In this class your legal analysis of fact patterns must be in the form of IRAC. Read the explanation of an IRAC analysis below very carefully. Your responses to the questions below must be in IRAC Format

I is for Issue

What are the issues arising in the fact pattern? A great way to determine what the issue is if you have no idea is to simply rephrase the call of the question. For example, if the question asks, "Will you admit or exclude the drugs seized?" then your issue statement would read: "The issue here is whether or not the drugs should be admitted in court."

R is for Rule

Immediately after articulating your issue statement you will lay out the applicable rule. By now, you are very familiar with rules of law, but just to clarify, a rule is the black letter law that you will be applying to the facts of the case. Rules are derived either from case law or from a statute. Once you have identified the applicable rule, you must articulate it as precisely as possible. Precision is important because this is what you will be using to frame your analysis. If your rule is not clearly articulated, your analysis will be unclear as well. Let's return to the previous example, here is an example of a well-articulated rule statement: In order to seize property, police must have probable cause.

A is for Application of the Law to the Facts (AKA, Analysis)

The analysis is the most important, and the longest, part of your answer. It involves applying the Rule to the facts of the problem or question. You should use the facts to explain how the rule leads to the conclusion. Important: Do not merely state a conclusion without also stating reasons for it. A conclusion without reasons or explanation means that you have not used the rule and the facts to analyze the issue. Hint: The rule can be used as a guide in your discussion. Using the example above, your analysis will explain whether or not the facts support the police having probable cause to seize the drugs

C is for Conclusion

The conclusion is, your answer to the issue. All you have to do in this section is to resolve the issue previously laid out in the question. So, returning to our example, the issue was whether or not the drugs should be admitted in court, so your conclusion would simply state that, based upon the facts of the case, the drugs should or should not be admitted in court.

Question 1. On a sunny hot day in August, when the temperature peaked at 97 degrees, officers on patrol in the early afternoon in a high crime area in the Bronx notice a couple dressed in all white clothes. The couple, consisting of a female and male, were walking hand in hand and occasionally kissing. Both the male and female wore large baggy cotton white pants and oversized white shirts. The female was wearing a matching white headscarf. The officers decided to stop the couple and talk to them. The couple responded that they hardly spoke English and were from Martinique. One officer indicated to the woman that she had to take off her headscarf by twirling his hands above his head and pointing to her. She shook her head no. The officers than handcuffed the female and the male and frisked them. Officers found no illegal items on the couple. While the couple was being frisked by the police, two other relatives of the couple saw what was happening and started running to the police and yelling at them to stop with their hands waving furiously in the air. One of the officers turned around, pointed their weapons and told the other relatives to stop and to face a wall. The officers then frisked the other two relatives and found two carving knives on their persons. Was the stop and frisk of the couple lawful? Explain using the IRAC analysis.

Question 2. Based on the information in Question 1, if the police arrest the other two relatives for possession of the knives, are the knives admissible evidence? Explain using the IRAC Analysis.