21 Jul Complex Office Legal Memorandum

You will be writing a Complex Office Legal Memorandum (see Chapters 16 and 17 of your textbook) based on the fact pattern set out below. The memorandum will be submitted to Eliza B. Law, your supervising attorney. Your law firm is located at 100 University Blvd., Gainesville, FL 32601. She has requested that you examine the facts of the case, identify the issues presented by the facts, research the law relating to those issues, and draft a memorandum for use in the client’s case. The memo should include analysis and counter-analysis.  

She intends to file suit in Florida. The memorandum must be a minimum of five pages and be supported by extensive citation to legal authority, which means Florida and Federal case law and statutes.  

Note, you are not researching or discussing whether our client was properly convicted of theft or vandalism.  The focus of this Memo must be the constitutional issue.

FACT PATTERN

The client, Patrick Picard, a 20-year-old with no prior criminal history, raided a wine vineyard that was famous for making organic wine.  He drank several bottles while on the premises, then left and took several caskets of wine with him.  While he was driving home, he started thinking about how rude his neighbors were because they let their loud, barking dogs stay outside all night.  So when he got home, he tossed a casket of wine all over the exterior walls of his neighbor’s home.   The damage to repaint was about $2000.  The value of the wine he stole was about $4000.  

Unbeknownst to Picard, he had been videoed by the neighbor’s doorbell camera, and he was arrested shortly thereafter.  He was charged with theft and vandalism, both felony violations of the state penal code. The jury convicted Picard on one count of theft and one count of vandalism.  He was subsequently sentenced to the maximum penalty allowable in the state: 20 years in the state penitentiary as well as a fine of $6,000. Picard’s conviction and sentence were upheld by the appeals court, and he now appeals to the state supreme court. Picard argues that the prison sentence violates his 8th Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, specifically that the punishment is not proportional to the crime.