February 22, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Monday 2/22, I distributed one handout, a way to "test" your Holdings in Ayotte, to make sure that you've produced useful answers to particular questions. After discussing the Ayotte case brief, we went back and finished Lawrence v. Texas. We looked at the Court's treatment of Bowers v. Hardwick, both in terms of the characterization of the right involved, and the look at the history and traditional of that right. We looked at low hurdles (rational basis) and high hurdles (strict scrutiny) and how Kennedy looked like he was engaged in a "fundamental" rights analysis, only to switch horses at the end. We examined the relationship between morality and both law making (by the legislatures) and finding constitutional limits (by the Court). We talked about the references to gay marriage, O'Connor's concurrence, and discrimination against gays. The assignment for Wednesday 2/24 is to finish work on your Ayotte case briefs (due at the beginning of class Wednesday) and to read in the text through p. 38 (Speelman).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Monday 2/22, we started by providing structure to the Rodriguez outline. We went through Ginsburg's opinion and saw how structure (additional sub-elements) could be added to her undifferentiated part II. I then talked about a 2013 Maine Supreme Court opinion, State v. Ntim, which discussed suspicionless dog sniffs on interstate buses. We then went back to Maryland v. King. We talked about the usual definition of reasonableness as requiring fitting into a recognized exception, and how the DNA test did not seem to satisfy the rules for a search incident to an arrest. We saw how Kennedy went to a balancing test to decide reasonableness, and Scalia said that no balancing was allowed. We also looked at the government interest in identification of the suspect, and how Scalia said that the only real interest here was trying to solve cold cases, which should not allow the DNA testing. Along the way, I went over four levels of suspicion, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, a hunch, and a suspicionless checkpoint. The assignment for Wednesday 2/24 is to continue work on your Rodriguez outlines, (due Friday) and to review the previously assigned case of Arizona v. Gant (through p. 487).