The course will be taught by Dr Kellie Toole and Dr David Plater with appearances by various guest practitioners.

There will be a two hour lecture and a one hour seminar each week. The details are available on the class planner at https://access.adelaide.edu.au/courses/search.asp. 

On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Analyse the principles of criminal responsibility, undertake self-directed legal research using primary and secondary materials, and analyse and evaluate legal information relating to criminal law and legal theory.
2. Apply principles of criminal law to complex legal problems, and critique the operation of criminal law from both a policy and theoretical/principled perspective.
3. Prepare persuasive written and oral arguments for a legal and lay audience on issues relating to the drafting of new criminal laws and the application of existing criminal laws to common scenarios that arise in criminal practice.
4. Demonstrate awareness of principles of ethical professional judgement in the management and conduct of a criminal law matter, relevant to both prosecution and defence.
5. Analyse the impact of criminal law from a policy perspective, with a focus on the impact of the law on those people who are vulnerable or outside mainstream culture.
6. Reflect on individual capacity to complete self-directed tasks and to work effectively in teams. Extend their skills by utilising feedback and reflection to drive personal improvement.

The Legal Practitioners' Education and Admissions Council (LPEAC) sets rules for the academic requirements for admission to legal practice in South Australia. Students must demonstrate a satisfactory level of understanding and application of 11 core areas of legal knowledge. This course teaches the following topics within these core areas:

CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE
1. The definition of crime.
2. Elements of crime.
3. Aims of the criminal law.
4. Homicide and defences.
5. Non-fatal offences against the person and defences.
6. Offences against property.
7. General doctrines.
8. Attempts, strict responsibility.
9. Elements of criminal procedure - classification of offences.

Students will require a copy of:

David Caruso et al, South Australian Criminal Law and Procedure (Lexis Nexis, 2nd ed, 2016)

Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA)

Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA) Part 5A—Filming and sexting offences

The following text will assist students who seek an alternative view or an extended knowledge of the material covered in the course:

• Simon Bronitt and Bernadette McSherry, Principles of Criminal Law (Thomsons, 4th ed, 2017)

The following article will assist students to understand the benefits of situational learning through case files:

• Anne Hewitt and Kellie Toole ‘The Practical Knowledge Conundrum: What Practical Knowledge Should Be Included in a Law School Curriculum and How Can it Be Taught? (2013) 25(5) New Zealand Universities Law Review 980

The following websites provide useful information on the South Australian criminal law for the general population and the legal profession:

Legal Services Commission, Law Handbook Online, http://www.lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/
Foolkit: A Lawyer's Toolkit, http://www.foolkit.com.au/sa/lawyers
Court's Administation Authority, http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Online Communication

The MyUni Discussion Board will be activated by the start of teaching and will be available until immediately before the primary exam. All questions relating to substantive course content and assessment should be posted on the Discussion Board, rather than emailed to staff. Guidelines on communication, including the use of the Discussion Board, will be posted on MyUni.

Students are expected to check MyUni regularly to keep up to date with announcements during the semester.

Online Learning 

Powerpoint lecture slides will be posted on MyUni before the lecture.

Additional recordings may be placed on MyUni thoughout the semester if issues arise that cannot be covered in the scheduled lecture or seminar times, or topics need consolidating.

Written assignments must be submitted online through the Turnitin text-matching software program designed to assist with the detection of plagiarism and other forms of cheating.

Lectures

Subject to changes in COVID-19 restrictions, the lectures will be live in-person and also recorded and available via MyUni.

The lectures will include aspects of traditional lecture format, class exercises, process mapping/flowcharts covering the type of scenarios you will encounter in seminars and summative assessment, and sessions with members of the profession.

Seminars

Seminars will run from week 2 to week 13. They will involve application of the law to practical legal problems. They will revolve around two separate scenarios that will be presented as case files that will run across the whole semester and progressively raise issues in the way  they would unfold in a real-world criminal case.

Neither lectures nor seminars are compulsory. Students are encouraged to attend as much contact time as possible to maximise their own learning and to support the learning of other students. If you choose not to attend classes, you may miss some content. Lectures will be recorded, but glitches occur in technology from time to time.

There will be an assessed, individual advocacy exercise in week 9. The week 8 lecture will be dedicated to preparing for the advocacy exercise. It will involve a legal argument based on issues raised in one of the case files.

