America's Court

Welcome to the Fall 2009 edition of "Introduction to U.S. Law." I am very pleased to have each and every one of you as my student!

Please check this site from time to time during the week, as I will use it provide supplementary comments and materials on our class topics, and also as a means to respond to student questions that I am not able to answer in depth during our class time

Above, you see a view of the United States Supreme Court building located in Washington, D.C. The inscription on the pediment over the main entrance reads: "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW," which we might accept as the guiding principle of the American legal system. Whether and to what extent that principle has applied in practice is something we may better judge ourselves by the end of our first semester together. Certainly, most court watchers hold opinions about the various high and low points in history, so I hope you will too.

At some point during the first week of class, please briefly look over the U.S. Constitution and 27 Amendments. Do not be concerned with reading or understanding this document in detail. I merely want you to have a mental reference point that includes the Constitution's appearance, organizational structure, and style of language.

Although, there are many, many places on the Internet where we might find the Constitution, Cornell University Law School's Legal Information Institute's page is an excellent resource:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/index.html

I also like the following commercial site, since the entire text can be viewed (and searched with CTRL+F function) as a single HTML page:

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

For the more romantic students among you, you can view a high-res photographic image of the actual document here (but good luck trying to read the Founding Fathers' handwriting):

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html