September 10, 2019

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 9/10, I distributed one handout, my version of the case brief for Rutherford. We went over the process of putting the Rutherford opinion in the format of the case brief. We discussed whether the prosecution can now re-try Rutherford, or whether that would be barred by Double Jeopardy, and saw how the SCOTUS case of Lockhart v. Nelson resolved that question. I talked about the use of precedent in Rutherford in terms of following, distinguishing, or overruling precedent. We went over how both the police and the prosecution can learn from the Rutherford opinion how to do things better next time. Finally, I went over fn.2 of the opinion (about State v. McKenney) and discussed the concept of dictum.
The assignment for Thursday 9/12 is to read in the text pp. 1-19, including the majority opinion in Miller v. Alabama.


POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 9/10, I distributed one handout, the Maine statute regarding the use of drones in law enforcement. We went through the Katz case in terms of the 3 major definitional issues addressed: "search"; "person, house, paper, effect"; and "unreasonable". We saw how the Court changed after Katz, to produce a lack of protection for open fields, information shared with third parties, and abandoned property. We looked at the Bangor garbage ordinance (handed out last week) and asked (without an answer) whether such a strong municipal condemnation of taking someone's garbage has any effect on whether society is prepared to accept the expectation of privacy in garbage as reasonable. Finally, we began our discussion of Jardines by going over Scalia's definition of "search". We will continue with the majority opinion in Jardines on Thursday.
The assignment for Thursday 9/12 is to read all three Jardines opinions (majority, concurrence, dissent). For the majority opinion, using Scalia's outline as the bare bones of the structure of the opinion (I, IIA, IIB, III) first put labels on those segments, and then see if there's additional structure (outline) in the majority opinion. For each piece of the outline, figure out what question is being asked, and also the answer that Scalia provides (not handed in or graded).