Legal Writing and Litigation- Research Step by Step: Hypo

Your supervising attorney just assigned you legal research for a case she's working on. She is meeting with the client again on Thursday, September 7th, so you have to have all of your research done by then.

Your supervising attorney would like you create a research trail with all of the different resources you used and what you learned about the case from each resource. Please turn that in when you meet on the 7th.

Your client has been charged with Criminal Trespass in the Second Degree in Oregon (ORS 164.245) for doing the following:

Roberta Jones is an avid animal lover and she recently began volunteering with the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon (FCCO). FCCO is an organization that spays and neuters feral cats. FCCO provides live traps for the feral cats, instructions on how to familiarize and trap cats, and the spaying and neutering services. Volunteers find a colony of cats, make appointments at the clinic, receive traps, then catch the cats and bring them to the clinic. This is called Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR).

Ms. Jones found a cat colony in Woodlawn Park in NE Portland and went about feeding the cats to develop familiarity with them. The cats were more active at night and Ms. Jones began going after sundown to feed the cats. Notice on the park entrances clearly states that the park closes at sundown. The first time she fed the cats at night a police officer found her and escorted her off the premises. She returned for 8 more nights to feed the cats and police escorted her from the premises 3 of the 8 times telling her that she was not to be in the park after dark and on the final day that she shouldn't feed the cats because the food was also bringing other animals to the park, like rats and raccoons, that could be hazardous to people in the park and the residents surrounding the park.

On the 9th night, Ms. Jones took four traps to try and catch the feral cats. Police found her and arrested her for criminal trespass in the second degree.

Ms. Jones believes spaying and neutering the cats is in the best interest of society as it reduces outdoor cat populations. It is also in the best interest of the cats since with lower populations they have enough resources to survive. Additionally, Ms. Jones believes several of these cats have been abandoned by owners, a crime under ORS §167.340, since several of the cats in the colony have collars but are obviously not being taken care of. By trapping these animals Ms. Jones believes the owners who abandoned the cats can be found and prosecuted.

Your supervising attorney would like to know more about criminal trespass in Oregon and whether Ms. Jones has any defenses to the charge.

Write a summation of the facts.

How familiar are you with this area of law?

What is your research question?

Create a research plan for this problem. What specific resources are you going to use to research? What is your desired outcome?

What search terms will you use to try and find your answers?

You are ready to start researching: Move on to the Familiarity Ranking 1 tab.