The Crim exam hands you a bad night and asks for a prosecution memo: who can be charged with what, at what grade, and what defenses survive. The facts are engineered to straddle lines, between murder and manslaughter, between preparation and attempt, between defense and aggression, and the grading pays for the straddle worked, not the verdict reached. The hub maps the course and the outline guide builds the ladder and the boxes; this page is the room.

The four archetypes

The death on the ladder: a killing whose facts sit between rungs, the course's main event. The group crime: several participants, a plan, a departure from the plan, testing conspiracy's scope, accomplice liability, and who owns which crime.

The defense scenario: a confrontation that escalates, testing self defense's limits, initial aggression, proportionality, retreat where covered. And the regime comparison: a short answer asking how common law and MPC diverge on a doctrine, which is the two column outline paying out directly.

The order of operations

Per defendant, per crime, in this internal order: the elements framework first, actus reus, mens rea named at MPC precision, causation where the result crime demands it; then grading, the ladder run in both directions; then the inchoate and accomplice layer for everyone who helped, planned, or tried; then defenses, matched through the reach matrix rather than sprayed; then the merger line to close, attempt merging into the completed offense, conspiracy standing apart. Group crimes multiply the structure, each participant gets the full run, and the answer's headers should say so: Defendant A, the shooter.

Defendant B, the driver. Defendant C, who supplied the address.

The ladder paragraph, for shape: D's blow satisfies second degree murder, malice inferred from intent to inflict serious bodily harm with a bat to the head. The fight is mitigation to voluntary manslaughter: D argues the insult to his dead brother was uniquely provoking and ten minutes no cooling at all; the prosecution answers that words alone are generally inadequate provocation and that leaving, retrieving a weapon, and returning reads as deliberation, which threatens first degree rather than mitigation. Under the MPC's extreme emotional disturbance standard, judged from D's situation, the mitigation argument strengthens considerably.

On these facts a jury could go either way; the likeliest outcome at common law is second degree murder. Both directions, both regimes, committed close: that paragraph is the course.

The fast points and the leaks

Fast points: mens rea named per element with the MPC definitions, conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk stated rather than gestured; the theft crime identified in one precise line from the table, taking versus conversion after lawful possession versus title by deception; the merger sentence at the close. The leaks: naming the crime and skipping elements, the course's cardinal error; motive offered as intent; felony murder charged without its limits, the independent felony, the res gestae window, the agency question; voluntary intoxication applied against a general intent or reckless crime; the initial aggressor claiming self defense unexamined; and the divergence unstated, when the exam was built precisely where the regimes split and one silent regime choice forfeits the built points. Where the jurisdiction is unspecified, say so and run both in the two or three places they part.

When the clock collapses

Crim bullets by charge: defendant, crime, elements met in a clause, the contested element with both sides in a clause each, grade, defense, merger note. Because the rubric is organized by defendant and offense, the skeleton captures the allocation even when the prose is gone. Rehearse the form on your professor's past exams via the practice question bank, and let their pattern, the annual felony murder, the conspiracy sprawl, set your weighting per the practice protocol.

FAQ

Which law applies if the exam names no jurisdiction?

Both, at the divergence points, with one sentence saying so: at common law the provocation fails; under the MPC's broader standard it likely succeeds. The professor left the jurisdiction open to buy exactly that sentence.

Do I need statute numbers?

Elements, not numbers, unless your professor assigned and drilled specific provisions. Precision lives in the mental state definitions and element statements, which is where the rubric looks.

How much criminal procedure appears?

Only the constitutional protections your course actually covered inside criminal law, if any; the search and seizure universe belongs to the upper level course. The syllabus is the boundary, as always.

Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.

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