September 18, 2018

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Tuesday 9/18, we began by having a conversation about the upcoming continuation of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, and the test to be applied in evaluating allegations that are difficult to either prove or disprove. We then returned to the outline of the Sotomayor dissent in Trinity. We got to her Part III(B)(2), which is where we'll pick up on Thursday. The specific question that I asked the class to think about was how Sotomayor's view of "religious activity" compared with that of Roberts. Along the way we went over the nature of the Bill of Rights as protection against the federal power, and the strange history of the 14th Amendment that selectively incorporated portions of the Bill of Rights as protections for the individual against state power.
The assignment for Thursday 9/20 is to review the Sotomayor dissent and your Sotomayor outline (previously assigned). In addition, read in the text pp. 114 - 124.

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/18, I distributed 2 handouts: my version of the Miller case brief, and an excerpt from the Maine sentencing statutes. We put the Miller case into our case brief format. We went over the question not addressed by Kagan, whether Life w/o Parole can ever be imposed as a juvenile's punishment. We then went over Breyer's concurrence. We discussed the difference between concurring in the judgment versus concurring in the opinion. We talked about the lack of intent to kill in both felony murder and in accomplice liability. We began Roberts' dissent, talking about the ways of reading "cruel and unusual", as a unitary phrase versus as two disjunctive requirements. We will pick up on Thursday with the phrase used by Roberts, "evolving standards of decency".
The assignment for Thursday 9/20 is to review the remaining Miller opinions, read today's handouts, and read in the text through p. 27 (up to Washington v. Glucksberg).