February 8, 2017

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Wednesday 2/8, we began going through the Glucksberg case brief. In the prior proceedings, we talked about a panel opinion in the Court of Appeals, versus the en banc opinion. We went over the difference it makes whether an asserted liberty interest is labeled as fundamental or not. Restrictions on fundamental rights can only be imposed by government if government can meet strict scrutiny (the high hurdles) whereas government can restrict non-fundamental rights if the restrictions meet rational basis review. We worked on the formulation of the legal issues in Glucksberg. We identified the first issue as the description of the right asserted by the doctors, and then the second issue as whether that right was fundamental. We will pick up with the remaining issues in the case on Friday.
The assignment for Friday 2/10 is to continue work on the Glucksberg case briefs, focusing on the remaining issues in the case.


POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Wednesday 2/8, I distributed one handout, my version of the Alvarez outline. We went through that outline as far as Kennedy's plurality opinion. Along the way, we discussed the concepts of content-based restrictions versus viewpoint-based restrictions; strict scrutiny hurdles; the role of public perception and counterspeech; and categories of speech unprotected by the 1st Amendment. We will pick up on Friday with outlines of the Breyer and Alito opinions.
The assignment for Friday 2/10 is to read in the text pp. 233-241 (Chaplinsky and Cohen).