10Supreme Court CASE BRIEFING Dear Students: This is a reminder on how to brief
10Supreme Court CASE BRIEFING
Dear Students:
This is a reminder on how to brief cases (It’s also on the OER link I sent but just in case) for all of you who are taking Law Courses with me and are thus required to do CASE BRIEFS, the following is the format to use. Please use these Headings
SHORT VERSION:
RELEVANT FACTS:
In this section you want to tell the story of the case in three or four sentences or at most a very short paragraph. You need not include immaterial facts in this section, only the facts that go directly to the essence of the story.
ISSUE:
This should be in the form of a question, foe example in a hypothetical care accident case, “Is the driver responsible for injuring the pedestrian?”
HOLDING:
This is legal verbiage word for judgment, ruling, decision of the court, etc. The briefest answer for the question posed in the Holding is a YES or NO. On occasion there could be a caveat added, like for example YES partially responsible, or something along those lines.
REASONING:
In this section you will explain how based on the facts and on the applicable law and its interpretation in this case, that’s how the issue and holding were derived. This should be a few lines or at most a very short paragraph, similar in length to the Relevant Facts section.
THE FULLER VERSION will also include these 2 sections, namely the
PROCEDURAL HISTORY:
This section should be the starting section before the Relevant Facts, and since the cases you will be briefing are U.S. Supreme Court cases and every case that deals with a Federal issue starts at the U.S. District Court level, the Procedural History starts with the decisions first rendered at the U.S. District Court, and then at the U.S. Appellate Court, before reaching the US Supreme Court. Therefore please address in one or two sentences the decisions of the US District court and US Appellate court.
DISSENTING OPINION:
These are U.S. Supreme Court cases and therefore the decisions are either unanimous, meaning 9 to 0, or if not they will be 8 to 1, or 7 to 2 or 6 to 3 or 5 to 4. Therefore one or the full group that voted in opposition to the decision that prevailed (called the majority opinion) will write a dissenting opinion. This is what you want to write in a couple of sentences or so under Dissenting Opinion. Insert this section at the end of the case brief, namely after the Reasoning section.
CASE BRIEF SAMPLE
Posted on: Monday, January 24, 2022 11:33:43 PM EST
Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964)
Procedural History: The trial court found the defendant guilty of murder. The Supreme Court of Illinois reversed the conviction after holding that the incriminating statements by the defendant were inadmissible. The State requested a rehearing during which the Court affirmed the defendant’s conviction, holding that the statements were admissible.
Relevant Facts: Defendant was in custody in connection to the fatal shooting of his brother-in-law. Police tried to get him to confess but he instead requested to speak to his lawyer. The police denied this request and continued their questioning without advising the defendant of his 5th Amendment right to remain silent. The defendant made multiple additional requests to see his lawyer and was denied by the police who claimed that the defendant’s lawyer “didn’t want to see him” (even though the lawyer was on the premise). Eventually the defendant made several incriminating statements. In court the defense moved to have these statements suppressed but were denied.
Issue: Was it is a violation of the defendant’s rights when he was denied access to his attorney and not advised of his right to remain silent during interrogation?
Holding: Yes.
Reasoning: The 6th Amendment guarantees a right to counsel to defendants and interrogation by police is a critical part of the judicial process where a lawyer’s advice can be incredibly influential to the overall outcome of the case. Therefore, denying the defendant access to his lawyer after he requested him was a violation of the defendant’s rights. Also, the fact that the police failed to explicitly inform the defendant of his right to remain silent was a violation of his 5th Amendment right since the questioning was not general but was aimed to get a confession from the defendant.
Dissenting Opinion: Justice Harlan dissented arguing that the ruling would serve to hamper legitimate law enforcement tactics. Justices White, Clark, and Stewart also dissented arguing that the ruling would make it difficult to get any admission, even those voluntarily given, admissible.
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Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
Procedural History: The District Court found Katz guilty. Katz appealed saying the recordings from the phone booth were a violation of the 4th Amendment. The Court of Appeals rejected the appeal saying that it was not a violation of the 4th Amendment because there was no physical entrance into the area where Katz was.
Relevant Facts: Katz was seen making routine phone calls at a pay phone. The FBI placed microphones on the tops of two public telephone booths. The recordings from the microphones showed the defendant was illegally gambling. This evidence was used in trial to convict Katz of illegally transmitting wagers across state lines.
Issue: Was the warrantless surveillance of Katz’s conversations a violation of the 4th Amendment despite the fact that the government did not physically enter the phone booth?
Holding: Yes.
Reasoning: The judgement was of the Court of Appeals was reversed because the FBI did not obtain a warrant to obtain the recordings from the phone booth. Katz had a reasonable expectation of privacy within the phonebooth that was violated by the FBI, making the recordings inadmissible as a violation of the 4th Amendment
Dissenting Opinion: Justice Black dissented saying that overheard conversations were not tangible so could not be considered an “unreasonably search”. He did not believe that the 4th Amendment applied to eavesdropping.
