April 27, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Wednesday 4/27, we first went over the two statutory handouts from last class, Maine adoption law, and Maine criminal and civil jurisdiction laws. We discussed Cheap Escape v. Haddox, and saw how good lawyering for the guarantor Tessman not only got rid of the default judgment, but also probably got rid of the case altogether. We saw how the Cheap Escape court used methods of interpretation that we had seen in previous cases. We discussed how in Maine, questions like this are dealt with as venue issues, not subject matter jurisdiction ones, and how the two concepts have very different consequences. I introduced the concept of personal jurisdiction, and we will pick up on Friday with the previously assigned Swoboda case. The additional assignment for Friday 4/29 is to read in the text through p. 140 (St. James v. Coinmatch).


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Wednesday 4/27, I first discussed a Supreme Court case from next term, Rodriguez v. Colorado, which raises the question of whether juror bias that comes out during the jury deliberations can be considered as evidence that the jury was not "impartial" as required by the 6th Amendment. We then looked at the Maine and ABA Rules of Professional Conduct about whether a lawyer can try his case in the press. We went over Sheppard v. Maxwell, in which the Supreme Court clarified some of the outer limits of press freedom and juror exposure in the context of a highly publicized murder trial. The assignment for Friday 4/29 is to finish Assignment #2 (due at the beginning of class) and also to read in the text through p. 569 (Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia).