Comparative Justice Assignments Posted

I have posted your Country Report and Writing Assignments on the course website (here). Please pick a country and date to give your oral report as soon as possible. You may e-mail me with your selection. Thanks.

Mock Trial Teams and Assignment

I've assigned the teams below. If you would like to change your assignment e-mail me and I will try to accommodate. These are likely to change before we compete.

Your assignment for Wednesday is to prepare a short oral summary of your argument. It should contain:
1. A statement of the result you are seeking. You may be specific or general here, but tell the judge/jury how you want them to rule.
2. Why you think that ruling is justified. Here identify the legal criteria that support the ruling you seek and the facts that support them. Be sure to name the three (3) witnesses you would call to support your case. You do not need to cite statutes and cases by name and number but you may if you wish.

Don't forget that our Monday classes will meet in PUP 354 from now on.

Here are the team assignments:

A
Marina
Ghazal
Steve
Someya
Surena
Demetria

B
Shannon
Alex
Humberto
Pouyan
Allison
Meredith

C
Kinjal
Ashley
Malini
Chris M
Chris C
Tanya
Jessica

Military Lawyers Object to Bush Torture Policies

On July 20 President Bush issued an executive order outlining the rules for interrogating terrorist suspects. In a conference, "Top military lawyers have told senators that President Bush's new rules for CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists could allow abuses that violate the Geneva Conventions." The language in the order that military lawyers and human rights groups object to prohibits "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual." The concern is that the President's order allows interrogators to use "outrageous acts of personal abuse" as long as the purpose is to gather information. This would clearly violate the Geneva Convention.
The Boston Globe has more.
Also, see this Amnesty International report.
Take action on this issue.

Pakistan Supreme Court Allows Exile to Return

The Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that the chief opponent of Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, can return home from exile. In doing so the Court rejected arguments by the government at set the stage for an election confrontation between Musharraf and the man he overthrew in the 1999 coup, Nawaz Sharif. The decision is a sign of growing independence on the part of Pakistan's judiciary. The International Herald Tribune has more.

Review

Here's the review post. Don't forget Hima's review at 5:00 today in the pre-law office. Here are the cases we covered. Remember principles of law we covered earlier may appear to the extent they are relevant to our current cases. Also, we discussed Lopez and Wickard in class:
US v. EC Knight,
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin,
Heart of Atlanta v. US,
US v. Morrison,
SD v. Dole,
Slaughterouse Cases,
Lochner v. NY,
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish

Answers to the Writing Assignment

Did you wonder who Al Dreyfus, Ethel Rosenberg, and Leo Frank were ? Hash out the writing assignment issues here if you like.

The Rehnquist Court by Herman Schwartz

The State’s Right Assault on Federal Authority:

The five conservative justices Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy show a strong adherence to states rights in theory, such as when it comes to Ronald Regan’s attack on the New Deal and other efforts to help ordinary Americans. However, when it came to Bush v. Gore these ideals were abandoned.

1. The court has struck down federal legislations
a. Federal government passed Child Labor Act, which was struck down in 1918 and again four years later when the federal government tried again. The federal government passed this law because states were unable to deal with this problem.
b. The New Deal
1. resulted in a large transfer of power to the federal branch with the many federal programs and agencies that were created.
2. enraged conservatives due to higher taxes, bigger government, and redistribution of wealth. the five member conservative majority struck down his policies for stepping on states rights
3. However conservative justices started to leave the court and the commerce clause and the post- Civil war Fourteenth Amendment were applied to justify New Deal policies.

2. Rehnquist takes office 1972
a. raised in a conservative family
1. and as a clerk a strong supporter of separate but equal doctrine. However, he denied these beliefs even though there is considerable proof showing this.
2. “It is about time the court faced the fact that white people in the south don’t like the colored people; the Constitution restrains them from effecting this dislike through state action, but it most assuredly did not appoint the court as a sociological watchdog to rear up every time private discrimination raised its admittedly ugly head.”
3. Upholds states rights in cases- National League of Cities v. Usery

3. 1991- 5 conservative justice majority: Thomas, Rehnquist, Kennedy, O’Connor, and Scalia.
a. delivered rulings that struck down federal gov’t from requiring that state officials implement federal law.
b. Struck down cases involving the commerce clause:
1. U.S v. Lopez- struck down federal law criminalizing possession of guns in a schools zone. Court struck it down because there was no economic transaction and there was no effect on interstate travel.

4. Broadening the Scope of the Eleventh amendment:
a. the court has developed a stated sovereignty doctrine where it allows states to prevent money damage suits against itself, even by its own citizens in state courts. This was never approved by the congress or written in the constitution.
1. Cases showing this: City of Boerne v. Flores and Employment Division v. Smith

5. The Roles, Rights, and Responsibilities of the Executive Branch:
a. The supreme court has made increasingly difficult for citizens to challenge federal authority
1. In the freedom of Information Act the court is supposed to balance privacy rights against the public’s rights. However, the court has sided with privacy rights above the public’s rights.
2. The court has given considerable authority to businesses to sue complaining about overregulation. And it has held that the government should not be favored in these lawsuits.
3. The court has sided with the business when states try to apply more stringent policies than the federal government on businesses.