Constitnl Law (LAW-503-001)
Carle
Meets: 01:30 PM - 03:20 PM (TTh) - Room 401
Enrolled: 92 / Limit: 95
Notices
There are no notices at this time.
Description
Welcome to the study of U.S. constitutional law. Our constitutional law system establishes the structure of the U.S. government and allocation of power among the branches of government and between the federal and state levels of government. It also defines certain fundamental legal rights and protections, usually as against government action. Your future career depends on your understanding these foundational principles, even if you do not go on to practice constitutional law directly. Inevitably, in almost all legal fields, constitutional law principles guide analysis and lurk in the background.
Most importantly, constitutional law involves the separation of powers into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and the allocation of powers to these branches. We will study these important principles in Unit One of this course. Equally importantly, the federal Constitution defines our system of federalism, which allocates powers among the national government, state governments, and the people. We will study these topics in Unit Two. Last but by no means least, the federal Constitution defines some of the core rights of individuals (and sometimes others, such as corporations) in our legal system. An introduction to these topics will be the focus of Unit Three. We will focus there on the structure and methodology of rights analysis; the limited space we have in a one semester course unfortunately will require us to leave in-depth exploration of these many fascinating topics to our many rich upper-level courses (which can be reviewed through http://pathways.wcl.american.edu/).
Textbooks and Other Materials
The textbook information on this page was provided by the instructor. Students should use this information when considering purchases from the AU Campus Store or other vendors. Students may check to determine if books are currently available for purchase online.
Your casebook for this course is a specially designed product for this course that melds several books you would otherwise have to buy separately.This custom book will be available at the AU bookstore but you will not be able to purchase it secondhand.
Required Casebook
Constitutional Law
Wolters Kluwer (2014)
ISBN 978-0735598973
Optional
Erwin Chemerinsky
Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies
(Aspen Student Treatise), 4th Edition, 2013.
ISBN 978-0735598973
First Class Readings
Read the Constitution, pp. xiii-xxix
1. Introduction (see reading above); The Authority for Judicial Review
Reading: pp. 1 - 11
Marbury v. Madison
Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee
Cohens v. Virginia
Syllabus
Use your MyAU username and password to access the syllabus in the following format(s):
Microsoft Word 2007 (DOCX)