January 20, 2011

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term 2011
In class today, Thursday 1/20, we spent most of the class going over the Snyder Reply Brief. We discussed three categories of controversies: factual questions of what happened (was there a disruption of the funeral); questions of the legal requirements for invoking First Amendment limitations on the states' cause of action(does it matter if the plaintiff is a public figure); and questions of the definition of those requirements (e.g., what does it mean to be a matter of "public concern") and whether or not certain behaviors meet that definition.

The assignment for next Tuesday 1/25 consists of three parts:
First, I want you to read (study) the transcript of the oral argument in Snyder v. Phelps. That written transcript is available from the Supreme Court website, selecting "oral arguments", and, under transcripts,then selecting 09-751, Snyder v. Phelps, (October 4-October 13);
Second, I want you to listen to the audio of that argument. You can listen on the Supreme Court's website, or you can get it at www.c-span.org (which also shows pictures of the speakers as they speak). To get the argument on c-span, the easiest path is to just type "Snyder v. Phelps" into the c-span search bar on the top right.
Third, from the c-span site, I want you to watch the interview with Margie Phelps. It will come up as the second result when you search for Snyder v. Phelps. The interview also has Tim Nieman, lawyer for the VFW, and is part of the Washington Journal series. The interview is just under an hour.
Prepare to discuss what issues the Justices seemed concerned by, and whether you could tell what their outlook might be.

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Thursday 1/20, we finished going over the AAC case and brief. We then discussed the Bangor and Augusta ordinances, testing the constitutionality of some of their parade provisions against the First Amendment requirements that we identified in the AAC brief. I went over the concept of mandatory v. persuasive authority. I then discussed the case of Sullivan v. Augusta, a First Circuit decision that decided on the constitutionality of a number of provisions in the Augusta parade ordinance.
The assignment for Tuesday 1/25 is to read and write a case brief (not handed in or graded) of Katko v. Briney, p. 47 of the text. Follow the format of the case brief template and the Sample AAC brief that I've already distributed.