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5 Cases for the Skills Building Interview Assignment
Case #1: Police Abuse
On July 21 at 5:30 a.m., Martin Luther Johnson was arrested by two Chicago police officers
while he was walking and playing with his dog in Lincoln Park. The officers placed him in their
patrol car, drove around the area for 15 minutes, and finally allowed him to call Lt. Sean Boston
at the Lincoln Park Police Station. He was released upon Lt. Boston’s insistence.
him, and followed him for about one hundred yards before its lights started flashing and siren
started wailing. He continued to walk his dog because he assumed there might be an emergency
in one of the large homes that surround the park.
Officer Winters got out of the patrol car, walked slowly toward him, pulled out his
service weapon, and yelled, “Stop where you are and get on the ground with your hands behind
instead Winters handcuffed him and dragged him to the patrol car. Summers opened a rear door;
and Winters shoved him into the back seat. Summers drove the patrol car around the area for
some fifteen minutes before finally asking Winters to allow her to make a call to Lt. Sean
Boston. Lt. Boston said, “For God’s sake, let him go!” Boston arrived a few minutes later and
took Johnson home.
Lucille Nichols came out of her house to see what the yelling was all about and saw her
husband swing at Parry with a small branch. He was holding his hand in obvious pain. When her
husband missed with the branch, William knocked him to the ground and threw the branch onto
his roof. She helped her husband home because of his injured hand and then called the police to
report an assault and battery.
Arthur’s hand was healing.
Smiley Con, William Parry’s attorney, said that Arthur was very fortunate that his client
was so forgiving and good natured. After all, he could charge Arthur with trespassing,
endangerment to children and a dog, and intent to kill with a deadly weapon. The Parry’s did not
allow Trickster to run free. He had jumped a fence that was too short to keep him out. Nichols
Case #4: Cheating in College
Professor Semantha Tilson teaches a course in creative writing at Brier University. This course is
required of all students pursuing a professional writing curriculum and is a popular elective for
many English and Theatre majors A capstone assignment due at the end of the semester requires
each student to write a biography of a historical figure they admire. She received a biography
from Giulo Giordano, an English education major, on Eugene V. Debs who ran for president five
times as the Socialist Party candidate. As she read through Giordano’s biography, it appeared to
be similar to one she had received a few years earlier.
When Professor Tilson looked through her files, she came across another biography on
Debs and the early socialist movement in the U.S. It was similar to Giordano’s and was written
by a history student named Joe Selzer. Both reports focused on Eugene V. Debs as a presidential
candidate, included statements from the director of Debs Home and Museum in Terre Haute,
Indiana, and cited the same biographies by Ray Ginger and Nick Salvatore. Six of eight
conclusions were nearly the same. Several sentences in the two biographies were “quite similar.”
After confronting Giordano with the two projects, Professor Tilson asked the Student
Court to determine whether Giordano was guilty of “fraud.” The University and Court define
fraud as “willfully and intentionally giving or receiving improper aid in examinations, papers,
and projects. The Court consists of nine students: two freshmen, two sophomores, two juniors,
two seniors, and one graduate student. The Dean of Students serves as an advisor on university
policies and regulations. Several people testified at a hearing two weeks ago.
Professor Semantha Tilson said she called Giordano into her office for a conference and
asked him about his biography of Eugene V. Debs. At first he appeared sullen and disinclined to
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talk but later became more communicative, even frank. Since he was interested in politics and
planned to go into politics after graduation, he decided it would be an interesting and relevant
topic. He said he had read several sources listed in his references and called the director of the
Debs Home and Museum. When asked if he had talked to Joe Seltzer, he said he had met him
during homecoming that fall but remembered discussing Debs only briefly over a few beers.
Giulo Giordano said he had spent a great deal of time on his project and resented the
implication that he could not come up with a good idea, conduct research, and write a good
biography on his own. He agreed with everything Professor Tilson said except the description of
him as being sullen and disinclined to talk. He said he was cautious at first because Tilson
seemed to have her mind made up that he had cheated. Yes, he had met the former student who
had submitted a similar paper a few years earlier, but he could not explain the alleged similarities
between the two reports except that they were on the same topic and used similar sources. After
all, he asked, how could the two papers be radically different on the same famous American?
