January 17, 2012

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class to day, Tuesday 1/17, I distributed one handout, my version of a case brief for the VDSA Court of Appeals opinion. We started going through how to brief such a case, getting through the segment entitled "Appellant's Contentions on Appeal". We will continue with the case brief from that point on Thursday. Along the way, we went over citation form for the case, including the order of the listing of the parties; the concept of the police power (that states have and Congress doesn't); strict scrutiny versus rational basis review (how high is the hurdle to be jumped when taking a bite out of the First Amendment apple); summary judgment; and the history of the 14th Amendment and its three clauses. The assignment for Thursday 1/19 is to review both the Court of Appeals decision in the text, and the previously assigned U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. EMA.

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Tuesday 1/17, we went over the Hosanna-Tabor decision that was assigned last week. I first went over the contrast between concurring in the judgment versus concurring in the opinion. We then followed the outline of the majority opinion, putting labels on each section of the outline. We got up to Section II (C) of the opinion (p.13) which was the beginning of the heart of the opinion. We will pick up from there on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 1/19 is to re-read the opinion, filling in the remainder of the outline of the majority opinion, and preparing to discuss how the concurring opinions differ from the Court's opinion.