Legal Research & Writing MP3 Nine Week Exam Review
Instructions/Pointers: Your Nine (9) Week Exam will be on Wednesday, 3/7/18. Please contact me ASAP if you expect to be absent. The exam will consist of 25 questions for a total of 100 points. The questions will be a combination of multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank and one short answer (maybe three sentences or so.) Below you will find the concepts that will be tested on the exam. It will be closed notes, closed materials and taken individually. It is nine (9) tickets. They must be your own. All handouts/video links are on my webpage should you need to go back and reference them. We will have a formal review with the opportunity for extra credit on Tuesday, 3/6.
Fresh-Air “Mueller” Podcast
Identify these people: Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort and John Dowd.
Know when “the meeting” between the vice president, the attorney general, the President and the FBI director took place that is the subject of the FBI investigation.
List the “three areas of inquiry” at the subject of the investigation against President Trump.
What “middle ground” or course of action does Jeffrey Toobin conclude Mueller could take (that would avoid possible constitutional problems or concerns)?
Jurisdiction: “Start with a trial court of original jurisdiction…”
Define these types of jurisdiction: general, appellate, and original jurisdiction.
The two ways that a court’s jurisdiction is granted are by statute or constitution.
In what court would you expect to see a panel of judges?
Federal Court System
How many circuit courts are there in the federal system? How do you arrive at that number?
Know who would decide questions of law and questions of fact.
Know what it means for a court to affirm, remand or reverse a case.
Know what an appellate court does with the lower court’s findings of fact.
State Court Chart
Identify the two highest courts or courts of last resort for the State of Texas, and know which one is for civil cases and which is for criminal cases.
What is a trial de novo and when would that occur?
Know the types of trial courts we have in the State of Texas.
Distinguish between the selection processes for judges in state v. federal court.
Statutes
Know the steps that are taken for a bill to become a statute (law.)
Review these vocabulary words from our lesson on statutes: codify, statute, annotation, prima facie, repeal, and municipal.
Thurgood Marshall
Review the questions from the video.
Know what NAACP stands for.
Know these cases—what were they about, why are they important, what did the court rule or decide: Smith v. Allright, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas and the case for Donald Gaines Murray against the University of Maryland Law School.
Be able to explain Psychologist Kenneth Clark’s study, what it showed and how it related to the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,case.