February 19, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Wednesday 2/19, I distributed two handouts: my version of the Katko case brief, and the Maine criminal statute about the use of force to defend your home and your property. We went over the Katko case getting up to the use of the prior Iowa Supreme Court case regarding use of a spring gun in a vineyard. We will pick up with the remainder of the use of authority in Katko, and the punitive damages issue, on Friday. The assignment for Friday 2/21 is read over the Maine statute distributed today, and figure out what our criminal law allows in terms of use of force in a situation similar to Katko.


POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Wednesday 2/19, we finished going over Texas v. Johnson, both the majority opinion and the dissent. I went over the four responses that the Court might have to the government's desire to suppress speech (you can't do it; you can only do it if you jump the high hurdles; you can do it if you jump the low hurdles; you can do want you want). We briefly went on to Chaplinsky, and will pick up on Friday with the concept of categories of unprotected speech. The assignment for Friday 2/21 is to review Chaplinsky and Cohen (previously assigned) and to create for yourselves an outline of Cohen, following the format of the Johnson outline that I handed out on Monday.


POS 359 THE CURRENT SUPREME COURT TERM
In class today, Wednesday 2/19, we compared the arguments of the dad's and mom's briefs. We first looked at how each of them tried to set the scene for the case, and then began our tour through the legal issues. We got through the argument about whether the Article 12 provision can be characterized as a Statute of Limitations, which arguably would open the door to equitable tolling. The assignment for Friday 2/21 is read Petitioner's Reply Brief.