This graduate-level course focuses on U.S. and international law governing offensive and defensive cyber effect operations, including those that constitute espionage, sabotage and subversion, as well as those that could lead to physical destruction of property and the loss of human life. In addition, this course addresses the role of various military and intelligence apparatuses in different countries in conducting cyber operations in opposing nations. In addition, this class will examine the interplay between the laws and the practices and policies of the United States Intelligence Community and national security system, both foreign and domestic. While discussion of the history of intelligence activities and laws dating from the origins of our colonial days will necessarily shape the framework of the class, the focus shall particularly be on current debates and challenges faced by the United States in the 21st Century.

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the legal, social, and technical impact of global "cybercrime." Cybercrime is loosely defined as a set of illegal activities that are facilitated through the use of computers or other technology devices. Examples of cybercrime include not only "traditional" crimes (e.g. identity theft or stalking) being carried out in a new medium, but a new set of activities in which the computer or computer network itself is a target of the attack. Topics will include the various state, federal and international laws, investigative measures and techniques used to identify, investigate, arrest and prosecute cybercriminals and cyberattacks, and the preventive measures that can be utilized to provide a secure environment for computer hardware and software. Active elements of the cyber underworld, including organized crime, terrorists and state sponsored activity, will be discussed. Students will become familiar with legal processes they may find themselves a part of, litigation, depositions and expert reporting. In addition, this course will address issues impacting the Fourth Amendment, forensics, electronic surveillance, computer hacking and cracking, intellectual property crimes, espionage, cyberterrorism, privacy, "forced disclosure," and the challenge of cross-jurisdiction enforcement.

Explores in depth the legal issues and discrete phenomena of domestic violence. Topics generally include intimate partner violence, criminal prosecution of batterers, child abuse and neglect, gay and lesbian battering, elder abuse, and the basis for intervention of the state. ​

​An understanding of the fundamental principles and doctrines of international law that govern the use of force and the responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Among the topics covered are the limitations on the use of force and the resort to force, both nation-state and collective action, the treatment of combatants and civilians, and the recognition and prosecution of international criminal law including war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as international cooperation, institutions and criminal liability.​

Studies the Constitutional, statutory, and international law framework within which the U.S. conducts foreign relations and international law enforcement. Considers allocation of authority over foreign affairs and national security among the agencies of government, and selected contemporary issues such as responses to terrorism, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Classified Information Procedures Act, and the legal relationship between law enforcement, the intelligence community and the military. JD students cannot receive credit for this class and Cyberwar, Intelligence and National Security

​Exposes students to a progression of pretrial skills necessary to the defense and prosecution of a criminal case.  Students are assigned to represent either the prosecution or the defendant in a simulated criminal case and take the case through every stage of the pretrial process. Students conduct a client/victim interview, perform fact investigation and legal research, draft and respond to criminal charges, demands to produce, motions for discovery, and requests for suppression of evidence.  Students will draft a memorandum of law based on their legal and factual  investigation. Students may also draft and respond to demands for inspection of Grand Jury Minutes, engage in plea negotiations, conduct oral advocacy on arraignment and bail issues, and perform other pretrial matters as time and the selected problem allows. Students are required to attend a weekly one-hour lecture and participate in a two-hour lab where pretrial skills are practiced.

Using the same simulated case from the fall semester Trial Practice I: Criminal Pretrial Skills class, students learn the trial skills necessary to conduct the trial of the case.  During the weekly two hour labs each student will prepare and conduct the following: introduction and use of exhibits, making and responding to objections, direct and cross-examination of lay witnesses, impeachment, refreshing recollection and past recollection recorded, direct and cross of an expert, opening statements, and summation.  At the end of the semester, the students team up to conduct a trial of the case in which each side presents at least two lay witnesses and an expert witness.  Students are required to attend a weekly one-hour lecture and participate in a two-hour lab where trial skills are practiced.

Recommended:  Evidence & Trial Practice I: Criminal Pretrial Procedure ​