Required Books:
1.Lee Epstein and Thomas G. Walker, Constitutional Law For A Changing America: Institutional Powers and Constraints, Congressional Quarterly2022 11 Edition
2. Burton Folsom, New Deal, Raw Deal
3. Larry Arnn The Founder’s Key
Videos:
There will be a series of assigned videos to view on Youtube. I have collected a large number of relevant videos and they appear on the video page of this website. Not all the videos on this page are assigned. Many are there so interested students can explore either the cases or the context around the cases in more depth.
Biographies:
There are brief biographies of the Justices in Epstein and Walker. You should know something about each Chief Justice from Marshall to Roberts and another 12- 16 or so Associate Justices who will be identified as the course goes on.
Briefing Cases:
You should write a brief for each case covered in this course. These will help you learn a useful skill, keep up with the class discussion, get a passing grade on class participation and allow you to easily prepare for the exams.
For the briefing form for this course, click here.
Note: each class I teach has a slightly different briefing form!!
For sample briefs read: The Antelope (click here) Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (click here)
These cases have a section called arguments. You should try to create this section for your brief. However, this section will not be part of the briefing assignment. I will expect you to know these cases from their briefs when mentioned starting in about class 5.There are a number of student briefs linked to cases assigned at the end of this course. These were handed in for the class brief writing assignment. As a result, they are more extensive than you might need for your daily briefs.
Note: Stay up with the assignments even if the class discussion falls behind. The exams will cover everything up to the date of the exam whether we have covered it in class or not.