CASE: City of Houston v. Hill (citizen verbal expression) C. W. 482 U.S. 451
1. Identify the case from above that is assigned to the student.
2. Follow the lettered instructions below to format the structure of the brief in Word.
More Detailed Instructions for the Brief and Citation Analysis
Facts of the Case:
This is where the facts of the case are provided. Students must summarize the case in their own words to the extent possible. DO NOT COPY AND PASTE! DO NOT TYPE WORD-FOR-WORD!
Question(s):
Concisely provide the issue/question of the case that the U.S. Supreme Court addressed. This should be phrased as a question (with a question mark at the end). If the court addressed more than one legal issue there will be more than one question.
Last Lower Court Disposition:
All cases assigned to students are decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court does not have original jurisdiction in any of the assigned cases. This means that before the court case arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court for consideration, a trial level court and then an appellate level court made a decision in the case. Here, the student will summarize the decision of the appellate court that decided the case before it reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Consider stating this in the same manner as the following illustration: “The [enter the name of the lower level appellate court] found in favor of [enter the name of the party that prevailed in the lower level appellate court]. It reasoned that ____________________.”
Holding:
Summarize the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case. NOTE: If there is one question there will be one holding. If there are two questions, there will be two holdings, and so on. A holding is a concise sentence that answers the question. The holding(s) is/are based solely on the majority opinion, and not on any concurring or dissenting opinion(s).
Rationale:
This, for each holding, is/are the reason(s) why the court reached the holding. It is the “evidence” to support the holding. The rationale should include only the rationale of the majority opinion and not any logic or rationale of any concurring or dissenting opinion. To the extent possible, this should be provided in the student’s own words. DO NOT COPY AND PASTE! DO NOT TYPE WORD-FOR-WORD!
Concurring and Dissenting Opinion(s)
A concurring opinion is when a justice agrees with the majority on who should prevail in the case but disagrees on the reason(s) why or the justice wants to elaborate more on a particular point. A dissenting opinion is when the justice believes the other party should prevail and offers logic and rationale as to why. In this section, briefly summarize the point(s) made in any concurring or dissenting opinions. If there are 2 concurring opinions and 1 dissent, summarize all three. If there is 1 of each, summarize both, and so on. A case may not have any concurring or dissenting opinions. If this is the case, simply write, “No concurring or dissenting opinions were filed in this case.”
Citation Analysis Numerical:
See the video below for instructions.
Summary of Treatment by Two Cases:
See the video below for instructions.
a. Put your cursor at the top of the page on the left side of page 1. On the “Home” tab of the toolbar change to “Times New Roman” and change the font to 12. In the “Tell me what you want to do” box type “paragraph” and select “paragraph settings. Make “before” and “after” 0 pt, and make “line spacing” single. Click OK.
b. In bold, centered, type the name of your case and the citation, for instance, “Wyoming v. Buchanan, 450 U.S. 56”. Do not include the quotation marks with the case name. Hit “enter” twice.
c. Insert a 2×8 table. Go to “insert” of the toolbar. Click “table”. Ajust to a 2×8 table, and click it.
d. There will be a table with 2 columns and a dividing line in the Word document. Click and drag the dividing line in the table to the left to the 1.5 marker on the ruler at the top of the page.
e. Highlight the entire column on the left in the table. Go to “home” on the toolbar and select “B” to bold the text in the column. From top to bottom, in each respective cell in the column put these words: Facts of the Case, Question(s), Last Lower Court Disposition, Holding, Rationale, Concurring and Dissenting Opinions, Citation Analysis Numerical, Summary of Treatment by Two Cases.
3. Brief the case and submit.
This is the weblink of the video for the instructions:
https://uhdmediasite.uhd.edu/Mediasite/Play/8f505d180b3146ac8a7b51f4c3a7c0681d
https://uhdmediasite.uhd.edu/Mediasite/Play/9c2835c6c42c43af8b59fc73194d4dc31d
https://uhdmediasite.uhd.edu/Mediasite/Play/77e8a427e3bb4ee595c35774b45c35b01d
If you need my login for the video access
Will be provided to the assigned writer.