Case #5: Award for a Hero
On October 9, 2014, a news report from Elizabeth, Tennessee reported, “Five Boy Scouts were
saved from drowning in Wildcat Creek yesterday by Rex Ingram, Scoutmaster of Troop 3344,
when a severe thunderstorm caused Wildcat Creek to rise well above flood stage. One boy
drowned.” Wildcat Creek drains a wide area and is three miles from Elizabeth. It is one of the
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in a community with traditional Christian-American values espoused by the founders of our
republic.”
Lord’s Prayer at the start of classes each day. She and her “living arrangements” were “way too
progressive for this community and our kids.”
Franklin Cable, a State Teachers Association investigator, claimed the county’s secret
action without giving Marian Williams an opportunity to reply and prove her residency violated
the state’s “sunshine law” against government meetings with no public notice. He also claimed
Case #7: Contesting a Will
William McCollum, a farmer in Smithfield, North Dakota, died from heat stroke while working
in his fields and is survived by six children and three grandchildren. McCollum’s estate, after all
debts and taxes have been paid, is valued at $2,000,000. According to the terms of his will, all
land, property, structures, livestock, and equipment are to be sold and the money placed into a
Rev. Emerson DeWitt, a retired minister from the First Methodist Church, said he had
known William McCollum all of his life and found him to be grasping, miserly, profane, and
irreligious. When he conducted the marriage of Alice McCollum to Mark Davis, William refused
to attend the ceremony because he opposed the marriage. When he met William on the street the
next day, he cursed him. When Alice died a year ago, William attended the funeral but sat alone
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After taking their drink orders, their waiter disappeared for over fifteen minutes before returning
with their drinks and to take their orders. They both ordered the salmon special because they
thought it would take less time, and they told their waiter about their time constraints. Their
salads came thirteen minutes later, and they told their waiter to cancel their dinners because they
Jill Thornsen, the cashier, agreed with most of what Jessie and Thora said but claimed the
two had agreed to remain until the matter was resolved. It took only a few minutes, and they
seemed to be in good spirits.
Jessie Gustavson said the manager asked them about the salmon dinners that had been
boxed up so they could eat them later. She said they had not asked for and did not want to take
imprisonment. Two incredibly patient and innocent people had been mistreated, embarrassed,
and physically detained for a significant amount of time. They had missed nearly half of the
Piano Concerto in A Minor. Both and felt they had been mentally assaulted and continued to
experience nightmares. She had encouraged Jessie to sue for $50,000.
Buster Petersen, the security guard on duty at the time, said neither Jessie nor Thora
Case #9: Murder or Self-Defense
On the morning of February 9, 1963, Lucinda Harvey called the sheriff to her home outside of
Westfield, Alabama. When the sheriff got there, he found Jacob Harvey dead in the front yard
near a mailbox. Lucinda Harvey was not at home, and her whereabouts could not be determined
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tall, 245 pounds, and very strong, was a life-long resident of Westfield. He was a skilled
mechanic at Alabama Sheet Steel Fabrication with a good work record. Some co-workers said he
was a workplace bully. Harvey had been very active in the local chapter of the NAACP since
returning home from the Korean War as a decorated Marine Corps sergeant.
Lucinda Harvey testified that on the evening of February 8, she and Jacob had gone to bed
time.
Mary Martin a neighbor of the Harvey’s, said she heard a car drive by, then a couple of
shots, a car leaving at a high rate of speed, and then some more shots. Within a few minutes,
Lucinda Harvey came to her back door and asked her to drive them to her aunt’s home in
Montgomery. Lucinda said there was terrible trouble at their house and she didn’t think she
mm pistol. The one from the .9 mm pistol had gone through Jacob’s right shoulder from front to
back while he was standing and had struck no vital organs. The soft nose 45 caliber bullets had
been the fatal ones. One 45 caliber bullet had struck him from the front while he was standing,
and there were no powder burns on his clothes. Two 45 caliber bullets struck him in the back at
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Case #10: A Wild Police Chase
On April 3 at 3:35 p.m., two young, white males wearing masks robbed the Kerr Fur Boutique
located in Manhattan of $37,539 in cash and over $278,000 in furs. They shot and killed the
manager, Marty Simon, when he attempted to trip an alarm, and guard Deacon Jones when he
pulled out his gun. They fled in a dark brown Chevy Suburban. A short time later they switched
checked it out, they discovered that it was the robbery vehicle because furs and masks were
inside.
Detective Jack Kiley said he and her partner Drew Nimitz were at the 161st Street station
when Walker and Dempsey reported that the robbers had abandoned their Suburban and were in
a yellow taxi apparently heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge. A short time later they joined the
