SAMPLE ASSIGNMENTS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
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    Here are some written or non-written assignments for this course, most of which are essay-type responses to questions regarding the online lectures. You may refer to the online lectures in constructing your answers, but don't rely on them.  Some answers are so short that they can be contained in the email message; others will require a Microsoft Word attachment to an email. This page describes the assignments.    

    PRACTICUM #1: Where in the Constitution or Bill of Rights would someone find an expression of the following rights? Indicate your answer by referencing what CLAUSE where you think the right is articulated or implied. For example, if I ask where one might find the right to open a lemonade stand, you would say the COMMERCE CLAUSE. All you really need to do (at minimum) for this assignment is tell me which one (and only one) clause you think best articulates or implies each right. You're free to explain your answers, but it's not necessary for this practicum unless you feel the need to explain yourself (which you should to some extent to ensure your reasoning is coming across to the instructor who may give you extra points for writing more). Use whatever sources you see fit, especially all the various clauses, theories, and doctrines discussed in class, but perhaps some other imaginative or creative source if you think so, but if you are being imaginative, please indicate your reasoning. Otherwise, just pick the most appropriate clause(s), and don't pick a whole bunch of them in hopes one of them is right.

    (a) Right to Travel (as in across state lines freely)
    (b) Right to Work (as in the availability of decent work)
    (c) Right to Die (as in assisted suicide if you're vegetative)
    (d) Right to Know (as in Freedom of information Act, for example)
    (e) Right to Educate (as in getting smarter)

    PRACTICUM #2: How do each of the following constitute or not constitute a home or protected dwelling for 4th Amendment purposes? Why or why not? Don't just use some blanket explanation for all of them. Treat each one as unique, as not otherwise violating any property laws (i.e., assume no trespassing on public or private land is taking place), and analyze each one within 4th amendment jurisprudence.

a. Tent
b. Lean-to
c. Cardboard box
d. Motor home
e. parked vehicle
f. docked sailboat
g. furnished cave in side of mountain
h. shack made out of bamboo & vines
i. homemade underground shelter

    In terms of privacy, rank the following in terms of various degrees of intrusiveness. Rearrange the following from 10 being the most intrusive to 1 being the least intrusive.  Justify your answers:

cavity searches
protective sweeps
roadblocks
arrest
removal of blood in hospital
sobriety checkpoints
surgery to remove bullet
stationhouse detention
stop and frisk
border searches

    PRACTICUM THREE:  This difficult assignment is intended to test your understanding of 6th Amendment law. You may or may not find anything to help you in the lecture notes. Just use your intuition based on your learning. 

    The first part involves your ranking the following case holdings from MOST to LEAST serious 6th Amendment rights violation. It's an extremely difficult assignment. You don't need to worry about what specific type of violation it is (they're all grounds for reversible error), just rank them according to your judgment of seriousness in 6th Amendment terms. Don't justify your answers, just rearrange and rank. Number your rankings so that 1 = MOST serious, 2 = second MOST serious, and so forth all the way down, in terms of your general understanding of 6th Amendment protections overall:

1. Defense counsel presented no mitigation evidence in capital case.
2. Defense counsel failed to mention that defendant was in treatment for addiction.
3. Defense counsel failed to produce critical key defense witnesses.
4. Defense counsel failed to correct trial judge's misstatements to jury.
5. Defense counsel failed to file notice of appeal.
6. Defense counsel failed to raise statute of limitations issue.
7. Defense counsel gave bad legal advice about pleading guilty.
8. Defense counsel failed to object to inadmissible evidence.
9. Defense counsel was ineffective in following up on lab reports suggesting defendant was not the perpetrator.
10. Defense counsel failed to investigate the defendant's mental illness.
11. Defense counsel had irreconcilable conflict of interest.
12. Defense counsel was unfamiliar with state's new revised sentencing guidelines.

