The American Legal System

  

CELOP/Boston University

Fall 2010

Joseph Pettigrew

CELOP 207

 

 

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The John Adams Courthouse

 

• Wikipedia entry on the John Adams Courthouse - very short, but has some links to other sites and to a "virtual tour" of the building.
• The Discovering Justice website for the John Adams Courthouse
• Wikipedia entry on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

 

 

A Civil Action

 

 

• Understanding the Federal Courts

          A guide from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in pdf format

          Includes the handout from class "The Federal Judicial Process in Brief"

          Civil and criminal procedure are discussed beginning on p. 14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Copy of the original complaint filed in federal court

 

• A Civil Action (film) the Wikipedia entry on the movie, with related links

 

• Mass Moments "Complaint filed on toxic pollution in Woburn" (a summary of the origins of the case)

 

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Links & Downloads

  

 

• Link to:  The United States Constitution and other historic documents 

          This site has the full Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, etc. 

          It also explains the basics of the Constitution and Bill of Rights in simple language.

          (There's one for students in Kindergarten, and others for different grade levels.)

 

• PowerPoint on the US System of Government - 2010-09.pps Right click and save to your computer to view.
  

 

• Landmark Cases of the Supreme Court (Streetlaw web site)

          includes Plessy v. Fergusson and Brown v. Board of Education

• Transcript of the documentary "The Road to Brown" which we saw in class
  
• How to Brief Cases and Analyze Case Problems (pdf)

 

 

Legal Lad podcast - main page

 

Links to the specific podcasts we have listened  to in class. You can listen again online or download an mp3.

Each page also has the transcript of the podcast, so you can read along as well as listen to it.

 

• File Sharing 
• Lawyers, Prosecutors, and Attorneys  
• Plea Bargaining  

 

Legal Vocabulary

 

• A Glossary of Legal Terms

          Definitions of legal terms and crimes from acquittal to warrant - in easy-to-understand language. 

          From the Minnesota State Bar website.  In Word (*.doc) format.

 

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Video

 

• Nightline report on the Westboro Baptist Church Supreme Court Case 

          (Right click and save to your computer to view. Plays on Windows Media Player and Apple Quicktime.)

 

 

Facebook & the 1st Amendment - Links to Videos

 

• High School Teacher Fired for Facebook (Cohasset, Mass.)
• Superintendent Reacts to Teacher Facebook Pages (Charlotte, North Carolina)
  
• Student suspended for criticizing teacher on Facebook (msnbc.com)

 

 

Law & Order

Link the the  episode we saw in class

Season 20, episode #16 "Brilliant Disguise"

(Clicking on this link will open iTunes on your computer.)

 

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Vocabulary

 

A review of legal terminology. It includes a lot of the vocabulary we're

covered in class, plus some new terms.

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The Academic Word List

 

The Academic Word List contains 570 word families which appear frequently in a broad range of academic texts. These are not the 570 most common words in English; they are the ones you will encounter most often while reading in university - as well as in newspapers, magazines, and on the internet. If you want to improve your vocabulary, this is a very good place to start.

 

• The list on Simple English Wiktionary (click on the words and go to the definition)
• The list with all forms of each word (e.g., abstract/abstraction/abstractly/...)
• Practice exercises with answers (practice 10 words at at time with immediate feedback) 

 

 

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