December 11, 2018

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Tuesday 12/11, I distributed one last handout, yesterday's denial of cert. in Gee v. Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast. We first went through Thomas' dissent in Whole Woman's Health. We looked at both his big picture (use of tiers of scrutiny at all) as well as several smaller pictures (manipulation use tiers of scrutiny, abortion jurisprudence, proper interpretation of Casey). We then began our examination of Jackson Women's Health Org. v. Currier. We got through all but Parts V and VI of Jackson,which we'll finish on Thursday.
The assignment for Thursday 12/13 is to review Jackson, and to read and prepare to discuss today's handout.


POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 12/11, I distributed one handout, excerpts from Maine's subject-matter jurisdiction statutes. We first went back to the Obergefell excerpt handed out last class, and saw how the Court mandated recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages, even though those marriages do not result from judicial proceedings. We then went into the world of subject-matter jurisdiction. We discussed Cheap Escape from the text, and how the Ohio Supreme Court interpreted the Ohio jurisdictional statute on municipal courts as requiring a connection between the location of the court and the location of the cause of action. I then talked about two other subject-matter jurisdiction cases. In the U.S. Supreme Court case of Bowles v. Russell. the 5-4 majority ruled that a time limit in a federal statute was a question of subject-matter jurisdiction, and therefore could not be waived even though the time was exceeded only because the prisoner was following the instruction of the U.S. District Court judge. In the Maine Supreme Court case, Landmark Realty v. Leasure, the Court held that claims processing rules like time limits were not questions of subject matter jurisdiction, and therefore could be waived. Then we went over V.L. v. E.L., another handout from last Thursday. Finally we started going over today's Maine statutory handout.
The assignment for Thursday 12/13 is to review today's handout, and review Swoboda v. Hero Decks (previously assigned), and to read and prepare to discuss through p. 141 in the text, including St. James v. Coinmach.