April 26, 2017

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Wednesday 4/26, I distributed one handout, Maine statutes dealing with subject matter jurisdiction and with venue. After going over some questions regarding the Gaeth v. Deacon case brief, we went over the concept of subject matter jurisdiction. We went over Cheap Escape v. Haddox, in which a default judgment was vacated because of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. I also talked about a Maine case, Landmark Realty v. Leasure, in which the Maine Supreme Court limited the circumstances that fall within subject matter jurisdiction. Time limits and filing of required papers are not, in Maine, subject matter questions. We talked about the consequence of a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, which include that the issue can be brought up at any time, by any party, or by the court itself, and can't be waived. On Friday, after going over the Gaeth case briefs, we will go over the Maine statutory handout from today, and I'll talk about Bowles v. Russell a U.S. Supreme Court case about the meaning of "subject matter jurisdiction" within the federal court system.
The assignment for Friday 4/28 is to finish your Gaeth v. Deacon case briefs, due at the beginning of Friday's class, to study the Maine jurisdictional statute from today, and to read in the text through p. 136 (including Swoboda v. Hero Decks).



POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Wednesday 4/26, I distributed one handout, the 2004 Supreme Court case of Locke v. Davey. We finished up our discussion of Scalia's opinion in Smith, reviewing the impact of the case and Scalia's view of the role of the Bill of Rights in the protection of minorities. We talked about the political response to Smith, and the enactment of RFRA. We began our discussion of Boerne v. Flores, which is really more a case about Congressional powers in a federalist system than a religious exercise case. We will continue on Friday with why the Court found that RFRA was neither congruent nor proportional to the problem posed by religious intolerance. We'll also cover the other opinions in Boerne.
The assignment for Friday 4/28 is to review Boerne, and to read at least the majority opinion in Locke v. Davey.