September 19, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 9/19, I distributed two handouts: my version of the VSDA case brief, and a recent article from Forbes magazine about the relationship between violent video games and real world violence. We started with the concepts of questions of law versus questions of fact, summary judgment, and de novo review. In terms of First Amendment law, we went over strict scrutiny versus rational basis review (high hurdles versus low hurdles) and content-based versus non-content-based restrictions. We also looked at following versus distinguishing precedent. We went through my VSDA case brief, looking at how an "issue" is put together, including (usually) the incorporation of the appellant's contention into the operative legal question. We will pick up Tuesday with the relationship in the case brief between "facts", "issues" and "holdings". We will also go over the subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case, as well as the Venn diagrams that explain the concepts of over- and under-inclusiveness. The assignment for Tuesday September 24th is to read pp. 22-32, and to attempt for yourselves a case brief of the Glucksberg case (not handed in or graded).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Thursday 9/19, I distributed one handout, a sample opinion outline and the formatting instructions for making an outline. We began by looking at the unexpected line-up of the Justices who voted for the defendant in both Jones and Jardines, which included two of the most "conservative' Justices joined by the three most "liberal". We then started going through the outline of Scalia's Jardines opinion, going carefully through each question posed in the parts of the opinion, and then the answer to those questions that Scalia provided. We looked at where Scalia's outline did not provide, in my opinion, enough structural elements, and so where I added structure to Scalia's outline. We talked about Scalia's footnote 1, and will pick up on Tuesday with the other Scalia footnotes. The assignment for Tuesday 9/24 is to read and prepare to discuss the Kagan concurrence in Jardines, and the Alito dissent. In addition, I want you to write up (but not handed in or graded) an outline of the Alito dissent, following the outline format that I provided.