Department of Politics

Class Meetings, Required Readings, & Instructor Contact: Daily 9-11 South 300, except after Dec. 10 when meetings will be as needed in the Council Chambers of Mt. Vernon City Hall (lower level), 213 1st. St. NW. Required readings will be from T. R. van Geel, Understanding Supreme Court Opinions (5th ed.) and Supreme Conflict (Bookstore) plus photocopied case materials as distributed. Dr. Sutherland is the person to contact and the best way to reach him is by e-mail. Voice mail (4226) and campus mail (2412) contacts are much slower, generally 48 hours slower.

Formal Expectations: Court room standards will apply consistently in classroom decorum and conduct. The following are examples of such expectations. No casual forms of address are to be used in class. The instructors are to be called "Judge Hansen" and "Professor Sutherland." Similarly, students should avoid referring openly in class to one another by first names or without including "Mr." or "Ms." Robes will be provided and worn by instructors and students alike when acting as judges. Petitioners and respondents in oral argument should be in business attire and others should avoid casual clothes whenever the class meets whether oral argument is being conducted or not. All pagers and mobile phones must be turned off during class. If you have questions or concerns about these policies, please contact Professor Sutherland.

Organization: Except in the opening two days of the course, each class meeting will be devoted to a different current case (see below) before the Supreme Court. These cases will be assigned for oral argument or for general class discussion. The cases subject only to general class discussion are concentrated more in the early part of the course to enable students to prepare their assigned cases for later oral argument. In these earlier class meetings, the case for the day will be prepared by the whole class so that all are ready to answer Socratic questions from the instructor addressed to various individual students. Such questioning will continue in the later class meetings of the course but only in the general discussion following oral arguments. The first half of the class meeting during each oral argument day in the later period of the course will be reserved for students acting for the petitioner and respondent in a current case before the Supreme Court. Oral argument will be heard by a panel of judges, to include Judge Hansen or Professor Sutherland and two students. Assignment of cases and roles will be done by drawing lots on the first day of the course.

Grades: Case preparation, participation in general discussion, the quality of student responses to Socratic questions, and the quality of student questions as a judge all contribute in determining 15% of the final grade. Performance in oral argument will determine 25% of the final grade. A midterm exam is scheduled for the second hour of class on Friday, December 7th (5%). The course concludes with an exam (25%) and a paper (30%). In the paper, students will write the opinion that they expect the Court to hand down in their orally argued case. In the exam, students will demonstrate their understanding of the Court and the cases currently before it. The final exam includes two components. The first part includes multiple, specific questions to evaluate what students have learned about the Supreme Court, especially how it operates and by what authorities. The second part is hypothetical and more like an essay. The student will be asked to apply some of the legal principles derived from the cases studied and do so in a reasoned lawyer-like manner to a multi-faceted fact situation contained in the essay question.