130.
Read the selection entitled “Bonnie and Clyde” in the back of the book. Write an essay to
determine whether it is consistent to give Bonnie and Clyde different punishments for
their deeds.
Answers will vary
131.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: On the basis of observation and a car license number, police reasonably
suspected Mrs. H of possessing stolen radios. Informed by the manager of her apartment
that a man living with her was sickly, officers knocked on the apartment door and received
no response but heard “moans and groans.” When they were admitted by the manager, no
one was present, but one of the stolen radios was in plain sight. On the basis of this
information, they obtained a search warrant and seized the radio. Mrs. H was later
132.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: The owner of an amusement park, believing that homosexual activity was
taking place in its pay toilets, authorized police to use an observation pipe leading from
the roof to the booths. Officer H regularly visited the roof for surveillance. If he observed
illegal conduct, he would notify officers below, who would make the arrest. A court ruled
that the evidence of Officer H was illegally obtained and set aside the information.
Second case: The management of a department store authorized police to observe
suspected illegal homosexual activity in the men’s room. An officer did observe such
activity and arrested the participants. But in this case, the officer looked through a
legitimately installed vent instead of a special spypipe. Furthermore, in this case, the
booths, unlike those in the first case, were not pay toilets (and thus were not in the same
sense “private”). Finally, unlike in the first case, the observed behavior was committed in
the space below the partition, and thus was observable by anyone who might have been in
the public, or common-use, portion of the men’s room at the time, though nobody was.
133.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: The owner of an amusement park, believing that homosexual activity was
taking place in its pay toilets, authorized police to use an observation pipe leading from
the roof to the booths. Officer H regularly visited the roof for surveillance. If he observed
illegal conduct, he would notify officers below, who would make the arrest. A court ruled
that the evidence of Officer H was illegally obtained and set aside the information.
Second case: The management of a department store suspected illegal homosexual
activity in the men’s room. In this case, the booths, unlike those in the first case, were not
pay toilets (and thus were not in the same sense “private”), and the observed behavior
was committed in the space below the partition, and thus was observable by anyone who
might have been in the public, or common-use, portion of the men’s room at the time. An
officer just happened to open the door of the men’s room at the time of the activity,
observed it through the doorway, and arrested the participants.
The second case is importantly dissimilar to the first.
134.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: The owner of an amusement park, believing that homosexual activity was
taking place in its pay toilets, authorized police to use an observation pipe leading from
the roof to the booths. Officer H regularly visited the roof for surveillance. If he observed
illegal conduct, he would notify officers below, who would make the arrest. A court ruled
that the evidence of Officer H was illegally obtained and set aside the information.
Second case: A motel manager complained to police that his motel was being used for the
sale of narcotics. Officers conducting surveillance from an unmarked vehicle observed
suspicious activity and, approaching and looking through an unshaded window, witnessed
drug use and made arrests.
The second case is importantly dissimilar to the first. In the first case, the officer had no
grounds for even suspecting that the individuals had committed or were committing a
crime; he was spying on innocent and guilty alike. There are other differences, too. Does
looking through a window constitute unreasonable search?
135.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: Federal and local officers, seeking to arrest Mr. J on a narcotics charge but
having no warrant or search warrant, knocked on the door of his apartment. He asked,
“Who’s there?” and the reply was, “Police.” He opened the door partly, keeping the chain
latch on, asked what they were doing there. Before they answered, he tried to close the
door, whereupon they broke in and arrested him, seizing as evidence marked money from
a narcotics sale. The court ruled that the arrest was unlawful and therefore that the
money was unlawfully seized: the authority of officers to break the door of a home to make
an arrest is limited; the officers must first state their authority in demanding admission.
Mr. J’s reaction in attempting to close the door did not show with certainty that he knew
that the officers were there to arrest him.
Second case: Mr. A was unlawfully arrested on a burglary charge without probable cause
and placed in jail. There he was observed attempting to swallow something; he was seized
and forcibly searched, and a moist narcotic packet was found on the floor. He was charged
136.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: Officers on a late-night automobile patrol approached two men parked in a car
in a lover’s lane, who then drove away at high speed. The officers chased and overtook
them, searched the car, and found narcotics. The court ruled that the search of the
automobile was lawful even though no arrest had been made: The presence of two men in
that place was suspicious, and their sudden flight indicated consciousness of guilt of
some crime.
Second case: The defendant’s car was parked, and officers observed him walking in the
middle of the night in a residential area. When they approached him, he made a throwing
motion; on interrogation, he admitted prior felonies but made unbelievable explanations of
his presence and his car at the place. The officers searched the car and found narcotics.
The court held that the search in the second case, as in the first, was legal and the
evidence admissible.
137.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 extended federal antibias
protections to pregnant workers.
Second case: Johnson Controls, a manufacturer of automobile batteries that uses large
quantities of lead in its manufacturing processes, excludes women capable of bearing
children from any job where the work carries a high risk of damage to the nervous system
of a fetus. Under this policy, eight employees of Johnson Controls were involuntarily
transferred to safer but lower-paying work. They sued the company, charging
discrimination under the Act.
A point that might be discussed is the company’s argument that their guidelines protected
them from large damage suits.
138.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld federal regulations that bar abortion
counseling at federally funded family-planning clinics in the United States.
139.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: A court has ruled that victim-impact statements, which document the suffering
of the victim and the victim’s family that results from the crime, are admissible among the
evidence to be considered by a jury during the sentencing phase of criminal trials.
