October 4, 2011

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Tuesday 10/4, we went over various aspects of the State v. Price-Rite opinion. We went over the outline of the case, the idea of questions of law and questions of fact, subject-matter jurisdiction, and examples of bad lawyering committed by both sets of lawyers. The assignment for Thursday 10/6 is to complete the Price-Rite case brief, which is due at the beginning of class on Thursday. Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and one to use for our class discussion.

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Tuesday 10/4, I first gave a preview of an interesting case set for oral argument on Wednesday, Hosanna-Tabor Church V. EEOC. We spent the rest of the class doing a first pass over the Douglas oral argument. We looked at how the arguments made by Schwartz mirrored the structural power questions that we've previously discussed in class, and we also looked at the various types of issues that the Justices were concerned with. I also went over Gonzaga v. Doe, the 2002 Supreme Court decision that cut back the recognition of private causes of action in Spending Clause cases. The assignment for Thursday 10/6 is to read again the Davis oral argument, this time looking for the specific issues that the questions from the Justices centered around, and the viewpoints of the specific Justices as expressed in their questions.