In taking this course students are expected to attend 24 hours of lectures and 12 hours of seminars. To get the most from this course and be able to produce written work and oral contributions of a high quality, it is essential that students spend 6-7 hours per week doing the readings, taking notes, thinking about the issues, and preparing questions, answers and discussion points for seminars.

SEMESTER *The following program is subject to change*
Week	Topic	Lecture A	Seminar
1	Elements of Offences	Welcome and elements of offences	No seminar
2	He Kaw Teh Analysis	Processes and Principles	Element analysis – case file
3	Homicide	Murder	He Kaw Teh analysis – case file
4	Offences against the person	Assault, Cause harm/Cause serious harm	Murder and Manslaughter – case file analysis
5	Sex Offences (1)	Rape	Assault, cause serious harm and cause harm – case file analysis
6	Sex Offences (2)	Filming and sexting offences	Rape - case file analysis
7	Dishonesty offences	Theft	Filming and sexting offences - case file analysis
8	Advocacy	Advocacy	Theft and robbery – case file
9	Attempts	Common law of attempts	Assessed advocacy exercise - in seminar
10	Defences (1) – affirmative	Affirmative defences	Attempts – case file analysis
11	Defences (2) – mental state	Common law on mental Impairment	Self defence – case file analysis
12	Revision and exam preparation	Revision	Mental impairment – case file analysis
13	Revision and exam preparation	No lecture	Revision

There are no additional requirements for completion of this course other than described elsewhere in this document.

None of the assessment tasks are threshold tests i.e. students are able to pass the course overall even if they fail one or more assessment tasks as long as their overall grade is 50% or greater.

Assessment Task	Task Type	Due	Weighting	Redeemable	Length	Learning Outcome
Quiz	Individual	Friday of week 1	5%	No	30 minutes	2, 6
File note/letter of advice	Individual	Friday of week 6 - 2pm	30%	Yes	2,000 words	1, 2, 4
Advocacy Exercise	Individual	Monday of week 9 - 2pm for pre-recorded option; seminar in week 9 for live version	10%	No	3 minute oral	1-3, 5-6
Exam	Individual	In semester 1 examination period	55 or 85%	No	2 hours open book	1, 2, 5, 6

Quiz 5% NOT Redeemable

This assessment task involves an online quiz on the content of the materials in the case files.

A pass in the quiz is not a prerequisite for passing Criminal Law.

File note/letter of advice 30% or 0%, Redeemable

This assessment task involves a problem-based question in the form of a file note for a senior lawyer on a particular legal issue, and to write a letter to a client on the same matter. The legal issue will arise from one of the case files used in the seminars. It will be redeemable by performance in the final exam provided that it represents a bona fide effort as determined by the course coordinator. 

A pass in the file note/letter of advice is not a prerequisite for passing Criminal Law. 


Advocacy exercise 10%, NOT Redeemable

This assessment task involves an assessed, advocacy exercise. It will involve a legal argument based on one of the case files used in seminars. Students will have the option to pre-record their submissions and submit them via MyUni, or to make their submissions live in their usual seminar.

A pass in the advocacy exercise is not a prerequisite for passing Criminal Law. 


Examination 55% or 85%

All assessments will be submitted and monitored through text or code comparative software (e.g. Turnitin) where possible.

Students will be provided with submission instructions as part of the assessment instructions for each item of assessment which will be made available on MyUni.

Late Submission of Assignments: 5% of the total mark possible will be deducted for every 24 hours or part thereof that it is late, including each day on a weekend. For example, an essay that is submitted after the due date and time but within the first 24 hour period, and that has been graded at 63%, will have 5% deducted, for a final grade of 58%. An essay that is more than 24 hours late will lose 10%, etc. Hard copy submissions made after 5.00pm on a Friday will be assumed to have been submitted on the next business day and will be penalised accordingly.

Word Length: Assignments which exceed the allocated length (word length or page limit) will be subject to a penalty of 5% of total marks possible per 100 words or part thereof (ie with a word limit of 3,000, an essay graded 63% will have 5% deducted if it is 3001 words long, for a final grade of 58%, 10% if it is 3101 words long, etc). Words are calculated including all footnotes and headings within the text but excluding cover page information. Quotations and all referencing information are included in the word count.

