McBlogmick

The Fourth Circuit just issued this case that dealt with two important fed. courts issues: the removal rule when multiple defendants are served and served at different times; and when a state law cause of action will arise under federal law for purposes of federal question jurisdiction. This case would make a good exam question or a great moot court problem!

Why is it that now that I don't teach civil rights anymore I see all of these interesting civil rights cases? Here's one about malicious prosecution. In Parish v. City of Chicago, the Seventh Circuit reaffirmed prior precedent that had held that malicious prosecution cases under § 1983 were to be analyzed as procedural due process cases. Essentially, this follows the reasoning that malicious prosecution essentially theorizes that the defendant's actions were random and unauthorized acts, rather than a law, governmental policy, or government procedure. And where an injury is caused by a random and unauthorized act, as long as there is a remedy available under state law, there is no cause of action under § 1983 for a violation of due process. That is what the Supreme Court has said about actions explicitly premised as procedural due process claims, but I'm not sure that malicious prosecution is a procedural due process claim. Malicious prosecution is an intentional tort, and usually claims that a government actor took an action for a prohibited reason are substantive and not procedural due process claims. Only two Supreme Court Justices have advocated this approach, and they glossed over the procedural/substantive distinction.Still, it doesn't look like the Seventh Circuit will be revisiting that issue any time soon.

This has nothing to do with my usual subjects, although loosely it's related to civil rights and con. law, but this is an interesting opinion from the 10th Circuit. As you may know, John Grisham wrote a nonfiction book published in 2006 about a wrongful conviction. He painted the prosecutor, a police officer, and the state criminologis in a rather negative light, and they sued Grisham along with three other men who had written about the case for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false light, and civil conspiracy. The alleged conspiracy was to abolish the death penalty, so you might guess where this is going. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, and the court of appeals affirmed in large part because public officials don't get to sue people critical of them except in a few narrow circumstances. It's an interesting opinion.

Here is the summary of section 1983. 1983.mp3

Thanks for a great first semester! Happy Thanksgiving, happy break, and safe travels!

Here's the podcast for non-Article III Courts (also known as Article I courts, legislative courts, administrative agencies, etc.). ArticleIcourts.mp3

Here is the podcast summary on state immunity from suit. immunitypodcast.mp3

I still have to do one on legislative courts and on 42 U.S.C. § 1983. I'll have the legislative courts one done tomorrow, but I will likely wait until Monday to post the podcast on section 1983.

Here's the updated podcast on Supreme Court review. scotusreview.mp3

Here is a pretty short podcast summary on diversity, supplemental, and removal jurisdiction. Otherjurisdiction.mp3

As I said in class, I'm in the process of updating all of the podcast summaries for this course. Here's the first installment on federal question jurisdiction. arisingunder.mp3

As usual, the script for this is in TWEN under "extra materials." I think that the file is in WordPerfect and not Word, but you can click on the title of the document to view it if you don't have WordPerfect.

Sorry for the delay, but I finally got a new microphone and the software to record. Here are podcasts for the first three chapters we've covered:

Introduction: FCintroduction.mp3

Justiciability: FCjusticiability.mp3

Jurisdiction Stripping: FCjurisdictionstripping.mp3

As always, feel free to email or post on TWEN questions, suggestions for other coverage, or other feedback.

The 6th Circuit allows state taxpayer standing to challenge spending by state agencies in violation of federal establishment clause. See the ACLU's press release for more details. So when you see a cause lawsuit like this one, it's important to look at what injury the plaintiffs are alleging, in what capacity they allege that they are suing, and who caused the injury in what way. These plaintiffs didn't have standing as federal taxpayers, but did as state taxpayers.

As we all get back into the swing of things, I wanted to share some links for useful information on organizing, note taking, and productivity. First, one don't: Don't try to multitask. It turns out that we're not good at it. Second, one do: Do write about what you are reading or have heard. Writing and otherwise manipulating ideas, is learning.It's not easy, but it's worth it.

Here is a link to an overview of some cognitive psychology--it's called Bloom's taxonomy of learning, and it describes the different kinds of learning we do, and the difficulty level. Most people who come to law school are excellent at the knowledge and comprehension levels and expect that these are what they need to continue to do well in law school. That is true, but only as a first step. We're trying to get you to become experts at all of the other levels that follow, and it is those kinds of learning you must demonstrate on exams.

So how do you get there? Here is one link about note taking and different ways to do it, and here is another (yes, I'm addicted to lifehacker). Here is another link about a particular method--one that I was actually taught in junior high school. Craziness, but it's particularly useful for reading assignments.

Here is a general productivity description in the model of David Allen's "Getting things Done." And just to round things out, here is a good link on stress management.

Happy new semester!

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?