Second case: A court is asked to rule whether such statements may be introduced in
cases punishable by death.
The Supreme Court held that such victim-impact statements are not admissible in cases
in which the death penalty is possible.
140.
In this pair of cases, the first may serve as precedent for the second. Decide whether the
second case is so relevantly similar to the first that it should be decided identically.
Explain your decision.
First case: Officers arrested D in his living room on a charge of using the mails to transport
forged checks. Then they searched the other rooms of his apartment for forged checks,
which they did not find. But they did find unlawfully possessed draft cards. D was
convicted of possession and alteration of the draft cards. The court held the search was
lawful as incidental to a valid arrest.
Second case: Federal officers had observed the defendant operating an illegal still. They
entered the premises and made a valid arrest without a warrant for a felony committed in
their presence. They seized the still. At trial, the defendant moved to exclude the still from
evidence.
On appeal the Supreme Court held that although the arrest was valid, the seizure of the
still was illegal because in this case the officers knew what they were looking for and had
ample time to obtain a search warrant: They in effect simply ignored the Fourth
Amendment. The Court said that if a search was automatically valid whenever a lawful
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141.
Legal reasoning and moral reasoning both lead to prescriptions about whether or not
certain actions should be done.
TRUE
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142.
Defenders of the harm principle usually believe that it is only one among several
acceptable justifications for laws forbidding conduct.
FALSE
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143.
A law justifiable by legal moralism always prohibits activities that do not harm others.
FALSE
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144.
Stare
decisis
is the doctrine that even though a court has pronounced a principle of law
applicable to a certain set of facts, other judges should follow common sense in
determining whether to apply that principle to other cases in which the facts are
substantially the same.
FALSE
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145.
The application of
stare
decisis
always involves analogical argument.
TRUE
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146.
Immanuel Kant’s deontologism urges people to act so as to produce the most happiness.
FALSE
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147.
In estimating the moral worth of what people do, utilitarianism seems to discount people’s
intentions.
TRUE
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148.
Ethical egoism discounts one’s own happiness as of lesser value than the happiness of
others.
FALSE
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149.
A moral imperative prescribes an action, not for the sake of some result, but simply
because that action is our moral duty.
TRUE
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150.
Utilitarianism holds the idea that what is right and wrong is merely a matter of subjective
opinion.
FALSE
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151.
Virtue ethics is an abstruse ethical theory.
FALSE
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152.
Reasoning used by jurists and attorneys in applying the law is both deductive and
inductive.
TRUE
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Short Answer Questions
153.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
Elizabeth should compensate her neighbor for damaging her lawn.
Moral value judgment.
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154.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
Every year this town records more than 100 homicide cases.
Not a value judgment.
155.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
Elliott delivered the presentation in an elegant manner.
Nonmoral value.
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156.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
It was wrong for Shirley to insult Nathan.
Moral value.
157.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
Debbie has been very good tonight according to the babysitter.
Nonmoral value.
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158.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Moral value.
159.
State whether the following item expresses moral value or nonmoral value; or no value at
all.
The editor used my illustrations for last week’s presentation.
Not a value judgment.
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160.
For the following, try to come up with an additional premise that will turn the passage into
a deductively valid or an inductively strong argument. Usually this requires adding a
general moral principle and, sometimes, an extra nonmoral claim as well. The idea is to
guarantee that the “ought” claim follows from the “is” claim.
The government should not proceed with Highway 99 expansion. This will make a lot of
people lose their properties against their wishes.
It is wrong to seize people‘s properties against their wishes.
161.
For the following, try to come up with an additional premise that will turn the passage into
a deductively valid or an inductively strong argument. Usually this requires adding a
general moral principle and, sometimes, an extra nonmoral claim as well. The idea is to
guarantee that the “ought” claim follows from the “is” claim.
John often insults elderly people. This kind of behavior emotionally scars them.
One should treat elders with respect.
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162.
Identify the moral perspective at work here:
Bernie takes his car for a ride near the beach. While at it, he crashes into a car parked at
the side of the road. Nobody is hurt in this accident. He leaves the scene without leaving a
note to the other vehicle’s owner. Is this an acceptable course of action?
No, it isn’t; this is not in accordance with a person’s integrity and moral responsibility.
Virtue ethics.
163.
Identify the moral perspective at work here:
Bernie takes his car for a ride near the beach. While at it, he crashes into a car parked at
the side of the road. Nobody is hurt in this accident. He leaves the scene without leaving a
note to the other vehicle’s owner. Is this an acceptable course of action?
No, it isn’t; Universal law dictates that Bernie should stay there and clean up his mess.
Duty theory.
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164.
Identify the moral perspective at work here:
Bernie takes his car for a ride near the beach. While at it, he crashes into a car parked at
the side of the road. Nobody is hurt in this accident. He leaves the scene without leaving a
note to the other vehicle’s owner. Is this an acceptable course of action?
Yes, it is; Bernie will be happy if he leaves the scene quickly without having to deal with
the mess.
Consequentialism (ethical egoism).
165.
Identify the moral perspective at work here:
Bernie takes his car for a ride near the beach. While at it, he crashes into a car parked at
the side of the road. Nobody is hurt in this accident. He leaves the scene without leaving a
note to the other vehicle’s owner. Is this an acceptable course of action?
Yes, it is; Bernie’s religion says this act is justified as long as no one is hurt.
Religious relativism.