April 6, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Wednesday 4/6, I distributed two handouts: assignment #2 (reproduced below) and the case you'll be briefing, Board of Overseers v. Warren. We went over the basic outline of the Warren case (the duty of lawyers to report certain misconduct of their fellow lawyers). We also went over the basic outline of the case brief format. We then turned to Chapter III of the text. We talked about common law as that term is used in the text, versus as used in class. We talked about an individual health insurance mandate in state law, as opposed to federal law, and how those two levels of government have fundamentally different limitations on their power. We talked about the history of the Articles of Confederation, the interpretation of the interstate commerce clause, and Wickard v. Filburn. We talked about some of the pre-Obamacare health insurance problems, and Obamacare's solution. We began a case brief of the NFIB case. We will continue on Friday with a more detailed look at the exact questions asked by Roberts, and his answers. The assignment for Friday 4/8 is to review NFIB, and to read and begin thinking how to brief Warren.

POS 282 Assignment due Friday, April 15th, 2016

The assignment (graded) is to do a Case Brief of the case of Board of Overseers of the Bar v. Warren, 2011 ME 124, 34 A.3d 1103 (also distributed to the class today).

Brief all of the issues that you determine that the Court ruled on. Remember that the purpose of the brief is to be useful. Check your holdings to make sure that they give the most useful rules possible. Mere conclusory facts just tell us who won and who lost, but not what circumstances determine the winner and loser.

Follow the format from the Sample Briefs that I’ve distributed, including this: after giving the winner’s facts, give the loser’s facts with a parenthetical phrase that starts “even though...”.

For example: “Under the Maine common law rule that an issue will not be reached if it was raised for the first time on appeal, were the trial court and the opposing party alerted to the existence of an HHCA issue when the defendant did not raise the issue in his answer, or his opposition to the summary judgment, not did he argue that point in his post-summary judgment motion, (even though he did make a glancing reference to the HHCA in that motion)?”.

Note especially that, after the “Issue” is composed, the “Facts” and “Holding” are copied and pasted. Everything that you put into the Fact section should appear exactly in your Issue and Holding sections as well. Your Issue and Holding sections should be identical to each other, except that the issue is a question, and the Holding is the answer to that question. Your briefs will be evaluated on the format, as well as the specific content.

Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion.

You may e-mail me if you have specific questions about the brief. The more time that I have to answer your questions, the more likely it is that I can be helpful.

If you cannot be in class on Friday 4/15, you should still e-mail me your brief by the beginning of class time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the brief. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon as possible to see what options are available to you. (Generally, I do not want to accept assignments after we have discussed them in class). See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

Remember to work by yourselves; do not collaborate. Do not show your work to anyone else; do not look at anyone else’s work. Do not discuss your case brief with anyone but me.

IMPORTANT: If you e-mail your brief to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If I do not reply, then I have not received the assignment.




POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Wednesday 4/6, we first went back to the Seibert case, and looked again at what Kennedy said that was different from what the plurality opinion had said. We then continued our discussion of Ormsby. We went over the three occasions in which Ormsby asserted (at least for purposes of the opinion) the right to remain silent or have an attorney, but questioning was not stopped. We looked at the test for when an interrogation of a suspect is custodial, and how the Court characterized the beginning part of the interrogation as non-custodial, and the second part as custodial. We talked about how the police basically already knew both that Ormsby was guilty, and that he was willing to talk to them. We will continue on Friday with an examination of the factors that the Maine Supreme Court looks at in order to determine the existence of a custodial interrogation, as well as the questions of voluntariness and waiver. The assignment for Friday 4/8 is to review Ormsby, and to read the previously distributed Maine Supreme Court cases of Prescott and Bragg.