Dave Keller

An evaluation of the Movie “Street Fight” can draw on a number of sources. Here are just a few:

Stree Fight Review – NJ.com

NPR Interview with Street Fight documentarian

Booker Interview

Latest from primaries

Internet Piracy Legislation – A festering battle over legislation to crack down on Internet piracy promises to escalate sharply on Wednesday when Wikipedia and other websites have vowed to go dark in protest.

Here is a note-sheet that will help you to organize your thoughts about the rights protected by the 1st and the 14th Amendments. You can download the sheet, fill it in and use the results to guide your essay writing.

Writing Tip – As you fill out the note-sheet you will find areas where you don’t have much to say. These are the areas you should research and you will find some samples of this research on this website.

1st and 14th Note-sheet

If you were absent on the day of our mock trial, there is a make-up assignment that you can do. Here is the description of the assignment:

Step One – you will need to watch the questioning of a witness in a court case. Here are the two episodes of a witness testimony that you can watch:

Case Summary – this case is about a rap star that is a witness to a shooting. There is some debate as to whether he knows the identity of one of the people who shot one of the victims of the altercation.

Testimony #1 – Foundation questions

Testimony #2 – Description of the crime

Testimony #3 – Cross examination

Step 2 – after watching the witness testimony, identify 3 different questions asked this witness that break the rules of evidence. For each questions, list the rule that is broken, explain why it is broken and write a question that would get the desired information without breaking the rule of evidence.

Step 3 – Reflection. This witness is famous, has a criminal record and does not want to testify against the defendant. After listening to the testimony of this witness, was this witness believable? Is he credible? What do you think of the role that witnesses play during trials? Because most witnesses are human, they are problematic – what does that mean for the legal system?

Step 4 – Type up your reflection and submit it to TurnItIn.com. There is a place for a “Mock Trial Reflection.” That is the place for your work. Congratulations.

Police Officer Finds That Dissent on Drug Laws May Come With a Price

Law enforcement agents on the front lines of the drug war sometimes begin to have second thoughts about drug policies. Problems can arise when they speak about them. Read the Article Here

Arcata High School student asks judge to declare dress code unconstitutional [Eureka Times-Standard, 5/17/11]: An attorney for an Arcata (California) High School student who was suspended last year for wearing a sweatshirt with a drug reference argued Monday that the school’s dress code is unconstitutional while a lawyer for Northern Humboldt Union High School District told the judge the student’s sweatshirt caused a disruption.

http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_18078466

ACLU sues school district over bench dispute[San Diego Union-Trib, 5/17/11]: The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the San Diego school district Monday, claiming that La Jolla High School illegally blotted out political messages painted by Iranian-American students on “senior benches” that have long served as an open forum on campus.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/16/aclu-sues-school-district-over-bench-dispute009/

Supreme Court declines to hear ‘So help me God’ lawsuit [CSM, 5/17/11]: Michael Newdow, whose previous First Amendment challenge sought to strike ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance, tried to block the use of ‘So help me God’ in the inauguration ceremony.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0516/Supreme-Court-declines-to-hear-So-help-me-God-lawsuit

Mich. high school editor accuses officials of censorship [AP, 5/16/11]: Andrew Wilson said that while administrators in St. Clair Shores had made suggestions in the past, none had ordered a story pulled before it went to press.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/mich-high-school-editor-accuses-officials-of-censorship

Dancing with Jefferson [First Amendment Center, 5/18/11]: Founding Father might have appreciated dancers’ display at Jefferson Memorial, but federal appeals court says monument isn’t a place for people to express themselves.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/dancing-with-the-statues

Racist beliefs can justify increased sentence, Idaho court rules [First Amendment Center, 5/18/11]: Even though Idaho Court of Appeals finds defendant’s views had nothing to do with his theft crime, it holds that taking them into account in setting punishment doesn’t violate First Amendment.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/racist-beliefs-can-justify-increased-sentence-idaho-court-rules

Appeals court: N.Y. school can censor cartoon in ‘forum’ and independent newspapers [SPLC / School Law Blog, 5/18/11]: Even a student newspaper that is a “limited public forum” can be censored under Hazelwood, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. Advocates called it the most damaging decision to high school student journalism in the past 20 years.

http://www.splc.org/news/newsflash.asp?id=2222

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2011/05/school_may_bar_sex_cartoon_fro.html

The opinion in R.O. v. Ithaca City School District can be found at:

http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/c07b54b0-c485-4cc1-8269-61a22ddd9b15/1/doc/09-1651-cv_opn.pdf

On page 18 of the exhibits, courtesy of the “How Appealing” blog (http://howappealing.law.com/), you can find the cartoon in question:

http://web.rmozone.com/tattlerwiki/images/5/55/WilsonAffidavitExhibits.pdf

The Student Press Law Center has a press release about this decision:

http://www.splc.org/news/newsflash.asp?id=2221

ACLU Challenges School’s Net Filter On Gay Info[Sac Bee,, 5/19/11]: The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California announced Wednesday that it has notified the Oroville Union High School District that its Internet-filtering software has been improperly configured to block access to Web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/19/3637998/aclu-challenges-schools-net-filter.html

Here are a few articles that relate to current events in our country. This page will be updated from time to time so check back.