Finality of Assessment Grades

Students are advised that Course Coordinators will not enter into negotiations of any kind with any student regarding changes to their grades. It is irrelevant, in any given circumstance, that only a minimal number of additional marks are required to inflate a student’s grade for any individual assessment item or course as a whole. Pursuant to the University’s Assessment for Coursework Programs Policyand the Adelaide Law School Assessment Policies and Procedures, grades may only be varied through the appropriate channels for academic review (such as an official re-mark).

Moderation

In accordance with the University’s Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy, course coordinators ‘ensure that appropriate marking guidelines and cross-marking moderation processes across markers are in place’ in each course. Procedures adopted by Adelaide Law School to ensure consistency of marking in courses with multiple markers include:

• assurance of the qualifications of markers, and their knowledge of the content covered in each course;
• detailed marking guidelines and assessment rubrics to assist in the marking of items of assessment;
• sharing of example marked assessments at various grade bands across markers;
• reviewing of selected marked assessments from each marker by the course coordinator;
• comparison of the marks and their distribution across markers;
• automatic double-marking of all interim assessment receiving a fail grade, and of final assessments where a student’s overall result is a fail grade;
• the availability of re-marking of assessments in accordance with Adelaide Law School’s Assessment Policies and Procedures.

Approval of Results by Board of Examiners

Students are reminded that all assessment results are subject to approval (and possible moderation/change) by the Law School’s Board of Examiners. Assessment results at the University are not scaled. Under the Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy, students are assessed ‘by reference to their performance against pre-determined criteria and standards … and not by ranking against the performance of the student cohort in the course’. However, under that same policy, the Board of Examiners (as the relevant Assessment Review Committee for courses at Adelaide Law School) is required to ‘ensure comparability of standards and consistency’ in assessment. On occasions, the Board of Examiners will form the view that some moderation is required to ensure the comparability of standards and consistency across courses and years, and accordingly provide fairness to all law students. All assessment results are therefore subject to approval (and possible change) until confirmed by the Board of Examiners and posted on Access Adelaide at the end of each semester.

Student feedback The course is constantly being updated and revised to reflect the evolution of the law, to respond to student feedback, and to engage with the latest teaching practices. Student feedback is collected each time the course is run, including through SELT reports. Previous SELT reports, and staff feedback on them, are posted on the course MyUni site for students to view and consider.

The University Writing Centre provides academic learning and language development services and resources for local, international, undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students enrolled at the University of Adelaide.

The centre offers practical advice and strategies for students to master reading, writing, note-taking, time management, oral presentation skills, referencing techniques and exam preparation for success at university through seminars, workshops and individual consultations.

Lex Salus Program

Lex Salus (law and wellbeing) is an initiative of the Adelaide Law School aimed at destigmatising mental health issues; promoting physical, mental and emotional wellness; building a strong community of staff and students; and celebrating diversity within the school. It also seeks to promote wellness within the legal profession, through the involvement of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia, the Honourable Chris Kourakis, as the official Patron of the program.

Students can participate in the Lex Salus program by attending barbecue lunches, pancake breakfasts, knitting and crochet circles, seminars, guest speakers, conferences and other activities. Our Facebook page, website and regular all-student emails promote upcoming events, and have tips and information on wellness.

Our Lex Salus YouTube channel also includes videos on topics like managing stress, and interviews with LGBTQ lawyers and their supporters which celebrate diversity and individuality. Students who commit to 10 hours of volunteering with Lex Salus in one year can have their service recognised on their academic transcript and through a thank you morning tea with the Chief Justice and law school staff.

Student Life Counselling Support

The University’s Student Life Counselling Support service provides free and confidential service to all enrolled students. We encourage you to contact the Student Life Counselling Support service on 8313 5663 to make an appointment to deal with any issues that may be affecting your study and life.

Academic Integrity

All students must be familiar with the University’s Academic Integrity Policy. Academic Misconduct is a serious matter and is treated as such by the Law School and the University. Academic Misconduct (which goes beyond plagiarism) can be a ground for a refusal by the Supreme Court of South Australia to admit a person to practice as a legal practitioner in South Australia. Academic Integrity is an essential aspect of ethical and honest behaviour, which is central to the practice of the law and an understanding of what it is to be a lawyer.