February 18, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Monday 2/18, I reminded the class that we would have Exam #1, open-book and open-note, on Wednesday, 2/27. We finished up our look at the Maine statutes regarding use of force in defense of premises and property. we began our discussion of the Smith case, getting up to the prior proceedings in the case. We will continue with the remainder of Smith on Wednesday. The additional assignment for Wednesday 2/20 is to read the remainder of Chapter 1 of the text, pp. 42-45 (Suggs v. Norris).

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Monday 2/18, I reminded the class that we would have Exam #1, open-book and open-note, on Wednesday, 2/27. I handed back the Free Exercise papers, and we briefly went over them. I went over the decision by the Law Court in the invasion of privacy case (Strong) that we listened to last week. I also finished the discussion of Hibbs and Coleman that we had started earlier regarding congruence and proportionality, and pointed out how the two different results in those cases made no sense really to any of the Justices. We began our discussion of the Second Amendment with some sharing of opinions about what policies made sense for control of guns. We will continue on Wednesday 2/20 with an examination of D.C. v. Heller, previously assigned.