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In 2010, I co-founded the Harlan Institute. Every year, we host the Virtual Supreme Court Competition, along with ConSource. High school students are invited to write briefs and give oral arguments about pending cases. Every year, we fly the top Petitioner and Respondent teams to Washington, D.C., where they delivered their arguments at the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute, before an all-star panel of judges. In 2017, we heard arguments on Trinity Lutheran. In 2018, we focused on Carpenter. This year, we are mooting Timbs.

This ambitious project isn’t free. If you enjoy my work on this blog and elsewhere, please consider paying it forward with a contribution to our $18 for 2018 Campaign. Small donations go a long way to defraying the travel costs for the students and their teachers, and help pay for the prizes for the runner-ups. Thank you!

The lecture notes are here.

Here are a series of diagrams to explain the property at issue in Lucas.

The lecture notes are here.

The lecture notes are here.

Snyder v. Phelps

This Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder who was killed in Iraq in 2006.

The Westboro Baptists protested outside the cemetery during Snyder’s funeral. The family did not see the protestors at the time, and only became aware of their presence later. The Baptists protest funerals, always quietly, holding up signs with these sorts of messages:

The case was argued for Respondents by Margie Phelps, who is Fred Phelp’s daughter.

The evening before oral arguments at the Supreme Court, I conducted this interview with Orlando Bethel from Alabama who was not a member of Phelps’s church, but was sympathetic to his views, and perspectives on constitutional law.

Matal v. Tam

The Slants:

Employment Division v. Smith

During a recent trip to Salem, Oregon, I stopped at the Oregon Division of Employment, which (at some point) was renamed the Oregon Employment Department. Of course, this was the origin of Employment Division v. Smith. I asked the receptionist if she was familiar with the case–she gave me the oddest glare. In any event, I took pictures.

McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky

Today, we will cover the two main regulatory takings case, both of which involve the word Penn–Penn Coal v. Mahon and Penn Central v. NYC.

The lecture notes are here.

Subsidence describes the proces whereby land shifts down due to under-ground mining.

This image courtesy of Wikimedia illustrates subsidence:

Here are photographs of Grand Central station, the site of the famous Penn Central Transportation Company v. City of New York.

When teaching Penn Central Co. v. NYC, it is very important to stress that the proposed construction atop Grand Central Station must be viewed in the context of the then-recently built Pan-Am Building (now the Met Life building). 

Here is a map of where Grand Central Station is located:

View Larger Map

The Pan-Am Building stands immediately behind Grand Central Station, and blocked any conceivable view of downtown Manhattan. The Commission noted that building above Grand Central would cut off “the dramatic view of the Terminal from Park Avenue South.”

To give you a sense of where Grand Central is, and how it would fit into the city, this diagram is helpful:

Here are blueprints of the two proposed designs to build above Grand Central. The first design, Breur I, would have preserved the exterior and built a tower. “The first, Breuer I, provided for the construction of a 55-story office building, to be cantilevered above the existing facade and to rest on the roof of the Terminal.”

The second design, Breur II, would have stripped the facade and built the tower. “The second, Breuer II Revised, called for tearing down a portion of the Terminal that included the 42d Street facade, stripping off some of the remaining features of the Terminal’s facade, and constructing a 53-story office building.”