RPOS 537
Legal Process
Professor: Julie Novkov Office hours: 9-11 AM Mon. 101 TenBroek
Office phone: 442-5279 2-4 PM Tues. 306 Milne
E-mail: jnovkov@albany.edu Faculty web site: http://albany.edu/~jn293713
This course critically examines the institutional role of the courts in the United States and considers their potential for shaping, blocking, and reinforcing changes in culture, society, and state structures. We will work through several examples of moments in US history that remain subject to debate by scholars over the impact and significance of the legal process in change and development. After opening the course with a critical discussion of the adversarial system, we will move to a directed consideration of legal process and institutions and their development over time in the US. We will finish with a consideration of the limits of legal authority in times of crisis. The main goal of the course is to provoke critical consideration of the courts as institutions.
The course will be run in a seminar format, with the students spending most of the class time discussing the readings. The professor will facilitate these discussions both formally and informally.
First, a caveat: this course will be taught on a graduate level and the workload and expectations will be high. Most students will have done at least some reading on law and possibly on political development. I will expect you to come to each class meeting having done all of the readings thoroughly and carefully. Class attendance and participation will constitute a significant portion of your grade. Students will be expected to attend class and participate in class discussions. You will be expected to keep up with the reading throughout the term.
In addition to the regular participation you do in class, each student will be expected to give a presentation twice during the term. For each presentation, you will write a short (1-2 pp.) response paper for distribution before the class meeting. The professor will provide discussion questions for each set of material on which you may choose to base your response paper. You will then spend ten to fifteen minutes presenting and discussing your paper, and you will help to facilitate the day’s discussion.
Students will also write term papers for the course. These papers will be fifteen to twenty pages long. Early in the quarter, you will select a topic, which you will refine in consultation with me. You will write the paper in two drafts: a rough draft that will be reviewed by me and a final draft to be submitted at the end of the term. I will place students in informal working groups based on paper topics.
Students will also be responsible for submitting weekly journals for 10 weeks of the course. I will collect and grade these journals periodically to ensure that you are keeping up, and your final grade for this assignment will be based on all of the journals. The journal entries will generally be based on the questions with which I provide you, although you may occasionally write on another aspect of the reading that you find particularly intriguing.
The weights of your various obligations are detailed below:
Class participation 10%
Presentation on the readings 20%
Rough draft of term paper 5%
Final draft of term paper 35%
Final journal 30%
Papers are due in class at the beginning of class where indicated in the syllabus. Because of the need to allow time for other students to read and react to your writing, these deadlines are very rigid.
Students with disabilities. If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please make arrangements to meet with the professor soon. Please request that Disabilities Resource Center send a letter verifying your disability.
Extensions for papers. Extensions for papers will only be permitted under compelling circumstances and if the extension is requested in advance. Any student who does not turn in her or his paper on time and has not contacted the professor in advance will lose a half grade per day for every day the paper is late unless the student can provide a University-approved excuse.
Class attendance. You will be expected to attend class. Each student is permitted to miss two days of class per term with no questions asked and no penalties or reductions in his or her class participation grade. Any classes missed beyond those two will be taken into account in determining your class participation grade, regardless of the reason.
Regrading of materials. You may request regrading of materials. If you wish to make such a request, contact the professor for a copy of the regrading policy. You will be asked to provide a written explanation of why you wish to have the assignment regraded.
Plagiarism or cheating. This one’s simple: don’t do it. Don’t even think about doing it. Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s words or ideas without giving the original author credit by citing him or her. If you use someone else’s language directly, you must use quotation marks. If you rely on another person’s ideas in creating your argument, you must provide a citation. If you have any questions about plagiarism, please contact me before you submit the assignment for grading. If you plagiarize or cheat in this class, the BEST outcome you can hope to achieve is a failing grade from me, in addition to any mandatory university sanctions. Plagiarism or cheating, even if unintentional, will result in a failing grade for the assignment at the very minimum.
Books available for purchase include Jerome Frank, Courts on Trial, Christopher Tomlins, Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic, Robert Cover, Justice Accused, Mark Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil, Garrett Epps, Democracy Reborn, Ronald Kahn and Kenneth Kersch, The Supreme Court and American Political Development, Elizabeth Bussiere, Disentitling the Poor, Noga Morag Levine, Chasing the Wind, Tom Keck, The Most Activist Supreme Court in History and Mark Tushnet, The Constitution in Wartime. A few additional items will be available electronically on WebCT and Eres.
FOUNDATIONS
January 22 Legal Process in Critical Terms
January 29 The Adversarial System
COURTS AND STATE-BUILDING IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC
February 5 Antebellum Ideologies
February 12 Binding Judicial Hands
SUBMIT AT LEAST ONE WEEK’S JOURNALS
February 26 Sacrifice and the State
CRISIS AND RECONSTRUCTION OF THE STATE
March 5 Triumphal Reconstruction
March 12 A Different View of Reconstruction
SUBMIT TOPIC FOR RESEARCH PAPER AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY WITH AT LEAST FIVE SOURCES
REGIME POLITICS
March 19 Regime Theory
SUBMIT AT LEAST TWO ADDITIONAL WEEKS’ JOURNALS
LEGAL TRANSFORMATIONS?
March 26 The Revolution that Wasn’t
April 9 Institutional History as a Limiting Factor
April 16 The Conservative Counter-Revolution
ROUGH DRAFTS OF RESEARCH PAPERS DUE
INCLUSION, EXCLUSION, AND THE RULE OF LAW
April 23 Defining Limits and Boundaries
April 30 Juridical Authority and its Limits
May 7
May 10
FINAL DRAFT OF RESEARCH PAPERS DUE
May 14
FINAL JOURNALS DUE