December 2, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 12/2, we first looked at how some of the concepts of Chapter III had been exemplified in the State v. Brown case that we briefed. We also talked about how the ex post facto prohibition worked generally, and specifically in the case of sex offender registries. We then went through the Butler case, both the majority and the dissent. I discussed the lineup of Justices in the Miranda opinion itself, and then the lineup in the case of Harris v. N.Y, in which the U.S. Supreme Court tackled the same issue as the Ohio court had confronted in Butler. We then moved on to retroactive application of court decisions and the Dempsey case. I made a chart of the four U.S. Supreme Court opinions that the Montana Dempsey Court looked at, why the Montana court was free to decided this issue for itself after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled, and how the Montana court did in the end decide the issue. The assignment for Thursday 12/4 is to read in the text through p. 116 (Strunk and Hubbard).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 12/2, we discussed the two assigned cases regarding the right to counsel. I began by giving some background to the Powell case, going over the history of the Scottsboro Boys Case multiple trials. We went over the majority and dissenting opinions in Powell. We then saw how Gideon v. Wainwright expanded that right to cases that did not require "special circumstances". The assignment for Thursday 12/4 is to read in the text through p. 566 of the text (Batson and Sheppard).