September 17, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/17, I distributed one handout, a template for the case briefs that I will be requiring of you. We began by going over two cases related to the issues in Mockus: Town of Greece v. Galloway, and Snyder v. Phelps. We began our discussion of Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) by going over both the structure of the federal court system and the citation format for that system. We then started using the case brief template to discuss the proper citation, the parties, the objective, the cause of action, the trial court defense, and the prior proceedings in the VSDA case. We will pick up with the meaning of "summary judgment" in the trial court, and "de novo" review by the Court of Appeals, on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 9/19 is to review the VSDA case, using the brief template to try to fill in the rest of the brief: what were appellant's contentions on appeal, what issues did the Court deal with, how did it resolve the various positions of the parties? (nothing written to hand in; just prepare to discuss these questions).

POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 9/17, i distributed one handout, the Supreme Court's recent decision in Florida v. Jardines. We spent today's class going over the Jones case. We first went over some of the questions which the majority decision did not address: the fact that the car did not belong to Jones, whether Jones did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location of the car, whether the warrant should be considered valid despite the technical violation of its terms, whether the search might be reasonable even without a warrant, justified by either probable cause or by reasonable suspicion. We then delved into the two views advocated by Scalia and Alito: that the Katz questions are not the only ones to ask, versus Alito's view that the Katz questions do define the entire scope of what is considered a "search". The assignment for Thursday 9/19 is to read at least the majority decision in Florida v. Jardines.