February 1, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Monday 2/1, we first went over the Maine statutes involved in the Warren v. Reis case, the HCCA and the UTP. We talked about affirmative defenses and counterclaims, and how the UTP authorizes the claim, but not the defense. We discussed the idea of a private cause of action, and the meaning of presenting a prima facie case. We then moved to the introductory material in Chapter 1 of the text. We talked about natural law and looked at MLK Jr.'s Letter From the Birmingham Jail (P.61 of the text). We talked about judicial activism, both conservative and liberal, and the power of the nine Supreme Court Justices. The assignment for Wednesday 2/3 is to read in the text through p.21 (Miller v. Alabama) and to write out a case brief of Miller following the format and template that I gave you (not handed in or graded).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Monday 2/1, we first went over some concepts from the introductory material from the text: the enforcement of the constitution (criminal prosecution; civil suit; internal discipline; and exclusionary rule), and also the uses and abuses of grand juries. We went through the three levels of prosecuting authorities in Maine (county, state, and federal) and how each gets chosen. We then talked about Weeks, Olmstead, and Goldman, and saw how the expansive language of the 4th Amendment turned out not to be broad enough to cover conversations. We will pick up with our discussion of Katz on Wednesday. The assignment for Wednesday 2/3 is to review Katz (previously assigned) and to read in addition Jones (through p. 475).