December 10, 2013

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 12/10, I first went over additional cases dealing with personal jurisdiction. I discussed the U.S. Supreme Court case of McIntyre v. Nicastro, going over the differing views of the plurality, the concurrence, and the dissenting Justices. I then went over the background to a current personal jurisdiction case of Walden v. Fiore. We listened to an excerpt of the oral argument in that case, which was heard in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in November. The assignment for Thursday 12/12 is to finish Chapter 4 of the text, and to read in addition pp. 158 - 162.


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 12/10, I talked about additional aspects of capital punishment and other 8th Amendment concerns. I went over categories of defendants: retarded (Atkins and Hall v. Crews); juveniles (Thompson v. Oklahoma, Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, and Miller v. Alabama);and the insane (Delling v. Idaho, Dusky v. U.S. Ford v. Wainwright, and Panetti v. Quarterman). I then discussed types of offenses: non-homicide (Coker v. Georgia, Kennedy v. Louisiana); and felony murder (Enmund v. Florida, and Tison v. Arizona). On Thursday we will discuss the Double Jeopardy clause and the cases interpreting it.