    The second part is kind of like a quiz. In fact, I may treat it as a quiz, depending upon how people do on it.  The instructions are kind of complicated, so pay attention. From the following list, choose whether the situation is Reversible Error (a 6th Amendment violation), a Bruton Violation (read the lecture notes on this), a Strickland Violation (incompetency, outcome would be different), or Malpractice (grounds for lawsuit, requiring a show of duty, breach, causation, and damages; the Nolo Press website may help with this). Feel free to justify your answers if you want to, but choose one and only one of the choices for each situation. Also, don't use the same response for every situation. For example, don't assume you have grounds for a malpractice lawsuit with each and every one of them, or that all of them are reversible error. The correct answers can only be determined by careful research and/or thinking.

1. Defendant kept asking for new lawyer, and finally had to accept the third one.
2. Defendant's lawyer was seen playing tennis at the country club with prosecutor.
3. Defendant's lawyer promised, but reneged on a guarantee of an innocent verdict.
4. Defendant's private lawyer raised fees in the middle of the trial.
5. Defendant's lawyer missed a court deadline to file a critical piece of paperwork.
6. Defendant's lawyer never returned phone calls or answered postal letters.
7. Defendant's lawyer never took the tactical advantage of delay.
8. Defendant's lawyer had no adequate theory of defense.
9. Defendant's lawyer failed to vigorously cross-examine witnesses.
10. Defendant's lawyer failed to consult client on settled plea agreement.
11. Defendant's lawyer failed to object to incriminating testimony of co-defendant.
12. Defendant's lawyer was involved in losing defense of co-defendant. 

    PRACTICUM FOUR:

    You must turn in an originally-written legal brief (in your own words) of one of the following cases (your choice).  Also, check back here often because more cases may be added. None of your briefs had better look like anything from the web or "canned" from any other source.

1. Terry v. Ohio
2. Tennessee v. Garner
3. Gideon v. Wainwright
4. Dickerson v. United States (the post-Miranda case)
5. Mapp v. Ohio
6. Katz v. U.S.
7. Wong Sun v. U.S.
8. Ruiz v. Estelle
9. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
10. Korematsu v. US
11. ________________ (I might allow students to select their own case - Ask and be told if you can or not by mentioning a case)

    PRACTICUM #5: This is a "How Will They Vote and Why?" assignment. On Feb. 20, 2001, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of Kyllo, Danny v. U.S., and your job is to predict how the Justices will decide this case. I will assign an interim grade once you email me the assignment based on the quality of your effort and consistency with my own prediction; and then I will add 7 points to that grade if your guess is consistent with the actual decision handed down. Now, let me tell you this assignment requires more than simply sending me an email with something like "7-2 against Danny Kyllo." It requires you predict what the vote will be overall and Justice-by-Justice. That way, I know you're incorporating ideas from the material on Supreme Court Justices and their interpretive philosophies. The assignment also requires you tell me "Why" each Justice will vote the way they do, in terms of the modes of interpretation or jurisprudence in Lecture #4.  I'll explain in a minute how you can find info on Kyllo v. U.S., but right now, let's take a look at an example of the desired format:

To:
From:
Re: P2
    Hi Prof. O'Connor, this is Joe Student, and here's my work for P2 JUS 410. In the case of Kyllo v. U.S., I think the overall vote will be 6-3 against the petitioner, Danny Kyllo, that his rights were not violated. I think the individual votes will be as follows:
    Rehnquist - one of 6 votes against petitioner because he has a conservative voting record and his mode of interpretation or jurisprudence is based on precedent, although I don't think he'll write the majority opinion because he doesn't seem to like technology...perhaps he'll write a concurring opinion based on....
    Thomas - one of 6 votes against petitioner because his jurisprudence is textualism...
    Scalia - one of 6 votes against petitioner and I think he'll write the majority opinion because his mode of interpretation is literalism and he seems to have no tolerance for CLS or other such jurisprudence....
    O'Connor - one of 6 votes against petitioner because I don't think she'll swing to the left on this one, although she may participate in a concurring opinion on the basis of privacy rights or some other "pet project" of her's.....
    Kennedy - one of 6 votes against petitioner because his background indicates that he would support strong state interests over individual rights....
    Stevens - one of 3 votes for petitioner because not only is he a consistent liberal but his mode of interpretation is more organic and he sympathizes with post-Marxist jurisprudence....
    Ginsburg - one of 3 votes for petitioner because she is a liberal advocate of rights and her mode of interpretation is feminist as is her jurisprudence....
    Breyer - one of 3 votes for petitioner because of his liberal background, mode of ..., and jurisprudence of..., but he may very well write the dissenting opinion based on the argument that....
    Souter - one of 6 votes against petitioner and a swing vote for him, mostly because of his own background, mode of..., and jurisprudence of....

