2302+Spring+2009+Week+Fourteen


 * The Judiciary: Contemporary Issues**

Power Point Slides -- not pretty, but the text is there.

Controversies continue to rage over the nature of the court's power. Though the concept of judicial independence is central to preservation of individual liberty (how else is the executive kept beneath the law?) a judicary dubbed too independent, too removed from the preferences of the democratic public, has to charges of imperialism.

One of the best ways to determine how the Supreme Court does its job, is to read through one of its decisions. Below you will see a small handful of court cases recently decided before the Supreme Court. I want you to review the decision fully, this means outlining the argument made in the majority opinion, the dissenting opinion and any concurring decisions offered. in order to do this you have to get comfortable with what majority, dissenting and concurrign decisions are.

I want my internet students to outline one of the decisions made in the 2007-2008 Supreme Court session. My lecture students will cover in class two court cases which have been in the news recently.

Study Guide:

- What is a test case? - What processes do cases tend to take on their way to the Supreme Court? - Why does the court tend to hear certain cases rather than others? - What is a test case? Give examples. - Why was the Warren Court so controversial? - How was the Rehnquist court a response to Warren? - What role does ideology play in the current Supreme Court? - How do presidents influence (or not) ideology on the Supreme Court? - What types of decisions are considered conservative or liberal on the court? - What internal disputes exist within each? - What is the ideological composition of the current Supreme Court? - What controveries currently exist and are likely to emerge in the future?

Assignments for Spring 2010

I want you to

[|Supreme Court] [|Supreme Court] [|The Supreme Court Historical Society] [|Oyez Project] [|Landmark Supreme Court Cases] [|Exploring Constitutional Law] [|Principles of Constitutional Construction] [|Theories of Constitutional Interpretation] [|The Right to Privacy] [|The Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause]
 * Sources**

Questions for Fall 2009 Online Students:

1 - Thoroughly define judicial review and the problems associated with it. Discuss how the power evolved and what argument Marshall used to justify it when he claimed the power in Marbury v. Madison. - [|The Judiciary Act of 1789]. - Exploring Constitutional Conflicts: [|Marbury v. Madison]. - Exploring Constitutional Conflicts: [|Judicial Review].

2 - Outline the controversies associated with how the Constitution ought to be interpreted. What are are the arguments and disputes associated with strict and loose interpretations of the document? The following links should be useful to you: - [|Principles of Constitutional Construction]. - [|Theories of Constitutional Interpretation]. - [|strict constructionism.] - [|originalism.] - [|textualism.] - [|Living Constitution.]

3. An additional dispute involves the degree to which the justices on the Supreme Court should interject their own opinions and theories about public policy and governance when they decide to apply judicial review to a particular case. I want you to outline the disputes associated with active and restrained decisions. What are the pros and cons of each? Use your searching skills to find examples of a restrained decision and an active decision. - [|Judicial activism.] - [|Judicial restraint.]

4 - One of the more noteworthy cases of recent years was [|DC v. Heller], which helped clarify the meaning of the [|Second Amendment]. I want you to describe the case and explain how it got the Supreme Court. More importantly, I want you to outline the arguments made on each side. Summarize the [|majority] decision as well as the two dissenting opinions ([|here] and [|here]). What was the major dispute between the two sides, and between the two dissenters?