February 10,2011

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Thursday 2/10, we went over the Kentucky Supreme Court's decision in the King case. We concentrated on the choice of tests that courts have developed regarding how to judge when evidence obtained by police-created exigencies are admissible. The assignment for Tuesday 2/15 is to read King's (Respondent's) Brief in Kentucky v. King, available from the abanet site via the supremecourt.gov site.

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Thursday 2/10, we finished our discussion of the Glucksberg case. We also discussed the concepts of following versus distinguishing precedent. We went over some basic power distribution questions in our legal system, including: the power of the individual to decide things,versus the power of government to dictate what is allowed; the power of the federal government versus the power of state government; and the power of the judiciary versus the power of the legislature (and the executive). The assignment for Tuesday is to read again the Lawrence v. Texas case that was assigned on Tuesday, comparing it to the Glucksberg decision in terms of the characterization of the liberty interest at stake, the analysis of the history of that interest, and the hurdle that must be met (the test) for the constitutionality of the law involved.