November 1, 2018

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Thursday 11/1, I distributed one handout, the majority and concurring opinions in the recent Supreme Court case of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra. We then went through Snyder v. Phelps. I also talked about the history of free speech protection in defamation and infliction of emotional distress cases, starting with New York Times v. Sullivan. We went over the protections for public officials, and then public figures, and then matters of public concern. I talked about the web site that the Phelps family ran, and how the Supreme Court avoided the issue of the rules for web-based attacks. This led to a discussion of another recent Supreme Court, U.S. v. Elonis, that also ducked the issue of on-line threats and their free speech protection. In Elonis, the Court ruled instead on the implied (not spelled out in the text of the statute) mental state required for a conviction for threatening: negligence (on which the jury had been instructed) was not sufficient, and intent or knowledge was sufficient. On Tuesday we will pick up with U.S. v. Alvarez.
The assignment for Tuesday 11/6 is to review U.S. v. Alvarez (textbook; previously assigned), and read and prepare to discuss both the outline and the substance of today's handout of NIFLA.


POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 11/1, I distributed one handout, excerpts from Maine and federal statutes about hindering apprehension, common law crimes, and duty to report, and misprision of a felony. We began our discussion by finishing the dissenting opinions in Gregg v. Georgia. We saw how Brennan and Marshall differed from each other, as well as from the plurality opinion. We went through the Mobbley case, looking at the rules of statutory interpretation. I also used Mobbley to discuss the concept of dictum, statements made by the Court that are not strictly needed in order for the Court to reach its holding. I went over the President's proposal for an executive order to end U.S. citizenship by birth, and how statements made by the U.S. Supreme Court in an old case might be characterized as dictum. Finally we looked at the Maine statute about hindering apprehension, and saw that Maine has no spousal safe-haven similar to the one in Mobbley. We will pick up next week with the question of the exact crime with which the prosecution might charge Ms. Mobbley if her conduct had happened in Maine.
The assignment for Tuesday 11/6 is to read today's handout, review Holland (previously assigned) and to read in addition in the text through p. 72 (including Lawrence v. Texas).