April 5, 2012

POS 282 --INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 4/5 I distributed one handout, Assignment #2, which is copied below. After discussing the assignment, I talked about some connections between Gonzales v. Raich and the Affordable Care Act Supreme Court argument last week. We then went on to the Butler case, and the idea of dictum. I went over a 1971 case, Harris v. N.Y., in which the U.S. Supreme Court decided the very issue on which the Butler Court had based its decision. The assignment for Tuesday 4/10 is to begin work on the case brief assignment below. In addition, read in the text the case of Hubbard v. Greeson (p. 113) and accompanying materials.

Assignment due Thursday, April 12, 2012

The assignment (graded) is to do a Case Brief of the case of Collins v. Trius. 663 A.2d 570 (Me., 1995).

The case can be found at Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/
select Legal opinions and journals
and then search “Collins v. Trius”

or, just go to

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2516716028617993366&q=collins+v.+trius&hl=en&as_sdt=2,20

I’ll include this link in the blog (goldmanmaine.blogspot.com)

I would like the brief to include the discussion in footnote six of the Opinion.

Follow the format from the Sample Briefs that I’ve distributed. Note especially that the Facts, Issues, and Holding are copied and pasted. Everything that you put into the Fact section should appear exactly in your Issue and Holding sections as well. Your Issue and Holding sections should be identical to each other, except that the issue is a question, and the Holding is the answer to that question. Your briefs will be evaluated on the format, as well as the specific content.

Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion.

You may e-mail me if you have questions about the brief. The more time that I have to answer your questions, the more likely it is that I can be helpful.

If you cannot be in class on Thursday 4/12, you should still e-mail me your brief by the beginning of class time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the brief. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon as possible to see what options are available to you. (Generally, I do not want to accept assignments after we have discussed them in class). See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

Remember to work by yourselves; do not collaborate.

IMPORTANT: If you e-mail your brief to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If I do not reply, then I have not received the assignment.


POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Thursday 4/5 we continued with our discussion of the ACA oral argument. We discussed various subsidies that flow in various directions in the system, the targeting to Kennedy based on the votes in Gonzales v. Raich, the arguments that Verrilli made to distinguish this situation from other mandatory purchases, and to contest the idea that this was in fact a mandatory purchase. We will continue our examination of the oral argument next Tuesday 4/10. We will examine the distinguishing principles identified by Verrilli, and we will also look at the "taxing power"argument made by Verrilli.