September 4, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today. Thursday 9/4 I distributed one handout, the engagement ring case of O'Brien v. Hudock. After I took pictures of the class we launched into our study of Haworth v. Feigon. We started by going over Maine case citation form (at least as it was before 1997), and the Maine and U.S. Supreme Court practice in terms of listing the order of the parties in the case name. We went through the parties in the case, the cause of action, and the prior proceedings. We got through the first three of the appellants' contentions, and we will pick up on Tuesday with the fourth contention, conditional privilege--I(C). Along the way, we also went over the concepts of questions of fact versus questions of law, the difference between a holding in the case versus dictum, and the state of Maine Court organization. The plan for Tuesday is to finish up with the Feigons' contentions, and then look at the BDN article about Coach Alley. The additional assignment for Tuesday 9/9 is to read the O'Brien case, and to read pp. 1-15 of the text.


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, 9/4 we began our discussion of the Riley case. We started with a review of the Chimel and Robinson cases that were the primary precedent to which the Court looked. I went over the votes in those two cases, and we saw how the differing results in the two cases made sense to only one Justice. We then looked at Section III of the opinion, looking at the the relationship between the "unreasonable" standard in the first part of the 4th Amendment and the warrant requirement in the second section. We discussed the value of a warrant, the various exceptions to the warrant requirement, and how the state interests in allowing warrantless searches need to be tethered to the interests listed in Chimel. We saw how the Court dealt with the state's two interests. Along the way we went over the difference between dictum and the holding of a case; common law versus enacted law; and the options of following, distinguishing, or overruling precedent. We will pick up on Tuesday with Section III(B) of the Riley opinion. The additional assignment for Tuesday 9/9 is to read and prepare to discuss pp. 459-471 of the text.