April 19, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Friday 4/19, I distributed one handout, a review of federal and certain state laws regarding both adoption rights and recognition of same-sex marriage ( since adoption by a couple is often limited to married couples). I then went over the 2011 5th Circuit case of Adar v. Smith, in which that Court distinguished Finstuen,and reached the result that Louisiana (unlike Oklahoma) need not issue a new birth certificate to an unmarried same-sex adoptive couple. We also looked at whether getting married would change the prospects of such a couple. We began our discussion of subject-matter jurisdiction, going over the other part of the Adar opinion, holding that there was no right by the same-sex couple to even bring their action in federal court (no subject-matter jurisdiction). We will continue next Monday with further exploration into the world of subject matter jurisdiction. The assignment for Monday 4/22 is to read through p. 128 of the text.

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Friday 4/19, we began with a discussion of the application of the Brandenburg test of incitement to the hypothetical possibility of incitement in the case of the brothers alleged to be behind the Boston marathon bombings. We then returned to Snyder v. Phelps, beginning with the internet posting in that case that the Court chose not to deal with. We looked at how a flow chart of Snyder might look, and compared the characterizations of the relevant factors by the majority with the same categories by the dissent. The assignment for Monday 4/22 is to review Tinker v. Des Moines, previously assigned.