April 13, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Wednesday 4/13, we first went over another aspect of the Warren case brief, the "even though" segment of the issue regarding mitigation of harm. We then finished our discussion of the NFIB case, examining both Roberts' and Ginsburg's view of the Necessary and Proper clause. We proceeded to the text's discussion of the power of various institutions. Regarding federal supremacy (p.99), I talked about the current Supreme Court case of Dollar General v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, in which the Court is dealing with the jurisdiction of a tribal court that doesn't necessarily have all of the constitutional protections of federal law, even though federal law is "supreme". Regarding conflicts between Congress and the Supreme Court, I talked about Bank Markazi v. Peterson, in which the Court questions whether Congress has the power to direct a particular result in a particular case (here the liability of the Central Bank of Iran for terrorist acts carried out under the authority of the Iranian government). Regarding ex post facto laws (p.100), I talked about Sex Offender Registry statutes. Regarding appellate panels of Justices, I talked about Williams v. Pennsylvania, in which one question for the Supreme Court is whether the participation of one Justice on a state Supreme Court (in a case in which he arguably should have recused himself) results on a taint on the entire membership of the Court. We then began out discussion of State v. Butler. We went over the language of Miranda as quoted by the Butler dissent, which seems to answer the question posed (the use of unMirandized statements for the purposes of impeachment). We will return to Butler on Friday after we go over the Warren case briefs. The assignment for Friday 4/15 is to finish your Warren case briefs (due at the beginning of class) and review Butler.


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Wednesday 4/13, we first finished up our discussion of Bragg. We first went over the finding of no Miranda custody, despite the fact that the police appeared to be clear that Bragg was driving drunk. We then examined the Court's holdings in terms of whether the sobriety tests were "testimonial", and whether the presentation of evidence to Bragg was an "interrogation". We moved on to Nightingale, first going over the facts. We covered the discussion about why Nightingale was not in custody during any of the nine hour test and interrogation in Bangor, and then why the interrogation rule of Shatzer did not apply. We will continue on Friday with the discussion of the Seibert two-step. The assignment for Friday 4/15 is to review Nightingale, and then read in the text pp. 540-545 (Powell).