Lexis Tutorial

Introduction to Criminal Law

Choose a crime to focus on, and a jurisdiction.

Felony Murder – New York

Legal Topics are points of law (also called Headnotes) written by Lexis attorney-editors, covering the key legal issues in the case.

Use quotations around phrases. This is how you want the phrase to appear in the case.

In New York, the Court of Appeals is the highest court, followed by Supreme Court and lower court cases.

Lexis provides you with knowledge of whether the case is still good law. Green = go.

Find a statutory reference for the crime you have chosen.

New York’s felony murder statute enacted by the N.Y. legislature

You can often find the statutory reference to the law in the Headnotes or in the case. You can click on the hypertext link to the statute.

Why are there 2 sections of the same statute? There are so many New York cases interpreting this statute that Lexis made another entry for the statute. It is the same statute.

Another way to find statutes in Lexis…

In addition to locating the statute in the case, you can run a separate

search.

Note we are searching for the phrase “felony murder” to appear anywhere in the statute.

Effective Statutory Searching

• The phrase “felony murder” appears in 140 different statutes. You want the actual felony murder statute; not a statute that may have a minor reference to it. Remember, when you click on Expanded List, you can see how your search terms are used. “Felony murder” is not the actual name of the statute – it is a popular reference to it. For example, “Buster’s Law” is the popular name for New York’s aggravated animal cruelty statute. – To effectively search statutes, you need to know either (1) the

citation for the statute or (2) the actual “heading” of the New York code and “section.” E.g., Penal Code is the “heading;” Murder in the first degree is the “section.”

It’s much easier to search statutes in Lexis once you know the citation. You can find reference to the citation in case law. Copy and paste the citation and run the search in the citation field.

Subsection vii is the felony murder in the first degree statute. The case refers directly to subsection vii.

Find another case report dealing with the crime you are researching…

…and also involving a procedural issue such as search and seizure.

For more help with Lexis:

Make an appointment with a librarian at https://

www.hvcc.edu/lrc/students-instruction.html .