March 26, 2015

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 3/26, I distributed one handout, the Maine statutes regarding common law crimes, hindering apprehension, and mandated reporting. We talked about the concept of unjust laws, and then went through the Mobbley case. We looked at the Maine statute regarding hindering apprehension. We talked about the concept of common law crimes, and misprision of a felony. We looked at Maine's statute regarding common law crimes, and then at the Massachusetts law that does criminalize the failure to report certain crimes in certain circumstances. We will begin next Tuesday by looking at the Maine statute regarding mandated reporting of child abuse or neglect. The additional assignment for Tuesday 3/31 is to read in the text through p.77.


POS 383 AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
In class today, Thursday 3/26, I first reviewed the various opinions in Bush v. Gore. We then talked about "high crimes and misdemeanors" as the standard for removal from office. We went over the two different views of the powers of the executive, and the discussed the various issues in In re Neagle. We looked at Youngstown Steel, and the relationship between Congress and Executive powers. We started our discussion of the executive's obligation to enforce the law. I began the discussion of the defense of DOMA, and we will pick up next Tuesday with how Obama's decision not to defend DOMA played out differently from Schwarzenegger's decision in California not to defend the California law barring same-sex marriage. The additional assignment for Tuesday 3/31 is to read in the text through p.217.