GOVT 2302
Task 1: "The Courts, Liberties & Rights, & the Law"

Fall 2009 
Dr. Garrison

 last revised 8-21-09
(shea/tx2e/fal09)
 

     Task 1 is worth 100 points and is due in class no later than September 17, 2009.  Write at least three full pages of thoughtful commentary and critical analysis of your choice listed below.
      Also please find New York Times news stories and op-ed writing regarding the most recent Supreme Court cases about your chosen topic. Write in your own words. Use legalese as little as possible. Quote sparingly. Some of the television programs, streaming video, movies, films, etc. are available in the Library. Please submit your writing to Turnitin for analysis. Revise your writing if needed before submitting your paper to the professor.
     Choose one:
    
Choice a. Choose one of the following from your MyPoliSciLab judiciary chapters:
You Are a Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Judith Gray (p. 106)
You Are the President and Need to Appoint a Supreme Court Justice (p. 115)
You Are a Supreme Court Justice Deciding a Free Speech Case (p. 118)
You Are a Young Lawyer (p. 122)


Choice b. Choose one of the following from your MyPoliSciLab and civil liberties chapter:
Simulation: You Are a Police Officer
 Simulation: Balancing Liberty and Security at a Time of War
Visual Literacy: What Speech Is Protected by the Constitution?
Visual Literacy: Race and the Death Penalty
 Participation: Civil Liberties in Today's World: Privacy and Rights of the Accused
 


 Choice b.  Choose one of the following from your MyPoliSciLab civil rights chapter:
 Simulation: You Are the Mayor
 Timeline: The Struggle for Equal Protection
 Participation: Civil Rights and Gay Adoption

Choice c Television program/Online viewing: Spying on the Home Front             

9/11 has indelibly altered America in ways that people are now starting to earnestly question: not only perpetual orange alerts, barricades and body frisks at the airport, but greater government scrutiny of people's records and electronic surveillance of their communications. The watershed, officials tell FRONTLINE, was the government's shift after 9/11 to a strategy of pre-emption at home -- not just prosecuting terrorists for breaking the law, but trying to find and stop them before they strike.

      Watch this Frontline program (60 minutes) and consider the topic and the Fourth Amendment in particular.

Choice d.  Television program/Online viewing: The Last Abortion Clinic    
      "Sometimes I do fantasize about Roe being overturned," admits the abortion clinic owner interviewed by FRONTLINE. "Because then I think that there would be this real threat, this real enemy. Many young women who take all these rights for granted would suddenly realize what they've lost and the consequences of that."

     Watch this Frontline program (60 minutes) and consider Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Ayotte case, and the right to privacy in particular. Update this issue with the partial birth abortion ban case of 2007.

Choice e. the PBS documentary television series The Supreme Court.
      Watch the television series The Supreme Court in streaming video. The series is also available on DVD at the SCC LRC. Also utilize the materials at the accompanying web site. Concentrate especially on the civil liberties and civil rights issues and cases mentioned in the programs and web site.
    Choose one of the landmark cases at The Supreme Court web site for critical comment and analysis. Preferably choose a civil liberties or civil rights landmark. Also choose a famous dissenting opinion for consideration and comment in your paper.
     Play the games at the web site and include them in your written comments and analysis. What is the point of the "Just Change" section of The Supreme Court web site? Cite one example of change including the two cases involved.
     Where do the Supreme Court justices seek instruction and insight when preparing their decisions? Cite one or two examples.  Choose the biography of a sitting Justice that interests you. Include some of the interesting biographical facts in your paper. Choose one of the famous quotations etched in stone at the web site. Include it in your paper and write a commentary about it.  What does Professor Rosen say about the future of the Supreme Court?

Choice f. The Supreme Court web site
      Utilize the materials at the web site. Test your knowledge with Talking About My Constitution and each of its parts: First Amendment Freedoms, Civil Rights, Right to Privacy, and The Death  Penalty. Write about the cases and rulings. Where do the Supreme Court justices seek instruction and insight when preparing their decisions? Cite one or two examples. Choose the biography of a sitting Justice that interests you. Include some of the interesting biographical facts in your paper. Choose one of the famous quotations etched in stone at the web site. Include it in your paper and write a commentary about it.
   

 

Choice g. Movie: North Country
     See the movie about Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., the first court case regarding sexual harassment inspired by the book titled Class Action: The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler.   Concentrate on the law of sexual harassment and the Constitution and Joanna Grossman, "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Undercuts Sexual Harassment Victims' Rights: How the Decision Underlines Problems with the Supreme Court's Approach To Hostile Environment Harassment," Findlaw.com, April 3, 2007.  For movies write so specifically that there is no doubt that you viewed the film. The movie is available in the Library and elsewhere.

Choice h. Movie: "Dirty Pictures"
     See the movie available in the Library and elsewhere based on a art museum controversy about Robert Mapplethorpe's photography.  See Mapplethorpe's photographs on line or in library books.  What is the Supreme Court's current definition of obscenity? Concentrate on the law of obscenity and the First Amendment's freedom of expression. For movies write so specifically that there is no doubt that you viewed the film.

Choice i.  Documentary film: "Unconstitutional "
     See the Robert Greenwald film "Unconstitutional" now available in the LRC and on DVD. Also comment on the U. S. Patriot Act and "the war on our civil liberties."  See also www.disinfo.com.


Choice j. Motion Picture: Gideon's Trumpet
     See the Hollywood film of the case  or if you wish read the popular book Gideon's Trumpet. The film is one of the last roles of the distinguished actor Henry Fonda about the famous case Gideon v. Wainwright (1964).

 

  Choice k. Television & Online program: Frontline: When Kids Get Life
On-Air & Online | Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 9 - 10:30 pm

The U.S. is one of the very few countries in the world that allows children under 18 to be prosecuted as adults and sentenced to life without parole. Producer Ofra Bikel visits five young men in Colorado sentenced to life without parole to examine their crimes and punishment, the laws that sanctioned their convictions and the prospect of never being free again. (CC, Stereo, DVI, 1 year)

In spite of the dire predictions of the '80s and '90s, teenage crime rates have gone down. Fear of young offenders seems to have subsided. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles, and there were some discussions across the country about re-examining the harsh punishments meted out to juvenile offenders.

View our online state-by-state map showing stats on juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Plus, log on to washingtonpost.com/liveonline to talk about the program on May 9 at 11 am ET.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/whenkidsgetlife/ (Available May 8, 2007 )
      Watch this Frontline program (60 minutes) and consider the topic and the Eighth Amendment in particular.

Choice l.  Attend a complete trial at the federal district court in Sherman, Plano, or Dallas, Texas.
 

 

Choice m.  Attend a complete trial at the Collin County courts in McKinney, Texas or your county's courts.
 

Choice n.  See and read about the Texas courts and legal system and Habeas Corpus: Writs Gone Wrong at the Austin American-Statesman web site and the Texas death penalty at the Dallas Morning News web site: "Death No More: The Texas Death Penalty." In your writing thoroughly discuss the issues involved in this critique of the Texas state courts including: What is the writ of habeas corpus? Describe the appeals process. What is meant by a potential "backlash" from the U. S. Supreme Court? Specifically, what is the criticism of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals regarding the death penalty and habeas petitions? What is meant by "Texas gets what it pays for"? What is the State Bar of Texas' role in this issue? Cite the examples of lawyers Toby Wilkinson, Stephen Taylor, and Richard Alley. Update this issue by including the April 2008 Supreme Court decision regarding lethal injection and the Court's oral argument of the Louisiana child rape case. How do these two issues apply to the Texas death penalty?


Choice o.  Watch the PBS American Experience program "A Class Apart" about Mexican-American civil rights in Texas and the Southwest and the civil rights case of Hernandez v. Texas.

Choice p. The Nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States
                   Write about the current nomination of Sotomayor based on articles (at least five) from the New York Times, the Washington  Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News and other reputable articles, opinion pieces, and new stories

Choice q. Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man? See David Grann, "Trial by Fire," The New Yorker, September 7, 2009.
         
Writing & Documentation of Papers

      Evaluating reference sources is very important. Follow these guidelines especially when evaluating sources from the Internet: Straight From the Source at FactCheckEd.org
     Be sure to properly document your paper internally with parenthetical references. Always provide a reference list listing all sources as the last page of the paper.  Following the writing instructions at Writing & Documenting Papers.  YOUR PAPER WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED WITHOUT PROPER DOCUMENTATION.
      NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED. Any exceptions to this policy must be negotiated with the professor in advance.
 

    

 

 

  

 

 
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