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| Term: |
Class Index |
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VD10PS150: Judicial Politics and Constitutional Interpretation
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| Details |
Class |
Students |
Bulletin |
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| When: |
03/25/10 - 06/03/10 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM Thursdays
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| Professors:
Jess Bravin
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Nick Bravin
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| TA: | |
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Location: | Conference Room, Floor 11, Room 1104
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Syllabus: |
None Defined
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| Description: |
Judicial Politics and Constitutional Interpretation
This course will introduce students to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. First, it will quickly cover the Court’s institutional history and its power and position within the tripartite system of the federal government and the dual-sovereignty structure of the federal-state model. This section of the course, comprising the first two weeks, will focus on important founding documents, such as the Constitution itself, the Judiciary Act of 1789, and several key Federalist Papers, as well as seminal early cases in which the Court interpreted its role and solidified its institutional standing, chief among them, Marbury v. Madison.
The course will then outline the major eras of the Court’s history: from Marbury through Dred Scott and the Civil War up to the New Deal Court in 1937; the New Deal Court and the Warren Court, to 1969; the post-Warren period to 2005; and the current period, beginning with the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005. In laying out the history, the role of precedent in the common law system will be stressed, illustrating how the Court differs from the political branches in its methods of reasoning and decision-making, and the particular role that the individual personalities of the justices can play.
After these introductory classes, the course will shift to focus on current issues before the Supreme Court. Each week students will examine a new case being considered by the Court or set for oral argument. Students will read the main briefs in each case and several of the leading precedents on which the case will turn. Through these readings, students will learn how to read a Supreme Court case, and will be exposed to the techniques of appellate advocacy. Students will also read news coverage of the cases they are studying, and learn how the highly-stylized Supreme Court language and the often complicated, technical issues before the justices are transmitted to the public. Students will be required to attend at least one complete oral argument at the Court, either through a class field trip or on their own, and to listen to an archived recording of an historic argument in a case such as Miranda v. Arizona, Roe v. Wade, or Bush v. Gore.
For the first five weeks we expect the class structure to be that of a typical seminar – a short lecture followed by focused discussion about the topic or case at issue and the legal landscape in which it arises. We expect, as the students become more familiar with the Court’s language, procedures and decision-making process, the class will become something of a cross between a typical seminar and a debate or legal deliberation. To bring out this impulse we are planning to conduct exercises in which students will argue and judge the cases for themselves. Students will play the roles of the lawyers arguing the case and the justices considering it. Through this process we expect students to begin to understand some of the doctrinal and interpretive approaches to the law across all cases, as well as the specific substantive issues at play in each case – and the challenges of encapsulating the issues in a clear, concise way. We plan to invite a small number of guest speakers who can add their perspectives, possibly including journalist Lyle Denniston, who had covered the Court since 1958 and now blogs on it; William Suter, the retired Army general who is clerk of the court and thus its top manager; and Walter Dellinger, solicitor general in the Clinton administration and former clerk for Justice Hugo Black.
Besides covering the Court’s historical origins, its institutional power and limitations, and its current cases, this course will attempt to de-mystify one of the nation’s most cloistered governmental institutions. Students will learn the nuts and bolts of what happens to a case from the day a petition to review a certain dispute arrives at the Supreme Court until the day the justices issue a final opinion on the matter, including all the intermediate steps that result in the Court declining to consider over 99% of the cases. Students will also learn about the Court’s composition and the appointment process, as well as basic legal research using free online tools. Still, this is not a law school class, or even a class designed for those intent on law school. This is a generalist class intended to give students of any academic focus a working knowledge of an important, often-overlooked and sometimes inscrutable government body. |
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