September 16, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/16, I distributed one handout, selections from the Maine Sentencing Statute. We first went over the Introductory material in the text, talking specifically about procedural v. substantive legitimacy, legal v. equitable remedies, and common law v. enacted law. We then began our discussion of Miller v. Alabama. We went over the text of the 8th Amendment. We also went over proper citation form and order of the parties for U.S. Supreme Court decisions. We talked about three previous 8th Amendment cases, Atkins, Roper and Graham. We went over the difference between concurring in the judgment and concurring in the opinion, and the nine current members of the U.S. Supreme Court. We'll begin on Thursday with the majority opinions in Miller, and look also at the concurring and dissenting opinions in the case. The assignment for Thursday 9/18 is to review Miller, and also to read today's handout, the Maine Sentencing Statute.


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 9/16, we first went over the three definitional questions posed in the 4th Amendment: "persons, houses papers, and effects"; "search or seizure", and "unreasonable". We reviewed their resolution in Katz. I discussed two previous cases dealing with tracking vehicles, U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo. I ran through the nine current Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. We then went through the three opinions in Jones, discussing the different approaches of the majority and concurrence, as well as Sotomayor's view. We also discussed the questions not addressed in Jones, in terms of reasonableness, warrants, probable cause, and reasonable suspicion. The assignment for Thursday 9/18 is to read through p. 480 of the text.