February 19, 2009

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Thursday 2/19, I first announced the winner of the "what case will we do next" contest, which was the judge recusal case. I went some more into the background of that case. We then watched the remainder of the Clarence Thomas speech to the Manhattan Club,in which Thomas discussed his view of judicial power and decision-making. The assignment for Tuesday February 24 is to read the Petitioner's and Respondent's Merits Briefs in the judge recusal case, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., #08-221. The easiest way to find the briefs is to go directly to the ABA site:
http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/home.htm
and then scroll down to the Caperton case. (You can also get to the ABA site from the Supreme Court's own site (www.supremecourtus.gov) and select Merit Briefs).

CMJ 375--Mass Media Law
In class today, Thursday 2/19, we continued our discussion of defamation. We went over the handout from last time, which included the Maine statutes on retractions, statute of limitation, and the anti-SLAPP statute. We discussed the retraction in the Beal case. Regarding statutes of limitation, I went over one California case, Hebrew Academy v. Goldman. Regarding Maine's anti-SLAPP statute, I went over one case, Morse Bros. v. Webster, and we began our discussion of another, Schelling v. Lindell. We will pick up with the rest of the Schelling case next week. The assignment for Tuesday 2/24 is to read in the text about the second of the 4 privacy torts, pp. 178-187.