August 29, 2017

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 8/29, I distributed three handouts: the syllabus, the recent Maine Supreme Court case of State v. Blier, and a set of questions to guide your reading of the Blier case. We went over the requirements of the syllabus in detail, as those requirements are basically the contract for the taking of the class. We began our discussion of the Blier opinion, going through the 1st paragraph. Along the way, we discussed the order of the parties (plaintiff/defendant; appellant/appellee) in both the Maine state court system and in the U.S. Supreme Court. We went over the citation form for Maine Supreme Court cases, as well as the citation form for Maine statutes. We also discussed three levels of persuasion used in different court cases: beyond a reasonable doubt (used the criminal cases); clear and convincing evidence (used in the context of non-criminal deprivations of constitutional and other fundamental rights); and preponderance of the evidence (used in ordinary civil cases). The assignment for Thursday, August 31 is to read and re-read the Blier opinion, guided by the handout of questions.


POS 383 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
In class today, Tuesday 8/29, I distributed three handouts: the syllabus, a list of the current Supreme Court Justices, and the text of the Articles of Confederation. We went over the requirements of the syllabus in detail, as those requirements are basically the contract for the taking of the class. We talked about how the focus of this class is on two institutional conflicts inherent in the Constitution: the power of the federal government versus the power of the states, and the separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. We went over the current 9 Justices of the Supreme Court. I introduced the current Supreme Court case of Christie v. NCAA, in which New Jersey is challenging the power of the federal government to forbid the states from authorizing sports betting. We looked at the 9th and 10th Amendments (the 9th stating how to read the first eight Amendments, and the 10th saying that states retain the rights not given to the federal government). We compared and contrasted these two Amendments with Article II of the Articles of Confederation. The assignment for Thursday, August 31 is to finish reading the Articles of Confederation, and then to read in the text pp. 367-381, including the cases of Garcia v. San Antonio and New York v. U.S.