January 17, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Friday 1/17, I distributed one handout, my version of the Mills case brief. We worked our way through the case brief. Along the way, we also went over the concept of following, distinguishing, or overruling prior cases. There is no class on Monday 1/20, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The assignment for Wednesday 1/22 starts with reading MLK's Letter from the Birmingham jail on p. 59. Then read through p.21. Write out your own brief (not handed in or graded)of the VSDA case, following the template.


POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Friday 1/17, we finished going over the majority and the two dissenting opinions in Smith. Along the way, we also went over the concept of following, distinguishing, or overruling prior cases. I talked about another case, Jones v. U.S. that dealt with a similar situation of precedent (Knotts) seeming to dictate that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy. We will pick up on Wednesday with how the concurrence in Jones distinguished Knotts. There is no class on Monday 1/20, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The assignment for Wednesday 1/22 is to read in the news what President Obama says today about the NSA's metadata collection, and to read the two case distributed on Wednesday, Klayman and ACLU.


POS 359 THE CURRENT SUPREME COURT TERM
In class today, Friday 1/17, I distributed one handout, an abridgement of Hill v. Colorado. We continued our journey through the Noel Canning oral argument, looking at some of the grammatical, definitional, and political viewpoints of the Justices and the lawyers. We will pick up on Wednesday with Francisco's argument, and that of Estrada. There is no class on Monday 1/20, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The assignment for Wednesday 1/22 is to finish the Noel Canning oral argument, and to read the Hill v. Colorado handout.