February 12, 2019

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 2/12, I distributed one handout, an article about assisted suicide. I began class by covering a 2016 Supreme Court decision, Montgomery v. Louisiana, that took up the question of the retroactive application of the Miller decision. We looked at both the majority and the dissenting opinions in Montgomery, as well as the votes in the case. We talked about the substantive/procedural divide in terms of retroactive application, as well as the Court's power to say what exactly they had previously decided in Miller. We then looked at the Maine sentencing statute that I had handed out last week, and we went over statutory citation form. We then went through the concept of due process, the history of the 14th Amendment, substantive due process, and the relationship between the 5th Amendment Due Process Clause versus the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause.
The assignment for Thursday 2/14 is to read today's handout, and to finish work on your version of the Glucksberg case brief (not handed in or graded).



POS 359 THE CURRENT SUPREME COURT TERM
In class today, Tuesday 2/12, I first reminded the class of the Gamble paper due at the beginning of class on Thursday. We then took a deeper dive into the Timbs excessive fines case. We went through the three issues on which Timbs has to eventually prevail in order to win: incorporation; "fines"; and "excessive". We looked at incorporation and its history, including a review of the podcast on Privileges or Immunities, and the logical problem of using 14th Amendment Due Process to incorporate the Bill of Rights (since the 5th Amendment Due Process Clause could not have encompassed all of the other Bill of Rights protections). We then looked at whether in rem forfeitures are a "fine". I went over two earlier cases: Austin v. U.S. and U.S. v. Bajakajian. We went over how Bajakaian might be read to undermine Austin, and why that's important to Indiana's case. We also talked about how the existence (or non-existence) of an innocent owner exception can be used to help decide whether a forfeiture is "punishment".
The assignment for Thursday 2/14 is to finish your Gamble paper, and to review the briefs and the oral argument in Timbs.