January 25, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Monday 1/25, we first finished up the list of Questions about the Warren case. We started with a precise definition of the question with which the Maine Supreme Court would deal. We looked at the authority upon which the Maine Supreme Court relied, including the adoption of a treatise as authority. We talked about Rules of Procedure and where they come from. We went over the Causes of Action not dealt with by Summary Judgment, quantum meruit and unjust enrichment. We examined the many ways in which there was bad lawyering in this case, including by the Plaintiff's attorney who should have known better, even though Plaintiff wins this case (default judgment, opposition to summary judgment motion, interlocutory appeal). On Wednesday we will start to go through the Case Brief Template and try to put this case into that format. The assignment for Wednesday 1/27 is to put the opinion into the Template format (to go over in class--not handed in or graded).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Monday 1/25, we began an outline of Birchfield. We labeled parts I and II, and began breaking down II into the first section on treatment of precedent (paragraphs 8-13). Along the way, we discussed concepts of mandatory v. persuasive authority; plurality opinions; judgments versus opinions; facial versus as-applied challenges; warrants and exigent circumstances; and the issues of whether there's a search versus whether a search is reasonable. We talked about the standard Supreme Court rule that the meaning of "reasonableness" in 4th Amendment law is that a warrantless search is presumed to be unreasonable, unless there is an exception. We left off at paragraph 10 and Missouri v. McNeely, which is where we'll pick up on Wednesday. The assignment for Wednesday 1/27 is to continue the process of outlining Birchfield. Specifically, look at paragraphs 14-19, and figure out the structure and placement of those sections of the opinion.