December 4, 2014

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 12/4, we first went over the Strunk case. We then began our discussion of Hubbard v. Greeson and the subject of conflict of law rules. We admired the work of Greeson's attorney in deciding to bring the case in Indiana so that Indiana courts would apply Illinois substantive law. We will pick up next week with how it all went terribly wrong. The additional assignment for Tuesday 12/9 is to read in the text pp. 144-146 (the Erie doctrine and Land v. Yamaha). I distributed copies of Land to those students who were in class but had purchased the text online by chapters (and had not purchased Chapter IV). (If you were not in class and do not have access to Chapter IV of the text, I left a few extra copies of Land in my mailbox in the Political Science Office, directly across the hall from our classroom).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Thursday 12/4, i distributed one handout, an excerpt from the Maine Rules of Criminal Procedure regarding jury size, unanimity, and use of peremptory challenges, and we went over that handout. I talked about two 2012 Supreme Court opinions regarding effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining, Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye. We then went over the Batson case and the use of peremptory challenges by the prosecution against black jurors in a trial against a black defendant. We will begin on Tuesday with a look at how Batson got expanded to other circumstances. We'll then look at public trials and the press. The assignment for Tuesday 12/9 is to review Sheppard v. Maxwell (previously assigned) and to read as well Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, through p. 569 of the text.