Try a ruling before you buy.
Our legal mysteries combine investigation, evidence, and decision-making, with your role changing from one adventure to another. In this sample, you step into the role of defense counsel: examine the facts, challenge the prosecution’s case, and decide what the jury should hear under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The rulings you make shape the case you can build and the conclusions you can support.
Across our adventures, clues may appear in documents, witness accounts, messages, photographs, recordings, or physical objects. This free sample centers on a marina’s dock log. Make four evidence rulings, use your answers to form a self-checking code, then complete the closing grid to identify who set the fire, how and why it happened, and the evidence supporting your conclusion.
You choose whether to use hints and how much help you want. The sample is fully solvable without them, and all sample hints are free. An answer key explains the rulings when you’re ready to review. This is a separate case created for the sample, so it reveals no spoilers for Hearsay in the Hive.
United States v. Dorian Pell
Just after midnight on October 15, a fire destroyed the storage sheds and office at Halyard Point Marina, a concession on an Army Corps of Engineers lake. Because the sheds sit on federal property, the government charged boat owner Dorian Pell with federal arson.
The government says Pell was angry over a slip-fee dispute, came in by skiff late that night, and set the fire with gasoline. Pell says he was home asleep.
The government's key exhibit is a page from the marina's dock log. The original burned in the office. Night attendant Ruth Calloway photographed it on her phone as she evacuated and texted the photo to harbormaster Glen Ostrander, as marina policy requires after any emergency. Calloway has since moved overseas and will not testify. Ostrander will.
In the box: a full-size printed replica of this log page, scorch marks and all. Every ruling below turns on something you can find on it.
Four objections. One code.
Read each offer, then pick the correct ruling. Each answer carries a number. Put your four numbers together in order and check the code at the bottom. You get three tries. In the full game, the online hints cost points; here they are free.
The closing grid
Every Cosmic Realm case ends the same way: you answer five questions, and your answers decide the verdict. Choose carefully. Some choices rest on evidence the judge would never let the jury hear.
Answer key and explanations
1. Choice 4, Overruled. A photograph of a writing is a duplicate under Rule 1001(e), admissible under Rule 1003 unless there is a genuine question about authenticity or fairness. Separately, Rule 1004(a) admits other evidence of content when all originals are destroyed and the proponent did not destroy them in bad faith. The fire did that, not the government.
2. Choice 1, Overruled. The entry is hearsay, but Rule 803(6) applies: made at the time by someone with knowledge, kept in the regular course of business, as a regular practice, shown through a custodian or other qualified witness. Rule 803(5) fails because it requires the witness who made the record to testify.
3. Choice 7, Sustained. Rule 805 requires an exception for each layer. Ostrander's note might qualify as a business record, but the unknown boater had no business duty to report, and nothing shows he spoke while startled by an event. The red gas cans stay out.
4. Choice 3, Overruled. Rule 803(7) admits evidence that a matter is not in a record kept under Rule 803(6) to prove the matter did not occur, when that kind of matter was regularly recorded. Rule 803(10) is the parallel rule for public records, not the only one.
Code: 4-1-7-3.
Closing grid.
Who: H. Dunleavy, owner of the Mary Kate. How: gasoline bought at the marina's own fuel dock; the 6:05 p.m. entry shows his 12-gallon purchase. Why: his slip lease was not renewed, per the harbormaster's margin note.
Proof: the fuel records show the only gasoline sold that night went to Dunleavy, and the register confirms it. They come in as business records under Rule 803(6). The red gas cans choice is a trap: you kept that note out in Ruling 3. The Call: no admissible evidence ties Pell to gasoline. The gas cans note is hearsay within hearsay (Rule 805), and the fuel records show no sale to Pell (Rule 803(7)).
Hearsay in the Hive
A beekeeper dies at his own birthday party, and his son is charged with murder. Five sealed evidence envelopes, real physical props, and 26 rulings under the Federal Rules of Evidence. About two hours, 1 to 4 players, $44.95 with free shipping.