Case critique

Paper Details:

Finals Assignment: Complete Two Case critiques of the cases mentioned below.

The Defendant’s Right to Confront Adverse Witnesses

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004)

Capital Punishment and Life without Parole

Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)

A Guide to Writing Case Critiques

The cases you’ve studied this semester didn’t have to be resolved in the way they were.  The dissents in each case suggest as much.  That is, assuming the justices writing the dissents didn’t make an elementary mistake (assuming, for instance, that they understood the words contained in the relevant constitutional text, summarized pertinent precedents satisfactorily, and made no mistakes in logical reasoning), it then can’t said that the conclusion defended in the dissenting opinions were manifestly wrong.  Rather, the most that can be said is that that the majority’s position seems sounder than that taken by the dissent.  And, perhaps, on careful consideration even that conclusion may not seem warranted, for you may decide that the dissent in the case you’ve decided to examine defends a sounder approach than the one defended by the majority.

These considerations are essential to the case critique assignments you’ll write in this course.  Those critiques ask what makes a legal conclusion sound when, as often happens, the relevant materials (constitutional text, precedents bearing on the issue presented in the case, and considerations of policy and principle relevant to that issue) point in conflicting directions?  Because you’re free to write a critique of any assigned case except MacWade v. Kelly, the problem of conflicting materials will loom large in your critique.  The majority and dissent will already have addressed the conflict between relevant materials.  You’ll thus have plenty to work with as you appraise their conclusions.

Although the conflict between relevant legal materials should be the focal point of your critique, the starting point should be the issue posed by the case and the rule of law announced that resolves the issue.  Your case critique should thus begin with short paragraphs that take the following form:

In X v. Y, the appellant was charged with …. (state, in no more than three or four sentences) the relevant facts.

Given these facts, the issue posed in X v. Y was ….  (your statement of the issue should refer to the relevant constitutional provision plus facts pertinent to the issue).  The rule of law announced in X v. Y was … (note that the rule of law you provide should convert the question posed in your issue into a general proposition of law that will govern similar cases).

You should follow these introductory paragraphs with your evaluation of the rule of law.  It’s at this point that you will have an opportunity to address the conflicting considerations noted earlier.  Each of your case critiques should not exceed 1000 words. Minimum 750 words each critique.

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