CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

SPRING 2008

Professor Susanna Fischer

Office: Room 412

Phone: 202-319-5568

E-mail: fischerATlaw.edu

COURSE OUTLINE

Welcome to the study of constitutional law!  This course is a survey course designed to provide a basic overview of the constitution of the United States as it has been interpreted and explained by the Supreme Court of the United States for more than two hundred years since its ratification.   In this course, we will study the basic structure and powers of our federal system of government and its three branches, as well as the constitution’s protection of individual rights.   The course is divided into two units: (1) Federalism and Separation of Powers; (2) Constitutional Protection for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.  We will study constitutional law using the case method, focusing on learning through reading and discussing particular cases, most of which have been edited or digested by the authors of the course casebook.

The goals of this course include:

1.  To ensure that students gain a solid grounding in the fundamentals of U.S. constitutional law.

2.  To show students how constitutional doctrines have developed over time.

3.  To introduce students to different methods of constitutional interpretation.

3.  To work on improving written examination technique.

4.  To prepare students for the constitutional law portion of the Multistate Bar Examination (Note: students are strongly advised to also take a bar preparation course closer to the time of the Bar Examination).

5.  To improve oral communication skills through participation in class discussion.

6.  To enjoy studying constitutional law.

A.    Course Materials

1.    Required Texts

The required books are: Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law (2d ed. 2005) (Aspen) and the accompanying Statutory Supplement (2007).  Both are available for purchase at the CUA bookstore.  Be careful to purchase the casebook, not the treatise, which the bookstore mistakenly ordered as the required text in December, 2007.  You may find the treatise, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies (third ed. 2006) (Aspen) to be a helpful resource.

2.     Outside Sources

i.    Treatise

The leading multivolume treatise on constitutional law is Lawrence Tribe, American Constitutional Law,  which is available in our law school library on reserve.  Other treatises that you may find helpful are John Nowak and Ronald Rotunda, Constitutional Law (c. 2004) (on reserve in our library) and Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies (3d ed. Aspen, 2006) (ordered for reserve in our library)

Cases

a. Reporters

The three printed reporters that publish the full text of Supreme Court opinions are: the official United States Supreme Court Reports, and the two unofficial reporters, West's Supreme Court Reporter and Lexis Law Publishing’s United States Reports, Lawyer's Edition. These are all available in our Law Library (U.S. Reports are at Floor Two, Aisle 223A, Supreme Court Reporter at Floor Two, Aisle 224A, and Lawyers Edition is at Floor Two Aisles 224B). Each of these reporters has bound volumes and advance sheets.   Supreme Court decisions reported in the United States Supreme Court Reports are typically cited like this: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).  This citation consists of the names of the parties, the volume year, “U.S” (for the name of the reporter), the page number on which the decision begins, and the year the case was decided.

Supreme Court opinions are published in print in the looseleaf service U.S. Law Week several days after the decision.  This is available in our library at the Circulation Desk.  It is also available on the web at Supreme Court Today (you should ask at the Circulation Desk for how to get access to this).

b.  Digests  West and Lexis both publish a Supreme Court digest to help with finding opinions.  Both have a Table of Cases listing every case the Supreme Court has decided as well as a citation to the full text of the decision.  These are available in our Library at Floor Two, Aisle 236A.

c. Briefs

Our Law Library has a microfiche collection of records and briefs of cases argued before the Supreme Court since the 1974 term.  You can go to Georgetown University’s Law Library to get older briefs from 1832. See Online materials section below for how to get electronic copies of briefs.

d.     Oral Arguments

Our Law Library has transcripts of oral arguments on microfilm since 1953 (though oral arguments were not regularly transcribed until 1969).  The Oyez project at http://www.oyez.org/ has digitized recordings and transcripts of oral argument for hundreds of cases.  Our library has audiotapes of oral argument in 23 well-known Supreme Court cases that were published in 1993, entitled May it Please the Court: The Most Significant Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court Since 1955 (on reserve).   The National Archives has tapes of oral arguments since 1955. For more information, go to http://www.archives.gov/

iii.  Online Materials

a. Supreme Court Opinions

Lexis and Westlaw are have Supreme Court opinions in their databases within an hour after they are announced.  Lexis and Westlaw also have all other decisions of the Court such as denials of certiorari and grants/denials of motions.    You can search for opinions written by a particular justice or involving a particular party.  Other sites that have Supreme Court opinions are: United States Supreme Court. Opinions are available beginning with the October, 2000 term; Findlaw (searchable database of Supreme Court decisions from 1893); Legal Information Institute (database of Supreme Court opinions issued since May 1990 and hundreds of other older decisions); GPO Access Supreme Court Decisions (searchable database for the years 1937-1975)

b. Briefs

Lexis also has the full text of all briefs (including amicus briefs) in cases where the Court has granted review since 1979 and Westlaw has Supreme Court briefs starting with those filed during the 1990-91 term (not including amicus briefs prior to October Term 1995).

