September 11, 2018

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Tuesday 9/11, I distributed 2 handouts: my version of an outline of the Roberts opinion in Trinity Lutheran Church, and the Sotomayor dissenting opinion in Trinity. We began class by finishing the process of putting labels on the outline structure in Roberts' opinion. I then handed out my outline of the Roberts' opinion. I filled in with Q & A format the substance of the discussion within each part of the Roberts outline, and I also added sub-elements of an outline beneath the structure provided by Roberts. We went over five of the cases discussed in particular detail in the Roberts opinion,
(McDaniel, Lukumi, Lyng, Smith, and Locke) and discussed how the Court followed or distinguished each of those cases. Along the way we discussed the concepts of plurality opinions and dictum. We also discussed footnote 3 some more. I read an excerpt from the oral argument in Trinity, and we saw how Kagan was particularly interested in the question of whether the playground was actually used for any religious exercise. We will pick up on Thursday with a discussion of the concurring opinions.
The assignment for Thursday 9/13 is to read my version of the Roberts outline, and read Sotomayor's dissent. Try your hand at outlining the Sotomayor dissent, following the format of today's handout of my outline.

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/11, I distributed 2 handouts: my version of the Heffron case brief, and some hypotheticals with which to test your Holdings from Heffron. We first went over the remaining issues from the Heffron opinion, putting them in the format from the case brief template that I distributed last time. In terms of the free speech issue raised by Heffron, I went over a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case, Elonis v. U.S., in which there was also a prosecution after a post on Facebook after a Protection from Abuse order had been issued. In Elonis, the Court ended up not deciding the free speech issue, but rather ruling on the required mental state. We went over the 4 mental states of intent, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence. We then started working our way through the hypotheticals that I had distributed today, leaving off with the third one, which is where we'll pick up on Thursday.
The assignment for Thursday 9/13 is to review the hypotheticals, and then read in the text through p.15.