Understanding Major Components of Supreme Court Case: Legal Briefs Guide - Prof. William S, Study notes of Criminal Justice

Download Understanding Major Components of Supreme Court Case: Legal Briefs Guide - Prof. William S and more Study notes Criminal Justice in PDF only on Docsity! THE LEGAL BRIEF The following is a guide to assist you in the preparation of the legal briefs I assign this semester. Briefing cases will give you some insight into how the law is “made” in this Country and will give you a sense of the history and flow of the way the Constitution has been interpreted and given life by the Supreme Court. Briefing is a good way of summarizing according to the areas below what the case is generally about. It will give the reader (in this case, me) a quick idea of the major components of a Supreme Court case. Unless I tell you otherwise, you will brief only the majority opinion, which is the opinion which has garnered a majority of the Court’s votes and therefore has the force of law. The majority opinion will always be the opinion which begins the case. The major components of a case are: FACTS: In this section you will try to understand what has taken place in the case that has given rise to the original lawsuit or case. Since most of the cases we will be dealing with are criminal cases, you will learn about the underlying crime, arrest and trial. PROCEDURAL HISTORY: In this section you will learn how the case eventually arrived before the Supreme Court. In other words, what other lower courts were involved with the case at trial and appeal and what rulings those courts made prior to the case arriving at the Supreme Court. ISSUE: Here, you will search for and understand what the Court is being asked to decide. There is generally one major issue we will be studying in these cases and the Court will let you know, sometimes clearly, sometimes not, what that matter is. Your task will be to understand that question and be prepared to explain it in a concise fashion. Remember, this is a course about the Constitution, so the