October 1, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 10/1, I distributed three handouts: my version of the Smith v. Idaho case brief, assignment #1 (reproduced below) and the text of White case itself. If you missed class, you can access the White case by going to the Maine Supreme Court site,
http://www.courts.state.me.us/opinions_orders/supreme/publishedopinions.shtml
and scrolling down to July 11, 2013, State v. White, 2013 ME 66.
In class, we first went over the assignment, and I emphasized that your "facts" need to specific enough to provide a specific road map for how a party in the future could try to conform their actions to the requirements of the law. I also went over four levels of suspicion, (roadblock, hunch, reasonable suspicion, and probable cause) and how an "arrest" requires probable cause, while an investigatory stop only requires the lower level of reasonable suspicion.
We then went over the Smith case. I went over proper citation form for a state Supreme Court decision. We then went over the remainder of the case, emphasizing how to provide enough specificity in the brief to make it useful.
Thursday, 10/3, we will have a guest lecture by Professor Nick Carnes of Duke University. The assignment for Thursday 10/3 is to begin work on the White case brief.

Assignment due Thursday, October 10, 2013

The assignment (graded) is to do a Case Brief of the case of State v. White, 2013 ME 66, 70 A3d. 1226.

Brief all of the issues that you determine that the Court ruled on. Think of the brief as an instruction manual for police: what actions do you take to ensure that the evidence you gather will be acceptable in court? Remember that the purpose of the brief is to be useful. Check your holdings to make sure that they give the most useful rules possible. Mere conclusory facts just tell us who won and who lost, but not what circumstances determine the winner and loser.

Follow the format from the Sample Briefs that I’ve distributed. Note especially that the Facts, Issues, and Holding are copied and pasted. Everything that you put into the Fact section should appear exactly in your Issue and Holding sections as well. Your Issue and Holding sections should be identical to each other, except that the issue is a question, and the Holding is the answer to that question. Your briefs will be evaluated on the format, as well as the specific content.

Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion.

You may e-mail me if you have specific questions about the brief. The more time that I have to answer your questions, the more likely it is that I can be helpful.

If you cannot be in class on Thursday 10/10, you should still e-mail me your brief by the beginning of class time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the brief. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon as possible to see what options are available to you. (Generally, I do not want to accept assignments after we have discussed them in class). See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

Remember to work by yourselves; do not collaborate.

IMPORTANT: If you e-mail your brief to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If I do not reply, then I have not received the assignment.




POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 10/1 we first went over the Md. v. King outlining assignment due this Thursday 10/3. I went over the way in which the majority and dissenting opinions differed in their approach to the availability of "free-form" balancing of interests to determine reasonableness. I then discussed another recent Supreme Court case, Bailey v. U.S. in which the Court decided the extent of the warrant exception for detentions incident to the execution of a search warrant. The majority determined that the detention a mile away and five minutes away from the scene of the search warrant execution was not within the exception previously created by Michigan v. Summers. The assignment for Thursday 10/3 is to complete work on the Md. v. King outline, due at the beginning of class Thursday 10/3.