November 18, 2008

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Tuesday 11/18, I distributed two handouts: the case brief assignment, due 11/25, that is copied below, and excerpts from the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure and the Maine Rules of Evidence. We discussed through the Salmon case on p. 192 of the text. The assignment for Thursday 11/20 is to begin work on the case briefs, and to read and prepare to discuss through p. 215 of the text.

Assignment due Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The assignment is to do two abbreviated case briefs: the first is of the case of Brown v. Thaler, 2005 ME 75 and the second is of Ireland v. Carpenter, 2005 ME 98. The cases can be found on the website of the Maine Supreme Court.
To access the case, go to

http://www.courts.state.me.us/opinions/supreme/index.html

--select “2005 Opinions”

--select 2005 ME 75, Brown v. Thaler
--select 2005 ME 98, Ireland v. Carpenter

For the Ireland case, only brief Section II (B) of the opinion, “Service on Loyen”. Just to clarify what I understand to be the situation, Loyen and Carpenter share a duplex house, which means that there are two different addresses on the house, one for each half of the duplex.

What I mean by ”abbreviated case brief” is that I want you to do only the Citation, Parties, Appellant’s Contentions, Facts, Issues, and Holdings. Your briefs will be evaluated on the format, as well as the specific content.

These are both cases in which the brief is more useful if you utilize an “even though...” portion of the Issues, and Holdings (and include any facts used there in your Facts section). This means that you include the opposite argument (opposite to what the Court holds) to show what the other (losing) side was arguing. For example: “Under the rules of our class, may a student make cell phone calls during the class when such calls are disruptive, even though there was no specific prohibition on such calls in the syllabus.” The “Facts” would include both “ such calls are disruptive” and “there was no specific prohibition on such calls in the syllabus”.

Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion.

You may e-mail me if you have questions about the brief. The more time that I have to answer our questions, the more likely it is that I can be helpful.

If you cannot be in class on Tuesday 11/ 25, you should still e-mail me your brief by the beginning of class time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the brief. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon as possible to see what options are available to you. (Generally, I do not want to accept assignments after we have discussed them in class). See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

IMPORTANT : If you e-mail your paper to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If I do not reply, then I have not received the assignment.

CMJ 375--Mass Media Law
In class today, Tuesday 11/18, I returned the Blethen papers, and we discussed them. We discussed in the textbook through p.266 and also discussed the Rideau and Nebraska Press Assoc. cases from the casebook. On Thursday 11/20 we'll have Exam #2.