|
|||||
First
Exam Study Guide
last updated 3/10/2014
The first exam in COMM 491 asks you to become a Federal Appellate Judge and write opinions on first amendment cases that come to you (by way of the exam). In the exam I will give you a description of court cases involving issues related to the first amendment. The issue or issues in each case will be related to material found in Tedford, chapters 3 - 6. The case description you will receive will be several paragraphs long, in a form similar to the case summaries provided in the "Landmark Case" boxes in Tedford. The cases may be on appeal from a state court or from a federal district court. The cases may involve a criminal prosecution (e.g. for sedition, obscenity, disturbing the peace) or they might involve a law suit (e.g. for defamation) or they might involve a court injunction forbidding some form of expression (e.g. a gag order). Your task will be to render a complete decision in essay form for the cases as if you were an appeals court judge using the "Two-Level Theory" found in Tedford, pp. 458-464.
Mechanics of the Exam
|
In studying for the exam you might want to identify which SCOTUS cases are current precedent and which have been superseded by later cases. Of course you should be generally familiar with all the material we've read so far. [ I doubt two hours will be enough time to figure out what's covered in what chapter, digest it, determine the appropriate precedent setting case(s) and then write decisions dealing with each of the steps in Tedford's two-level theory. ] In grading the exams I will consider the following factors (roughly in order of importance):
|