COMM 170

Legal Communication

Communication · 4 units · Undergraduate upper division (100-199)

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Review of Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, including analysis of Miranda warnings, police interrogation procedures, coerced confessions, and why innocent people confess. Examination of jury behavior, reliability of eyewitness testimony, and fair trials. Mock trial presentation. Intimate expression and right to define one’s own concept of existence and meaning, using examples of evolving rulings on same-sex marriage, abortion, and right to die. Use and misuse of grand juries in police misconduct cases, including Eric Brown, Michael Garner, and Breonna Taylor cases. Questions of judicial activism, legal precedent, and standards of review.

Letter grading.

When it runs

Fall 2025
Winter 2027

Scheduled, not typical — from UCLA’s Schedule of Classes, which publishes Fall 2025 through Spring 2027 and nothing before it.

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Requisites

UCLA lists no requisites for this course.

Requires

Everything that has to come before this course, not just the courses named in the requisite above.

Nothing — this is an entry point.

Unlocks

What this course is a requisite for, and what those courses lead to in turn.

No course in the catalog lists this as a requisite.