Article Seeks Title IX’s Application to Transgender Student Harassment [Title IX blogspot, 4/23/11]: A law student’s article in the Texas Review of Law and Politics Journal seeks to leverage Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination to offer fully protection against harassment to transgender students. Citing statistics from GLSEN, the author, Tina Sohaili, points out that transgender are the targeted for bullying and harassment more frequently than any other student group. Such harassment frequently target the students’ personal characteristics, such as appearance, clothes, and voice, as not matching the masculine or feminine stereotypes associated with the transgender students’ assigned sex

http://title-ix.blogspot.com/2011/04/article-seeks-title-ixs-application-to.html

Shielding the Privacies of Life [Editorial, NYTimes, 4/22/11]: “The Supreme Court has never heard a case challenging the government’s authority to search a computer. It is time, after a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit opened the way last month to vast government intrusion.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/opinion/23sat2.html

Chipotle loses disabled-access case [SF Chron, 4/19/11]: The U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal by Chipotle Mexican Grill on Monday and left intact a federal appeals court ruling in San Francisco that said a nearly 4-foot barrier in a waiting line denied wheelchair users the right to see the food they were ordering.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/18/BAQ01J33DI.DTL

Addressing Title IX in urban and minority populations [Title IX blog, 4/19/11]: Two items of note: one current, one forthcoming. Out now is the book/guide, Hey Shorty!: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets.

http://title-ix.blogspot.com/2011/04/addressing-title-ix-in-urban-and.html

Former coach files separate lawsuit [Title IX blog, 4/19/11]: Amber Parker, the former coach of the girls’ high school basketball team in Franklin County, Indiana, has filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that the non-renewal of her teaching and coaching contract was due to her other lawsuit claiming disparity in scheduling of girls’ and boys’ basketball games.

http://title-ix.blogspot.com/2011/04/former-coach-files-separate-lawsuit.html

Over the Line Even in Berkeley, Family Says [Courthouse News Service, 4/20/11]: A high school student says a school counselor sexually pawed and harassed her, spanking her, hugging her, asking to meet outside of school, asking “Oh, you don’t sleep naked?” – harassing her so persistently that her parents had to seek a restraining order against him – but the Berkeley Unified School District told her “that the conduct was not in fact sexual harassment, as it was neither ‘severe’ nor ‘pervasive.’”

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/04/20/35934.htm

The NSBA “Legal Clips” article regarding the case:

http://legalclips.nsba.org/?p=6033

ACLU Challenges School’s Net Filter On Gay Info[Sac Bee,, 5/19/11]: The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California announced Wednesday that it has notified the Oroville Union High School District that its Internet-filtering software has been improperly configured to block access to Web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/19/3637998/aclu-challenges-schools-net-filter.html

Holder calls Brown greatest Court decision [Topeka Capital-Journal, 5/18/11]:On the 57th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said the work of upholding civil rights in and beyond our schools is far from over.

http://cjonline.com/news/2011-05-17/holder-calls-brown-greatest-court-decision

Court rejects appeal of Kamehameha case [Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 5/17/11]:The Supreme Court’s refusal ends a lawsuit challenging the schools’ admissions policy.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20110517_court_rejects_appeal_of_kamehameha_case.html

Ted Olson: Supreme Court could give ‘incremental’ win to same-sex marriage [Politico, 5/18/11]:If the legal fight over California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage makes it to the Supreme Court, the justices could issue an “incremental” decision striking down the ban on narrow grounds that stop short of creating full-fledged federal constitutional protections for gay relationships, one of the lawyers involved said Wednesday.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0511/Ted_Olson_Supreme_Court_could_give_incremental_win_to_samesex_marriage.html

Gay LAPD officer wins $1 million judgment in retaliation case [LA Times, 5/20/11]: A jury on Thursday awarded $1.1 million to a Los Angeles police sergeant and media relations spokesman who said he had been harassed and suffered retaliation after complaining that a supervisor mistreated him because he is gay.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-0520-gay-lapd-m,0,1501334.story

An on-going project of our Civics class is going to involve writing a law. But before you write a law it helps to know what problems people find important and what laws they think should be passed. So, your assignment is to interview to people over the age of 21. Have a conversation with these individuals about the following questions:

1) What are the most important social, economic, legal, etc. issues facing our city, region and state?

2) If you could pass a law, what would it be? In other words, finish the sentence, there ought to be a law …

Write a summary of your conversation on a piece of paper that you can share what you’ve learned.

Here is a short worksheet that can be used to organize the information from Topic 34 and 35.

Note Sheet

There are two ways to use this document:

1) Print it out and fill it in. Then keep the notes for your records.

2) Use the Note Sheet as a model for how to organize your notes in your notebook. You can copy the boxes, use the questions or get inspiration from the organization.

Between WikiLeaks and preying teens there has been many stories in the news showing where the limits of your 1st Amendment rights.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus – the full & final story New book lays out what might have happened had student, principal talked about bizarre banner incident before going to court.

Bong Hits Case

WikiLeaks: Espionage? Journalism? Something else? Get a legal perspective of the issue that has dominated the news for the first week of December.

WiliLeaks