October 31, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 10/31, we first went over the Maine statute that covers situations like that Ms. Mobbley found herself in. We then went over the Holland case, and compared the power of the Florida Supreme Court regarding common law crimes with Maine law regarding common law crimes. We started our discussion of Lawrence, talking about the role of morality in legislation. We compared this case to Glucksberg, in which similar considerations were at play. We will begin class on Tuesday with a more legal analysis of Lawrence, looking at the structure of Kennedy's opinion, whether this is a fundamental interest, and the role of precedent. I will then go over last June's Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage recognition by federal law. The assignment for Tuesday 11/5 is to re-read Lawrence, looking at the structure, fundamental interests, and precedent.

POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Thursday 10/31, I distributed one handout, an edited version of the recent Maine Supreme Court case of State v. Ormsby. If you were not in class and did not get the handout, you can access the case by going to the Maine Supreme Court opinion page:
http://www.courts.state.me.us/opinions_orders/supreme/publishedopinions.shtml
and scrolling down to
2013 ME 88 State of Maine v. Thayne M. Ormsby October 29, 2013
Read through paragraph 30 of the opinion.
We went over the Escobedo opinion, as well as the dissent, and then did the same with the Miranda opinion. I also put a question to the class that we will decide on Tuesday: whether to spend most of the rest of the semester on Miranda-type questions, or whether to move on in the text to 6th Amendment jurisprudence (Chapter 12 of the text).
The assignment for Tuesday 11/5 is to read Ormsby, and to ask yourself these specific question: do the techniques employed by the police run afoul of either the spirit or the letter of any part of Miranda?