Osler's Razor

A few years ago, I took a wonderful class on teaching from Baylor Profs. Tom Hanks and Anne-Marie Bowery. It not only made me a better teacher, but it challenged me to be a different teacher-- to infuse more passion into my classes, to collaborate more, and to challenge my students to think broadly about the law once in a while. There are some big changes that came of that, such as identifying areas in which large-scale collaboration would be helpful, including the teaching of negotiation (with negotiation kingpin Blaine McCormick).

There have also been some smaller changes, which people may not have even noticed. One is that I filled out my syllabus to be a much more complete statement about the course. Up at the top of each one is a photograph or painting. Surprisingly, students rarely ask why I picked a specific picture for a given syllabus, but there really is a reason each one is there.

The photo above has been at the top of my syllabus for criminal practice the past several quarters. Obviously, it shows downtown New York before 9/11, with the World Trade Center rising in the background at the end of the street. From this point in time, what I find compelling is the calmness of the picture; it's a rainy day, perhaps on a weekend, with little traffic and no one on the sidewalks. Normal. On the first day of that class I list the steps of the criminal law process, with the crime itself as step #2. Number one, of course, is that no crime is occurring, which is what that picture shows-- one of those many calm days before that tragedy. The point of criminal law is, at its best, in large part to prevent movement from step one (calm) to step two (crime).

The bombing of the WTC was both an act of war and a crime. What if the FBI had paid more attention to the reports of radical Muslims in flight schools? What if a prosecutor had followed up on some of the warning signs? What if 9/11 had never happened?

What if? Here's what would be if 9/11 had never happened because intelligence and law enforcement hadn't failed: Today you could wake up early and go downtown in New York and look down that wet street, past the flashing lights and the red brick walk-ups, and see those building rising into the mist, the same as every other day. If we do our jobs right, the world doesn't change-- rather, it stays the same so that lives can be lived out without the tragedy and disruption of violence and theft.