March 24, 2011

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Thursday 3/24, we continued talking about the background to, and decision in, the Bryant case. Justice Scalia seemed somewhat disappointed in the outcome of the case. Next week we'll decided which case will be the subject of the next paper for the class. The assignment for Tuesday 3/29 is to read the oral argument in one possible contender for that case, a recent 4th Amendment/exclusionary rule case, Davis v. United States, argued 3/21.

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Thursday 3/24, we continued out discussion of the constitutional limits on punitive damages awards. We went over the Johnson case in the text, and I also discussed three U.S. Supreme Court cases: BMW v. Gore; State Farm v. Campbell; (both discussed in the Johnson case)and Philip Morris v. Williams. The assignment for Tuesday 3/29 is to review the Pape case at the end of Chapter 2, and to read pp. 108-121 of Chapter 3 the text.