November 12, 2019

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 11/12, I distributed 4 handouts: Assignment #2 (reproduced below)); the case you'll be briefing, Betton v. Belue; a newspaper article about the Betton case; and and a magazine article about a recent call for recusal of two Supreme Court Justices. We went over the requirements of Assignment #2, which we'll be discussing in class at more length on Thursday 11/14. We then went back to Caperton. We went over the successive layers of definitions involved in this situation: what is "due process"; what is a substantial risk of bias; what is a disproportional contribution? I then talked to the class about the case of Williams v. Pennsylvania, a more recent Supreme Court case that raised the question of recusal in the context of a former prosecutor in a case now serving as a judge. We looked at today's handout about the 2 Supreme Court Justices who met with a person whose organization had submitted an amicus brief in a pending Supreme Court case. Finally I went over the case of Overseers of the Bar v. Warren, a Maine Supreme Court case on the ethical responsibilities of Maine lawyers to turn in a colleague who is acting illegally.
The assignment for Thursday 11/14 is to begin work on your Betton case brief, read today's handouts, and review NFIB v. Sebelius, previously assigned.

Assignment due Thursday, November 21, 2019

The assignment (graded) is to do a Case Brief of the case of Betton v. Belue, ___F.3d___ (4th Cir., 2019) (also distributed to the class today).

Remember that the purpose of the brief is to be useful. Check your holdings to make sure that they give the most useful rules possible. Mere conclusory facts just tell us who won and who lost, but not what circumstances determine the winner and loser.

For this brief, include both the winner’s facts (“..., when...”) and the loser’s facts (“..., even though...”).


Follow the format from the Sample Briefs that I’ve distributed.

Note especially that, after the “Issue” is composed, the “Facts” and “Holding” are copied and pasted. Everything that you put into the Fact section should appear exactly in your Issue and Holding sections as well. Your Issue and Holding sections should be identical to each other, except that the issue is a question, and the Holding is the answer to that question. Your briefs will be evaluated on the format, as well as the specific content.

Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion.

You may e-mail me if you have specific questions about the brief. The more time that I have to answer your questions, the more likely it is that I can be helpful.

If you cannot be in class on Thursday 11/24, you should still e-mail me your brief by the beginning of class time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the brief. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon as possible to see what options are available to you. (Generally, I do not want to accept assignments after we have discussed them in class). See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

IMPORTANT: If you e-mail your brief to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If I do not reply, then I have not received the assignment.

Remember to work by yourselves; do not collaborate. Do not show your work to anyone else; do not look at anyone else’s work. Do not discuss your case brief with anyone but me. To the extent that we discuss this case in class, do not share that discussion with others, even if they have missed class. Do no outside research. Do not troll the internet. Just work from the handout itself. See the syllabus regarding plagiarism and collaboration.








POS 484 CRIMINAL DUE PROCESS
In class today, Tuesday 11/12, I returned the Mitchell outlines, as well as my comment key to those outlines. We then reviewed the exclusionary rule regarding good faith compliance with binding appellate authority. We compared that with the qualified immunity question of whether a rule of police use of force is clearly established. We went through the Court's opinion in Kisela, as well as Sotomayor's dissent. We saw how their view of previous cases was the mirror image of each other, in terms of which cases were right on point, and which cases were different. We also saw how Sotomayor was willing to look at precedent from other circuits which were more closely aligned with the facts of this case.
The assignment for Thursday 11/14 is to review what has already been assigned in Chapter 8 (p. 283-294), and to read in addition through p. 301 (including Schmerber).