    The closer your work follows and builds on the above example, the better. You're welcome to use any resource at your disposal in order to figure out "why" each Justice might vote a certain way. I certainly haven't made their individual modes of interpretation or jurisprudence clear on the website, so you may have to do some research on your own. Don't just rely upon what I've said about their backgrounds as the sole basis of your answer. If you have to, guess about their mode or jurisprudence as well as their vote. I'm not interested in any remedy, but I am in any legal rule for a majority, concurring, or dissenting opinion. Make sure you have at least one of these included in your answer. That makes three things to guess about: (1) the vote; (2) mode and/or jurisprudence; and (3) majority, concurring, and/or dissenting opinion. Good luck.

    For how to find info on Kyllo v. U.S., you use the Internet Resources for this class or click on the Cornell Legal Information link, then locate the section of that page for "Information on Cases Scheduled for Oral Argument: From Current Date Forward" to click on it. The case appears on the docket as 99-8508 Kyllo, Danny v. U.S. scheduled for Tues, Feb. 20, 2001. You can then click on a link for Details about the case from Medill School of Journalism. Alternatively, there are about a dozen other ways for finding out about this case - which involves thermal imaging of a house where marijuana was being grown inside. Feel free, as the Justices would, to treat it as more than a simple 4th Amendment case.

    PRACTICUM #6: This is an easy practicum which is simply intended to engage you in some sort of community discussion over First Amendment issues. Your assignment is to use the bulletin board for this class to (a) post some type of comment or opinion on a First Amendment issue; and (b) post some sort of reply to someone else's comment or opinion. Find and use the bulletin board. You'll note a few entries there already. Sometime within a week from now, you need to make sure you have posted at least one comment or opinion of your own there, and have responded to at least one other person's comment or opinion. Please be courteous and as scholarly as you wanna be. You are graded on both quantity and quality in use of the bulletin board over this coming week. Make use of the online lectures relating to the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, and Freedom of Religion. From these, you should be able to find at least one thing to comment or give your opinion on. Let's see some community discussion.

    PRACTICUM #7: This assignment is to write an essay of approximately 300 words explaining the constitutional reasons against the practice known as "racial profiling" as applied to the traffic stop situation. I know it's tempting and easier to write an essay about your feelings and opinions, but I'm looking for a more scholarly essay in Constitutional Law, not a reaction paper. Most of what I have written in the Stop and Frisk lecture might explain the constitutional basis FOR racial profiling, so start with that as a basis of your critique, and then use whatever resources you have at your disposal (other lectures, the Internet, Library) to explain the constitutional basis AGAINST racial profiling. There's no one right direction I'm looking for, as I imagine some people will critique the totality of circumstances test, others will expand the equal protection clause, and so forth. Use your imagination, but keep your arguments tied to something in the Constitution.

    PRACTICUM #8:  Discussion questions I expect you to answer/respond to (50 words or less) embedded in the Privacy lecture. Here's those questions:

1. Where is Justice Brandeis extracting the right to privacies of life from?
2. What does "repose" mean? Why would it be a right?  Is it a feasible right to have in a Constitution?

