MJ661 Organizational Management
Lesson 6: Accountability and Change
Activity 6: Researching and Briefing Cases (100 points)
Your Activity responses should be both grammatically and mechanically correct and formatted in the same fashion as the Activity itself. If there is a Part A, your response should identify a Part A, etc. In addition, you must appropriately cite all resources used in your response and document in a bibliography using APA style. This activity is comprised of two parts. (100 points) (A 4-page response is required for the combination of Parts A and B.)
The courts issue opinions every day, and in many cases, the law that a police officer has come to rely upon throughout his entire career is changed overnight. A police executive must be cognizant of changes in the law and must make sure that such changes are disseminated to the rest of the department. Most departments do not have the luxury of having attorneys on staff to stay on top of such changes.
This responsibility requires a skill in reading cases and extracting the holding. Virtually the entire first year of law school involves sharpening such skills, and it can hardly be mastered overnight. However, the basic concepts are easy to grasp. Generally, when reading a case there are several areas in which your attention should be focused. First, start with the facts. What happened? You want to disregard extraneous information which had no bearing in the decision. Do you need to know what day it was? Do you need to know what kind of car the victim was driving? Not really.
You also must understand the reason for which the court heard the case, or the “procedural posture.” Is it the result of a motion to suppress evidence? Did the defendant appeal his conviction? Did the appellee appeal the loss of his motion for summary judgment? This is important, because at the end of the case the court will say the lower court’s ruling is either affirmed or reversed, (generally). You will have to figure out what the court reversed or affirmed because this can be quite confusing. This leads you to the other important area of interest: the holding. Did the court adopt a new rule in handling certain cases? Perhaps the court held that Garrity is applicable to a set of facts that would not have customarily been considered.
Part A For this activity, you are to review the case of the State v. Stinson, 244 Ga. App. 622 (2000). You can access this case by going to the following Internet link.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-court-of-appeals/1341554.html.
It is a relatively short case, but it discusses some important issues. After reviewing the case, you will answer the following questions. (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
1. What are the facts of the case?
2. What is the procedural posture? (Why is the case before the court and what is it trying to decide?)
3. What is the holding?
4. What is the Indorado test?
5. What is the Friedrich test?
6. Which test was applied in this case?
Part B Use the Internet to research two (2) more cases dealing with Garrity. The cases can be from any state or federal jurisdiction but must be no more than five years old. For each case, you must restate the facts, the posture, and the holding. You must include copies of the actual cases in your activity. (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
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