January 13, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Monday 1/13, I distributed two handouts: the syllabus, and the 1825 case of Mills v. Wyman. We went over the syllabus. We then talked about parties in the Mills v. Wyman case (the plaintiff and the defendant; the appellant and the appellee); the differing rules in the Maine Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the rule for how the order of the parties on appeal is listed; and the concept of whether the a dad should be obligated to fulfill his promise to pay the costs of the caretaker of his son. The assignment for Wednesday 1/15 is to read and prepare to discuss the case of Mills v. Wyman.

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Monday 1/13, I distributed two handouts: the syllabus, and the 1979 case of Smith v. Maryland. We went over the syllabus. We then talked about the question of what we perceive to be our rights regarding government keeping track of who we call and who calls us. We discussed the factual background of Smith a little, and the concept of what is a search. The assignment for Wednesday 1/15 is to read and prepare to discuss Smith v. Maryland.

POS 359 THE CURRENT SUPREME COURT TERM
In class today, Monday 1/13, I distributed three handouts: the syllabus, the homework for Wednesday, and a sheet of Supreme Court Justice biographies. We went over the syllabus. We the discussed the background of the Noel Canning case, looking at the constitutional text, the political battlefield, and the lack of prior case law on this issue. The assignment for Wednesday 1/15 is to read (at least the first part of) the transcript of the oral argument in NLRB v. Noel Canning.