    PRACTICUM #9
1. Discuss whether a territory-based or person-based notion of privacy would be appropriate for CyberSpace Law, justifying your answer in about 50 words or so.
2. List 3 regulations you think the CyberSpace community is capable of enforcing itself, and 3 which are going to require government enforcement.
3. Critique Prof. Tribe's proposed 28th Amendment. Find something wrong with it. Briefly explain your answer.
4. Suggest an improvement to Dr. O'Connor's Terms and Conditions for using MegaLinks in Criminal Justice. Click on the words in the previous sentence to see it or find it mentioned at the bottom of his home page.

    PRACTICUM #10: This is the same kind of assignment as practicum #3 where you engaged in a community discussion using the bulletin board. Your assignment this time is to use the bulletin board to (a) post some type of comment or opinion on the death penalty; and (b) post some sort of reply to someone else's comment or opinion (in other words, a threaded discussion). The bulletin board link is found at the top of the instructor's home page, as before. You need to make sure you have posted something original and informed of your own and responded substantively to other's comments or opinions. Try to be courteous; you are graded on the depth of your comments, not whether they're right or wrong, agreeable or disagreeable. For grading purposes, be sure to identify yourself in your postings, or if you want to be anonymous, privately email me the alias you're using. Make tie-ins to the 8^th Amendment when and where you can.

"REPORT CARD" TEMPLATE
(A guide to the document each student creates and turns in over each reading assignment to satisfy the writing assignment)

Give a letter grade score (either A, B, or C) across seven categories of evaluation (see rubric) with a short commentary explaining any B or C scores. Do not give all A grades.  Then, immediately under your scores, include a paragraph or two (250 words minimum - by doing enough of these, they will add up to eight pages of writing) providing grammatically correct commentary which fully explains and justifies your overall evaluation as well as demonstrates what you've learned or understood from reading the material.  A sample appears below, but please remember it's a sample and you should come up with your own version.

To: instructor
From: name of student (use full name as enrolled in course)
Assignment: be sure to name the lecture note you're evaluating (e.g., Asymmetric War lecture)

        1. B --- the writing used too many weasel words...
        2. A
        3. B --- a chart or diagram would have helped my understanding...
        4. A
        5. B --- there should have been more coverage of the current crisis in Iran...
        6. A
        7. C --- this lecture was useless to me as I don't really care about anything asymmetric... 
        Comments:  I give this lecture note a B+ overall because it's informative, even though some of the material is confusing and over my head.  It seems to go into theoretical or definitional matters too deeply.  The author convincingly says that certain things are important, like as one line reads "IPsec protocol can subsume VPN privileges" but I'm not all that interested in the techno-geek details as well as theoretical debates over the definition of asymmetric warfare.  I expected or would have preferred to learn about which countries were attacking us with computers and what can be done about it.  Don't get me wrong; the lecture note was useful in other ways. It helped me understand the full scope of the problem, such as the fact I learned that 50 countries have advanced cyberwarfare units.  It would have been helpful to have some images or pictures in some places to better understand some ideas.  My biggest critique, however, is that the reading was lengthy and a chore to read.  I think it also lacked a "voice" or strong author opinion in some places because they seemed to skirt away on some issues or sit on the fence.  One thing I've learned from this and other readings is that without considering the personal element, one can easily get bogged down in a bunch of relativism where anything goes theoretically.  I clicked on and followed some of the web links in the reading, and the one I found most interesting led to the Council on Foreign Relations.  I might also mention that the link to Korean Hacker Quarterly is broken and doesn't work.  I tried searching for where that website might have gone, but couldn't find anything.  In terms of suggested printed resources in the bibliography, I think the book entitled "Crusaders, Criminals, and Crazies" looks the most interesting to me for possibly read later on.  I think this lecture ought to be required reading for this course and others.  I certainly could have used it when I was working on a term paper in a class I had last semester....
    Another thing I learned from this lecture was...[second paragraph optional]       

This has been an illustration of how easy it is to do the writing assignments by demonstrating reading comprehension.

Last updated: July 02, 2006
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