May 2022: THE BILL OF RIGHTS: SELECT CASES IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
Please join us in May 2022 for The Bill of Rights: Select Cases in Constitutional Law, with Steve Ealy.
Pre-registration is required. Participants will need to acquire the Scalia and Breyer readings; other readings are available online. Participants who successfully complete ALL sessions will be eligible to receive an Amazon e-gift certificate.
This reading group will begin with a consideration of the proper way for judges/justices to approach their responsibilities through an examination of Federalist 78 and lectures by Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer. In following sessions we will examine cases dealing with the Second Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms), Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure), and Eighth Amendment (is the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment?). All of the readings relating to specific rights and provisions of the Bill of Rights are taken from U. S. Supreme Court opinions, concurring opinions, and dissents.
Session One, Bill of Rights Basics: Thursday, May 5, 2-3pm EDT
US Constitution, Amendments I-X and Amendment XIV
Incorporation Doctrine, Cornell Law School
Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation (Princeton, 1997), 14-18, 23-47
Stephen Breyer, Active Liberty (Vintage Books, 2005, 3-34, 115-132
Session Two, The Second Amendment: Thursday, May 12, 2-3pm EDT
United States v Miller (1939)
McDonald v CIty of Chicago (McDonald; Opinion of the Court, 767-791; Breyer Dissent, 912-941)
Jaime Caetano v Massachusetts (2016)
Session Three, The Fourth Amendment: Thursday, May 19, 2-3pm EDT
Katz v United States (1967)
Terry v Ohio (1968)
Michigan Department of State Police v Sitz (1990)
City of Indianapolis v Edmond (2000)
Session Four, The Eighth Amendment: Thursday, May 26, 2-3pm EDT
Francis v Resweber (1947)
Furman v. Georgia (1971) Brennan Concurring, 269-306; Rehnquist Dissent, 465-470)
Roper v. Simmons (2005) (Opinion of the Court, 555-579; O’Connor Dissent, 587-607)
Virtual Reading Groups
- One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare’s Plays
- December 2023: H.G. Wells, Technocracy and Liberty
- November 2023: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War: the Gettysburg Address
- September 2023: Islam and Liberty
- September 2023: H. L. Mencken on Commerce, Culture, and Democracy
- August 2023: The Price of Power: Bring Up the Bodies and The Prince
- July 2023: Civil Society and Political Economy
- June 2023: The Challenges of Democracy in a Diverse Society
- April 2023: Understanding Reconstruction - the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
- March 2023: Foundations of Modern Environmentalism
- February 2023: Bruno Leoni: Freedom and the Law
- January 2023: Oakeshott’s Moral Vision
- January 2023: The Messiness of Progress: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and David Hume’s Essays and Histories
- December 2022: Classical Tragedy and the World of Ideas
- December 2022: J.S. Mill “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"
- November 2022: The Election of 1800: Jefferson v. Adams
- October 2022: Shakespeare’s First Tetralogy
- September 2022: The Evolution of American Federalism
- September 2022: Liberty and Virtue in the Axial Age
- August 2022: Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Aristocracy, Independence, and Economics
- May 2022: THE BILL OF RIGHTS: SELECT CASES IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
- April 2022: Education in a Free Society
- March 2022: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Women
- March 2022: Ancient v Modern Liberty
- February 2022: Joseph Schumpeter’s “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy”
- January 2022: James Madison and the Conflict Between the Executive and Legislative Branches
- November 2021: Pericles' Funeral Oration
- September 2021: Celebrate Constitution Day
- August 2021: Agriculture, the State, and Liberty
- June 2021: Adam Ferguson’s History of Civil Society
- May 2021: The Colonial Origins of the Bill of Rights