April 22, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Friday 4/22, I distributed one handout, an excerpt from last year's Supreme Court opinion in the same-sex marriage case of Obergefell v. Hodges. We began class by reviewing a key difference between being in federal court in diversity cases, versus being in state court. I then went over two Maine choice of law cases, Collins v. Trius (torts) and Schroeder v. Rynel (contracts). We then went over the concept of Full Faith and Credit, and its different application to out-of-state statutes versus out-of-state judicial proceedings. We went over Finstuen v. Crutcher, and then went over today's handout from Obergefell. Finally, I discussed the recent (4/19/2016) Supreme Court case of Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt. I will begin Monday's class with a discussion of the recent Supreme Court case of V.L. v. E.L., which discusses both Full Faith and Credit and subject matter jurisdiction, which is the subject of our next assignment. The assignment for Monday 4/25 is to read today's handout, and to read in the text through p. 129 (Cheap Escape v. Haddox).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Friday 4/22, I began by going over the proposal for a public defender program in Maine, which was turned down by the Maine Legislature as being a "public defender" program in name only. We talked about effective assistance of counsel, and I went over two Supreme Court cases from 2012, Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper, which both discussed the ineffective assistance of counsel in the context of plea bargains. We talked about bail, and speedy trials, and I went over a current Supreme Court case, Betterman v. Montana, that raises the question of speedy trial in terms of a 14 month delay between conviction and sentencing. We then moved to rules of jury trials, and we began our discussion of Batson v. Kentucky. We talked about the requirements needed to force the prosecutor to offer a neutral explanation for why jury pools members were peremptorily challenged. We will pick up at that point on Monday, including going over Marshall's concurrence, as well as two current cases involving race and jurors. The assignment for Monday 4/25 is to continue to work on Assignment #2 (due at the beginning of class on Friday 4/29, and to read in the text through p. 566 (Sheppard v. Maxwell).