You can also find electronic copies of briefs at the following places:

c.     Oral Arguments

  • Lexis and Westlaw publish the full text of oral arguments (from 1979 for Lexis, and 1990 for Westlaw).  The Supreme Court also has an archive on its website of transcripts starting with cases argued during the October 2000 term at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/oral_arguments.html.   These electronic transcripts are posted within two weeks after the transcripts are completed.  
  • The 2003 University of Michigan affirmative action cases were published by C-SPAN in 1 videocassette (featuring still picture images of the participants with audio only original broadcast on April 1, 2003 on C-SPAN Radio). The tape is titled Supreme Court Oral Arguments: [of University of Michigan affirmative action cases] Media (3rd Floor) KF4755.5 S86 2003 Video.
  • C-SPAN's America and the Courts also has the oral arguments (featuring still picture images of the participants with audio) of Rasul v. Bush, Al Odah V. U.S., Cheney v. U.S. District Court, Hamidi v. Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld v. Padilla.

d.     Supreme Court Website

This useful resource at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/ has, inter alia, information about the Court, its docket, its rules (last revised 2005), the Journal of the Supreme Court from October Term

iii.  Historical Materials

Yale University's Avalon Project has made the Federalist Papers freely available for download at: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed.htm 

The Supreme Court Historical Socieety is at: http://www.supremecourthistory.org/

B.    Attendance

Class meets on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m..  Class attendance is mandatory. This law school’s Academic Rules (in the CUA Announcements) provide that "[r]egular and punctual attendance at class meetings or equivalent course exercises is a condition of receiving credit in all courses." (See Academic Rules V.1) You will be required to sign in at every class to record your attendance. If you fail to sign in, I will regard you as absent. Be aware that if you miss "more than two hours of course work for each credit hour assigned to the course," you may be excluded from the course. (See Academic Rules V.1)  

I also expect you to be on time for every class. Tardy students are highly distracting to the rest of the class.  I reserve the right to treat late arrival as if you were absent from the class.

C.    Class Participation

I expect all students to be prepared (see section D below for the meaning of "prepared") for all class sessions and will therefore feel free to call on students randomly. This applies even when I ask some students to bear primary responsibility for initiating discussion on particular material by being on call -any such request will not exclude others from being randomly called on for further discussion or elaboration of that same material. Nor will the fact that you have recently been called on immunize you from potentially being called on again during the same class period.

I will prepare and distribute an “on call” list indicating the class sessions for which you should be especially prepared to be called on.  If you are unprepared during your on call classes without prior permission from me, this may affect your final course grade.  See Academic Rules V.4.  Your participation in class discussion can affect your final course grade, either adversely or favorably (see Academic Rules V.4).  Please bear in mind that my standard of excellence for class discussion is not based on the quantity, but rather the quality of your contributions to class discussion.   

In the class setting of this Socratic course, which emphasizes learning through discussion, you must learn to tolerate and appreciate each of your classmates.  You can learn a great deal from listening to each other.  Many of your classmates’ backgrounds or particular skills may help you to see things in a way that you could not by yourself.

You should exercise consideration for your classmates by carefully assessing your own behavior in class.  Try to view yourself objectively.  Are you talking too much and monopolizing the discussion?  If so, try to refrain from talking for a while to let someone else have a chance.  If, on the other hand, you have been too silent and passive in class, please make the effort to volunteer to speak. 

Playing computer games, surfing the Internet, or sending email or IMs during class can be highly distracting to other students.  Students are prohibited from using the Internet or wireless communication devices during class other than for approved class purposes.  I may bar individual students that I have found in violation of this policy from bringing laptops or other communication devices to class.  I sincerely hope I will not have to do that. 

D.    Preparing for Class

The Syllabus of reading assignments is posted online.  To access, go Back to the Spring 2008 Constitutional law Home Page and click on the Syllabus.  Any revisions to the reading assignments and/or to this Course Outline will be announced in class, on the Web site, and via e-mail.  If you are confused about the assignment for a particular class, please contact me, preferably by e-mail.

It is your responsibility to prepare adequately for each class.  To be adequately prepared, it is necessary to do more than simply read through (or even worse, skim, save where expressly authorized in the Reading List) the assigned material.  You should carefully read and brief each assigned case in the Casebook and look up all statutory and treaty references in the Statutory Supplement.  Your goal should be to acquire a sufficiently analytical understanding of the assigned materials to that you can appropriately advise on hypothetical fact patterns that you have never seen before.

E.    Examination and Grading

There will be a final examination at the end of this semester.  It will be a three-hour examination which will be administered at the law school.   You will be given an extra half hour to review and check your work.  I will provide students with a separate memorandum later in the semester on how to prepare for the final examination and details of the course material that will be tested.  Your course grade will be based primarily on this examination, but I have discretion to raise or lower your final course grade based on my assessment of your class participation.  See above at section C.  

You will also be required to do three take-home assignments during the semester.  These will count as part of your class participation so can, cumulatively and in conjunction with other aspects of your class participation, affect your final course grade by one grade step.  I will provide written feedback on these assignments.   If you would like additional feedback, you should schedule an individual meeting with me.   

F.    Finding Me

My office is located on the fourth floor of the law school and is room number 412. My office telephone number is 202-319-5568 and my e-mail address is fischerATlaw.edu

My office hours are on Mondays immediately after class ends at 12:15 p.m. until 1:15 p.m.  I am happy to meet with you at other times at mutual convenience.  You can arrange a specific appointment with me by phone or e-mail, or you can drop by and take your chances.  Occasionally I may have to reschedule my office hours for a particular week. I will notify everyone in class and by e-mail if this is the case, and will arrange an alternate time.

G.    Prohibition of Tape or Video Recording Without Prior Permission

I do not authorize any tape or video recording of my classes by or on behalf of any student in this course without my prior express permission.  You may seek permission by e-mailing me at fischerATlaw.edu

H.    Class Listserv

During the first class, you will be asked to provide me with your preferred e-mail address. This will be added to a class listserv to enable e-mail messages to be sent to all members of the class. I will expect you to check your e-mail regularly (i.e. every weekday). If your e-mail address changes, it is your responsibility to send an update to me at fischerATlaw.edu

© 2008  Susanna Frederick Fischer.  All Rights Reserved.