October 27, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 10/27, we began by going through the Maine statute on Hindering Apprehension, and we discussed what would be the best part of that law under which to bring charges against a Maine Ms. Mobbley. We went through Holland v. Florida, in which the Florida Supreme Court had to decide whether to exercise its power to create a Florida common law crime of misprision of a felony. I discussed the federal statute that creates such a federal crime, and we also looked at the Massachusetts duty to report statute in our text. I went through the four mental states involved in most crimes (knowledge was the mental state in the federal statute) and we also went over the two bases of federal court jurisdiction (federal question and diversity). We looked at the Maine statute that precludes the creation of common law crimes in Maine. I forgot, though, to turn the page over to discuss mandated reporting of child abuse and neglect under Maine statute, so we'll start with that next Tuesday. We went through the Glassford case, looking at the cause of action, the precedent used by the Vermont court, the issues presented, and their resolution. I plan to follow up on Tuesday with some recent U.S. Supreme Court cases about the use of mandatory arbitration clauses. The assignment for Tuesday November 1 is to read in the text through the end of Chapter 2 (Caperton).