing (the plaintiff) or even the person being sued (the defendant) if the court thinks the lawsuit was just wasting the defendants time and money. Given those conditions, imagine a situation that you don’t think a court would bother hearing (meaning someone would file a lawsuit, and a judge would say ‘sorry, the court will not be having this lawsuit be a ‘court case’), and explain why the court would decide not to hear the case.
99 Year Old Woman Arrested…
Because She Requested It!
At Project REAL, we provide field trips to Nevada’s courthouses for our state’s students. Most of those students get to witness people in custody as they watch live criminal calendars where they also get to learn the consequences of being involved with criminal activity. On rare occasions like slower days where there’s no appropriate criminal calendars for the students to watch, a bailiff or marshal will explain their work by demonstrating on a student and putting them in handcuffs! While it’s fun, none of the students actually want to be arrested during their field trip (or any time after).
That wasn’t the case for one 99 year old woman from the Netherlands named Annie, who’d had ‘getting arrested’ on her bucket list (meaning it was one thing she really wanted to do during her lifetime, but hadn’t done yet). Annie was just very curious about what it was like to spend time in a jail cell. After hearing of her request, the local police department worked to make her dream come true: They decided to show up and arrest her (with her families support – she wasn’t surprised so that she wouldn’t be scared )! While Project REAL does not condone the desire to be arrested, we certainly support the work of local law enforcement agencies that find fun and engaging ways to interact with their local community.
———- Questions:
1: Even though the lady was ‘arrested’ (they didn’t actually give her a criminal record), this was meant to be a good thing for the community – the police wanted to show they could help people have ‘fun’ by fulfilling this very weird wish. Why you think this was or was not a good thing for police to do?
2: Whether or not you think this was a good way for police offers to engage with the public (show who they are and just ‘talk’ to people instead of only speaking with them while enforcing the law), what are some things they could do that you would think are good ways to do that, and why would you suggest those actions / activities?
3: Why would you want or not want to be ‘play arrested’ for a day?
Thank you for letting us experience court for the first time. It was the best experience ever, thank you for everything. You really made me think about being a judge. Thank you
-Mina L [ Twitchell Elementary - Grade 5]
Project Real
2020-12-16T22:04:09+00:00
Thank you for letting us experience court for the first time. It was the best experience ever, thank you for everything. You really made me think about being a judge. Thank you -Mina L [ Twitchell Elementary - Grade 5]
My favorite part of the fieldtrip to the courthouse is when I got to play the part of Ron. I got to go on the witness chair and speaking. I helped Potter to be not guilty. Thank you for the great opportunity.
- Johnathan M [Harmon Elementary - Grade 4]
Project Real
2020-12-16T21:47:04+00:00
My favorite part of the fieldtrip to the courthouse is when I got to play the part of Ron. I got to go on the witness chair and speaking. I helped Potter to be not guilty. Thank you for the great opportunity. - Johnathan M [Harmon Elementary - Grade 4]
Thank you for letting us watch the civil case! It was cool because it was a real case and not one played out. I had a lot of fun watching the other kids act out a session. Thank you for your time.
- Kaylie [Hewetson Elementary - Grade 5]
Project Real
2020-12-11T20:39:35+00:00
Thank you for letting us watch the civil case! It was cool because it was a real case and not one played out. I had a lot of fun watching the other kids act out a session. Thank you for your time. - Kaylie [Hewetson Elementary - Grade 5]
