Today's class was very dense and we started it off really quickly with tons of information. I know I would benefit from a recap and review and maybe a Q&A tomorrow morning!
I would prefer more of a primer before diving into breakout rooms. I felt like we spent a decent amount of time just trying to understand the background as we didn't really get enough context inititally
While I really enjoyed the breakout room discussion, I felt a majority of us were genuinely confused and didn't have nearly enough background info to be having the discussions we were supposed to be talking about. Also, it didn't seem like the rooms were on the same wavelength
Didn't really understand the "sufficiency" point and could not discuss it. I feel like there was an easier way of doing this: What does Scalia think the confrontation clause means vs. what does the constitution say it means. I feel like this was the theme of today's discussion but then we threw in "sufficiency" and "admissibility" and I got pretty confused.
why shouldn't we think of originalism as determining the floor for rights and think of legislation as a means to expand those rights. I felt like today's discussion operated under the presupposition that those two means of determining the law were fundamentally at odds and I don't know if I agree with that. The closest I got to understanding that argument was halfway through our breakout room when Anthony articulated his fears about originalism limited statutory reform
Agreed with the above. I felt like the breakout room was a weird twilight zone where I was supposed to know what was going on but truly didn't. And we're all just stabbing around blindly
Agree with Orilla. Having Anthony or Gaia in the room is beneficial but it increases number of students which in turn decreases the value of a breakout room.
We also didn't discuss anything post Crawford so how are we supposed to know if the decision led to problematic results?? The summary at the beginning ended so abruptly with the case being called the tragedy of originalism
I thought Gaia's room was great. I like the TA calling on people because it forces people to get involved, and I liked having to give definite pros/cons for originalism because no 'pros' would have emerged otherwise. Today was clearly an attempt to get a more balanced view from the class
I would love to learn substantively about fair trial, for example today about the confrontation clause, but it seemed liked the conversation for the threads and breakouts was so broad — is originalism good; or should we have admissibility or sufficiency rules? I think it's hard to talk about the broad without having a fuller understanding of the cases and the smaller questions