September 10, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/10, I distributed one handout, the Maine Constitution's Declaration of Rights. I took pictures of the class, and will begin work on learning the names of the students in the class. We began our discussion of the Mockus case and questions. We went over the listing of order of the parties in decisions of the Maine Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, and we went over the universe of possibilities for the Plaintiff's Cause of Action in a case. We got to the list of Mockus' contentions on appeal, and the Court's responses to those contentions, ending with the crucial contention about the Maine blasphemy statute violating the Maine Constitutional guarantees of free religious expression and free speech. We will pick up at that point when we resume our Mockus discussion on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 9/12 is to review the remaining Mockus questions and the Mockus decision itself, trying to translate the legal concepts into English to the extent possible.

POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 9/10, I took pictures of the class, and will begin work on learning the names of the students in the class. We first discussed the Katz case from the text. We then began our discussion of the Smith case and questions. We went over the listing of order of the parties in decisions of the Maine Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, and we went over the treatment of precedent (following, distinguishing). We got to the point in Smith in which the Court distinguished Katz, based on the difference between the content of the conversation versus the number called. We will pick up at that point when we resume our Smith discussion on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 9/12 is to review the remaining Smith questions and the Smith decision itself, trying to translate the legal concepts into English to the extent possible.