The appellate process is a cornerstone of a democratic criminal justice system. However, many people are unaware of the process that a case may undergo before it finds itself before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). In fact, as you have read, not all cases reach the highest court in the land. In this activity, you are going to trace the path of a criminal case from the lower court by identifying the facts of the case, the ruling at the appellate court level, the key legal questions and how they relate to the Constitution, and the ruling in the case as made by the SCOTUS.
Complete the following for this assignment:
Use this Web site to select cases, and using key terms, select 1 criminal justice-related case that was decided within the last 7 years. You can determine that a case is a criminal case by looking for either the “United States” or the name of a state in the case name. If you do not see the name of a state or “United States” in the name of the case, that means that the case may be a civil case. Avoid selecting a civil case.
Also, make sure that you select a case that has been decided by the Court. The case should have a “Decided date” and not list “pending.” In order to avoid selecting a “pending case”, select an opinion from the previous Court term or earlier and avoid selecting a case from the current term, which runs from October through July of the following year.
Click here for a video about how to research and locate a case on the Oyez site.
After you select a criminal case, read the case by following these instructions, and then listen to the oral arguments.
Provide the following for your case in your own words:
A summary of the facts of the case or what happened
A summary of the procedural history of the case, or how the lower courts decided the case before it reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Identify the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the majority opinion
Identify the key legal questions or issues that were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court
Identify the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision or holding (usually one or two words that can be found at the end of the case, such as affirmed, reversed, remanded, vacated).
Discuss the Court’s reasoning, or why the Court answered the legal issues in the way that it did.
If there are any concurring or dissenting opinions, identify the Justice(s) who wrote the concurring and dissenting opinions and summarize the reasoning of one of these concurring or dissenting opinions. (The concurring opinions, if any, come after the majority opinion, and the dissenting opinions, if any, follow the concurring opinions in the case.)
Explain whether you agree or disagree with the Court’s decision in the case, and explain why.
Provide a one-paragraph summary of the oral arguments and your impressions of the attorneys’ arguments and the justices’ questions. Also, discuss whether anything surprised you about the oral arguments.
List your References, which would be a citation to the case that you are discussing.
For this assignment, you may format your paper as a traditional paper using APA style and formatting, or you may format your paper as a case brief.
Click here to see a sample case brief.
Click here for a case brief templat
