COURT SYSTEMS AND PRACTICES
JUNE 2, 2004
Read the following Supreme Court case,
and then "brief" the case. Brief is a lawyer’s term meaning to summarize it and present it in a particular format as follows:
STYLE:
CITATION:
COURT:
JUDGE:
FACTS:
(this is the summary of the events that lead up to the case being appealed)
ISSUES:
(What are the legal issues the court is having to rule on?)
HOLDING:
(This is what the Supreme Court ruled and now will be come law)
RATIONALE:
(This is the legal reasoning supporting the courts holding)
This is an example of a brief done in another case to help guide you.
STYLE: _Goss v. Lopez
CITATION: 419 U.S. 565
COURT: U.S. Supreme Court
JUDGE: Justice White
FACTS: Several Columbus, Ohio high school students were suspended from school for misconduct under an Ohio statute for up to ten days without a prior hearing. The students sued for a declaration that the statute was unconstitutional.
ISSUE: Is it a violation of the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth Amendment for public school officials to suspend students from school for up to ten days prior to giving them a notice and hearing?
HOLDING: A student's entitlement to a public education and their liberty interest in reputation are protected by the due Process Clause. Therefore, school administrators must provide public school students written or oral notice of the charges against them involving suspension from school for up to ten days. If the charges are denied, the students must be given an explanation of the evidence and an opportunity to present their side of the story. There need be no delay between the time notice is given and the time of the hearing. When a student presence endangers persons or property or threatens disruption of the academic process, notice and hearing can be had as soon as possible after their removal. The Due Process Clause with regards to ten day suspensions or less does not entitle the students the right to counsel, to confront and cross examine witnesses or to call their own witnesses.
RATIONALE: The Court recognized the need for some modicum of discipline in schools and that some events call for immediate, effective action and that suspensions are a "necessary" and "valuable education device." But discipline of a student without affording notice and an opportunity to hear the student's side of the story would not insure that an injustice was not done. "No better instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss, notice of the case against him and an opportunity to meet it." The Court further recognized that allowing a student a more formal trial-type procedure for brief disciplinary suspensions would overwhelm the system and destroy the effectiveness of suspensions as a regular disciplinary tool and therefore construed that the Due Process Clause did not require it.