McBlogmick

Here are podcasts covering the first part of class:

The introductory material, crintrotheory.mp3

Equal access to education, creducpod.mp3

Public Accommodations and Housing, crpubaccomhsgpod.mp3

Administration of justice, cradminjustpod.mp3

You should note that the chapter on administration of justice could be linked with a lot of the specific section 1983 materials we studied. Protected groups as victims could be linked with the affirmative duties stuff we read, for example.

All right, this is a whopper, I know, but here are the podcasts that already exist for the rest of the semester for Fed. Courts and for Civil Rights. A note for my Fed. Cts students: because we're covering civil rights in the last third of class, just listen to those podcasts to understand the material we're going to cover. They may go into more detail than you need, but they're still pretty general. For my Civil Rights students: I will try to get podcast summaries of the first part of the semester done over Spring Break.

fcts4.mp3 (Congress' power over the jurisdiction of the fed. cts.)

fcts5.mp3 (subject matter jurisdiction)

fcts6.mp3 (Supreme Court review of state courts)

fcts7.mp3 (Diversity, supplemental jurisdiction, and removal).

fcts8.mp3 (abstention--we didn't cover this, but just in case you're dying to know)

clpod1.mp3 (Intro to 1983)

clpod2.mp3 (under color of state law)

crpod3.mp3 (substantive constitutional law enforceable under 1983)

crpod4.mp3 (affirmative constitutional duties and enforcement of statutes)

crpod5.mp3 (municipal liability)

crpod6.mp3 (causation)

crpod7.mp3 (individual immunities)

crpod8.mp3 (procedural defenses--I'm not sure we discuss these, but I throw it in just in case)

The NYT had a really interesting article Sunday about a man killed in Texas. He was black, they were white, they all were friends, and the community is divided. Some questions you might think about while reading this are:

1. Just because the accused and the victim were friends, does that negate the possibility that this was racially motivated?

2. What does it say about the community that the two weren't charged until after an outcry. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

3. How might the DOJ's community mediators called in help to work this out?

4. And how might the community heal and move forward?

I'm guest blogging at PrawfsBlawg this month. Feel free to stroll by and heckle.

You may have listened to the archived civil rights podcasts or looked at the scripts on TWEN and thought, "Hey?! What is this stuff?! Where are the podcasts on identity theories and equal educational opportunity?!" Well, they don't exist yet. I haven't had a chance this semester to write those, and I don't think I will have a chance for at least a couple of weeks. Everything you currently have access to is what we will cover in the last half of the semester--Section 1983 and Bivens claims. I'll keep you posted on my progress and apologize for the delay. In the meantime, let me know if you have questions.

Cheers!

Here are the first three podcasts for federal courts: fcts1.mp3, fcts2.mp3, fcts3.mp3

On we go!

So Larry Langford, Mayor of Birmingham got arrested in a kickback scheme, and today, Rod Blagojevich, Illinois' governor was arrested for making Illinois state government a pay to play system. Lots of good stuff in there . . .

Here is everything for the last unit of the semester on the safety net statutes: The Fair Labor Standards Act flsa.mp3, ERISA Chapter12.mp3, OSHA/Workers Comp Chapter13.mp3, and two bonuses (which we didn't get to and won't be on the final but you might be curious about), arbitration Chapter14.mp3, and ways employers have sought to increase employee voice Chapter15.mp3.

I was in such a hurry to get to the general defenses that I accidentally skipped over the podcast on doctrines of imputation. Here it is: crimpod7.mp3

You might find this current case interesting in light of our discussion in class on immaturity. Prosecutors in St. Johns, Arizona are seeking to try an 8-year-old as an adult. The article also explains the process the parties will have to go through to make the determination.

So, here is the podcast covering all of the general defenses. It includes information on subjects we didn't cover to help make the big picture a bit more clear, but you don't need to know those other defenses in any detail. Gendefense.mp3

Here's the podcast for the unit on Employment Discrimination. It's long compared to the others, but still appropriately big-picture. wlempdiscpod.mp3

Here is dignity, chapter8.mp3, and here is voice chapter9.mp3.

crimpod6.mp3

The blog of the Legal Times and the New York Times report that Justice Alito has opted out of the cert. pool. That's the way that petitions for certiorari are deliberated on. The law clerks for the justices in the pool divide the petitions, read only those assigned to them and write a memo with a recommendation. So each cert petition gets a single memo from the pool. The justices often (although not always) make determinations based on that single memo. Justice Stevens was the only justice not in the pool. His clerks went through all of the petitions and offered their own memos to him.

So what does this mean? Well, some efficiency may be lost, and it could translate into a more shallow evaluation of cert petitions by those clerks not in the pool. They have a lot more to read and consider. At the same time, this may provide an important check on the homogeneizing trend of the cert pool.

It also might signal something important about a transition, as we look to a new administration. Although a Republican appointee (Nixon appointed him to the 7th circuit in 1970 and Ford appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1975) Justice Stevens may be, at least on some issues, the most liberal justice on the court. He also took his position as the only justice not in the cert pool very seriously. That Alito has opted out may relate to what Justice Stevens' colleauges are ensuring will remain after he is no longer on the court, regardless of who might replace him.

Of course, he might not be gearing up to retire. He's 88 now, but he won't be the oldest justice to serve on the court until early 2011. And he won't be the longest-serving justice in the history of the court until mid-2012.