September 29, 2015

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/29, I distributed three handouts: Maine Rules of Civil Procedure and statues regarding juries; my version of the Speelman case brief; and a set of hypotheticals concerning the Speelman case. We first looked at the Maine Rules of Court and the Maine statutes regarding size and unanimity on Maine civil juries. We then went through the case brief of the Speelman case. Along the way, we looked at the concept of mandatory versus persuasive authority, as well as reviewing the concepts of following, distinguishing, or overruling precedent. Finally, we speculated about defenses that might be used for Speelman now that she's going to get that hearing that she wanted. The assignment for Thursday 10/1 is to read and prepare to discuss the Speelman hypotheticals, and to read and prepare for yourselves a case brief of Katko v. Briney (up to p. 43 of the text). In addition, I let the class know that the plan is to distribute the first assigned case brief on Thursday 10/1, to be due on Thursday 10/8.


POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Tuesday 9/29, I distributed two handouts, an article about a recent case that rejected the accommodation for religious non-profits cited in Hobby Lobby, and the form used (or maybe not) to request that accommodation. I first reminded the class of the Hobby Lobby outline due Thursday 10/1. I changed one instruction that I had given last Thursday: if you break your A down into 1 and 2, the A is just a question, and not an answer. I clarified that I thought that all of the As, Bs, and Cs did need to be broken down into 1s, 2s, and 3s, etc. I gave the class the guidance that my version of the outline was a little over three pages, and at that was heavily indented. I stressed that the answers were more of a sentence than a paragraph. We then talked about the role of amici in Alito's opinion. We discussed the concept of complicity, and contrasted the no-limits concept of complicity with the tort law concept of proximate causation. I discussed the case of Wheaton College v. Burwell, about the form used to claim exemption from the contraceptive mandate, and the recent 8th Circuit opinion that shut down even the alternative notification that by-passed that form. We did not get to finish the Boerne outline, so we will add that to the plan for Thursday of going over the assigned Hobby Lobby outline. The assignment for Thursday 10/1 is to finish work on your Hobby Lobby outlines, due at the beginning of class on Thursday.