Here is the crime solved by Detective Shadow. What is the solution?

Jim Cool waited until Ed Fry left the office of author Harry Queen. Cool slipped on a pair of gloves, took a handgun from his desk, and crossed the hall to Queen's office. As Queen looked up to see who was there, Cool took aim and shot. Cool dropped the gun on the floor, picked up the telephone on Queen's desk and called the police. He then went back across the hall to his own office and hid the gloves. Shadow arrived moments later and Cool told his story. "I was working at my desk when I heard a shot. I ran to the hall and saw a man fitting the description of Ed Fry running from Queen's office. I went to Queen's office and found him lying on the floor dead. I immediately picked up the phone on Queen's desk and called the police."

Several hours later Shadow arrested Cool for murder. Why was he so easily caught?

 

Read the text and answer the question below.

He Demanded Two Parachutes

One day a man kidnapped a little boy and hid him in the woods. He sent the boy's parents a note telling them to leave him ten thousand pounds in large bank notes in an airport locker. The parents were to wait* for four hours and then go to the locker. There they would find directions how to find their child. He demanded to follow all his orders without calling the police and also said that unless they left him the money, they would not see their child.

At first he wanted to take the child with him as a hostage, but then decided against it. He knew that the police were good at trapping people who had hostages with them.

At the appointed time, he went to the airport and took the money from the locker. He left the directions where the boy was and ran because the police were close behind him. He boarded the nearest plane and forced the pilot to take off before he was caught.

He understood that the police would be waiting for him when the plane landed, so he had a plan how to save himself. He decided to cheat the pilots and the police. He forced the hostess to give him two para­chutes. He took her with him to the back exit door of the plane and waited several minutes, so the pilots couldn't know the exact place where he would jump out of the plane. Then he put one of the parachutes on and jumped alone from the plane. In this way he managed to escape.

Why did the man demand two parachutes?

UNIT 7

 

For Study

Vocabulary

· breach n - нарушение (закона), разрыв отношений

e.g. Will discussions with other companies constitute a breach of/in our agreement?

breach of the peace- нарушение общественного порядка

· felon y n - фелония (категория тяжких преступлений, по степени опасности находящаяся между изменой и мисдиминором)

e.g. Felony is a major crime, as murder, arson, rape, etc., for which statue provides a greater punishment than for a misdemeanor.

· misdemeanor n - мисдиминор (категория наименее опасных преступлений, граничащих с административными правонарушениями)

e.g. Sarah was really drunk last night, but she paid for her misdemeanors this morning with a dreadful hangover.

· treason n - измена

high treason- государственная измена

e.g. In the seventeenth century a man called Guy Fawkes was executed for treason after he took part in a plot to blow up the British Parliament building.

· allegiance n - обязательство верности и повиновения

· conviction n - обвинительный приговор

e.g. As it was her first conviction for stealing, she was given a less severe sentence.

· charge n - обвинение

e.g. The 19-year-old will be appearing in court on Thursday where she will face criminal charges.

 

Supply the sentences with the missing words, given in brackets below.

(breach, convictions, charge, misdemeanor…felony, treason)

1. Possession of small amounts of cannabis is a …, whereas large scale dealing in heroin is a….

2. …means lack of loyalty to your country, esp. by helping its enemies or attempting to defeat its government.

3. He has along record of previous…for similar offences.

4. He has been arrested on a …of murder.

5. …of the peace is illegal noisy violent behavior in a public place.

Reading Practice

 

Before reading the text say which crimes can be considered major and which minor ones. Which category has the biggest number of crimes in your country?

Major and Minor Crimes

 

1. The criminal law makes an effort to classify breaches of the law according to their seriousness by dividing them into two categories— felonies, or major crimes; and misdemeanors, or minor crimes. This effort, as we shall see, is not very successful. Nevertheless, the division affects every aspect of the operation of the criminal law, from arrest to trial to sentencing to place of confinement.

2. The common law of England divided crimes into four groups: high treason, petit treason, felonies, and misdemeanors. The first consisted in killing the king, levying war against him, supporting his enemies, or lending his enemies aid and comfort. Petit treason involved the killing of a husband by a wife, a master or mistress by a servant, or a prelate by a clergyman — a breach of allegiance, in short, in a superior-subordinate relationship other thanking and subject. Felonies were defined as crimes other than treason that caused great moral indignation or did serious harm and were punishable by death and the forfeiture of land and goods. Misdemeanors consisted of offenses that were considered minor and were punishable with lesser penalties, such as whipping and branding.

3. The law continues to make these distinctions to the present day, with the exception of petit treason, which was abolished by statute in 1828. The harshness of penalties has been greatly reduced, and high treason occupies the attention of society only on occasion; but in the Anglo-American legal system crimes are still categorized as felonies or misdemeanors, with punishments of greater and lesser severity. In general, those offenses calling for the death penalty (or which once did so) or imprisonment for more than a year are labeled felonies. All other offenses are lumped under the heading of misdemeanors.

4. The criteria distinguishing between more and less serious crime presumably involve the amount of injury or harm done and the degree of moral outrage that is elicited. However, the lack of any explicit and objective standard in the law for measuring harm or moral outrage means that crimes are often defined as felonies and misdemeanors in an inconsistent fashion.

5. The classification of crimes differs from one state to another, so that particular offenses may vary in imputed seriousness with geographical location. Within a state, property offenses may change abruptly from misdemeanors to felonies when the value of the stolen object goes above a certain figure, say $300- and rising prices caused by inflation may transform an offense from minor to serious. In a number of states, an offense that is a misdemeanor the first time it is committed becomes a felony when it is repeated.

6. If the distinction between misdemeanors and felonies is inconsistent and often seems to be based on tradition rather than on reasoned analysis, it nevertheless has far-reaching importance. First, the definition of a crime is sometimes contingent on the classification of another; burglary, for example, is defined as breaking and entering a dwelling with intent to commit a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Second, in some jurisdictions conviction of a felony disqualifies the individual from holding public office, voting, and serving on a jury. Conviction for a misdemeanor does not carry such consequences. Third- and this is particularly important for the administration of the criminal law- the fact that felonies and misdemeanors differ in their punishments provides the basis for plea-bargaining. The charge against a defendant may be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor in return for a plea of guilty, thus saving the state the time and expense of a trial.

7. The classification of crimes as felonies and misdemeanors, or as more and less serious, represents a normative judgment of society that is important not only in the day-to-day administration of the criminal law, but also in the modification of the penal code, the allocation of resources for the control of crime, and the understanding of the causes of crime. It is surprising, the, that measuring public attitudes toward the seriousness of crimes received relatively little attention in criminology until the last few decades and that so many crucial questions still remain unanswered.

 

Comprehension Check