November 18, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 11/18, we went over a number of questions regarding the Brown case brief. I first clarified that you should not brief those issues that are contained in the footnotes to the case (pages 5-6). You should, however, brief the issues that are addressed in the body of the opinion, even if part of the Court's discussion is dictum (e.g., equitable estoppel and Blue Hill ordinance). For issues that are dictum, indicate this by putting "[DICTUM]" prior to that "Issue". We went over the substance of a number of the issues raised, and we also discussed some of the politics behind the decision. The assignment for Thursday 11/20 is to complete the Brown case brief, due at the beginning of class. After we finish our discussion of Brown, we'll go on to discuss NFIB v. Sebelius, previously assigned.


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 11/18, I first handed back the Davis outlines, as well as my version of that outline. We went over the theme of police culpability as reflected in the three Davis opinions. We also did a brief overview of the four exclusionary rule cases we covered, in terms of which ones featured any police culpability. We then left the 4th Amendment and turned to the 5th and 6th. We started with the text of those amendments, and saw how limited the literal protections are. We then covered Escobedo, which itself was midstream in terms of 5th and 6th Amendment development. We saw how Escobedo extended the point at which the right to counsel attached, as well as intertwining of the 5th and 6th Amendment protections. We then started out discussion of Miranda. We first discussed how Miranda's situation was not covered by the rule in Escobedo, and then went through the rule regarding exactly what police need to tell suspects, and when they need to tell them that. We will finish Miranda on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 11/20 is to finish reading Chapter 11 (including Seibert).