Kelo Vs. New London Court’s Decision Case Study The following is an instruction guide for briefing cases that I copied from the John Jay College of Laws w
Kelo Vs. New London Court’s Decision Case Study The following is an instruction guide for briefing cases that I copied from the
John Jay College of Laws web site and then edited for our purposes.
Student briefs
These can be extensive or short, depending on the depth of analysis
required and the demands of the instructor. A comprehensive brief includes
the following elements:
1 Title and Citation
2 Facts of the Case
3 Issues
4 Decisions (Holdings)
5 Reasoning (Rationale)
6 Dissenting Opinion (if assigned by instructor)
7 Analysis
Students frequently misunderstand the layout that is being described above
and elaborated below. The point to a case brief is not only to give you the
chance to analyze the case and summarize it, but it is also to make it very
easy for you to find the information you need at a moments notice. So, if
you were standing before a judge and using a particular case as precedent
to persuade her, and she asks you to give her a case cite (so that she can
have her law clerk call the case up right then and there) you want to be
able to give it to her. If she then asks you to give her the factual
background, you should be able to find and deliver that immediately. So I
want your brief to follow the format laid out immediately above, and
elaborated and explain below, in EXACTLY the format you see. So, you
should actually have a set of paragraphs in the format (my commentary is
in italics):
1. KELO V. NEW LONDON, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), 268 Conn. 1, 843 A. 2d
500, affirmed.
2. Facts: This case arose when
Your brief should include a summary of the pertinent
facts and legal points raised in the case. It will show
the nature of the litigation, who sued whom, based on
what occurrences, and what happened in the lower
court/s.
The facts are often conveniently summarized at the
beginning of the courts published opinion. Sometimes,
the best statement of the facts will be found in a
dissenting or concurring opinion. WARNING! Judges
are not above being selective about the facts they
emphasize. This can become of crucial importance
when you try to reconcile apparently inconsistent
cases, because the way a judge chooses to
characterize and edit the facts often determines
which way he or she will vote and, as a result, which
rule of law will be applied.
The fact section of a good student brief will include the
following elements:
? A one-sentence description of the nature of
the case, to serve as an introduction.
? A statement of the relevant law, with
quotation marks or underlining to draw attention to the
key words or phrases that are in dispute.
? A summary of the complaint (in a civil case)
or the indictment (in a criminal case) plus relevant
evidence and arguments presented in court to explain
who did what to whom and why the case was thought
to involve illegal conduct.
? A summary of actions taken by the lower
courts, for example: defendant convicted; conviction
upheld by appellate court; Supreme Court granted
certiorari.
You may not be able to figure all of the above out from
the case you are reading – just write up what you are
able to find and dont go on a snipe hunt for things
that are apparently not there!
3. Issue: Was New Londons proposed use of Kelos property a public
use within the meaning of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment?
I only want you to identify the main issue of the
case, so if you spot more, dont worry about them.
Of course, for your first case brief I just gave you a
gift – feel free to copy and paste!
4. Decision: Justice Stevens wrote the opinion of the court and stated that
the Citys use of the land it was taking was
Here, I only want you to brief the actual opinion of the
court, which will be the first opinion in the case and
should be labeled as something like, Justice
Stevens, writing for the majority
Dont bother with
concurring opinions or dissents here. Keep this brief,
and only discuss the decision of this case – you will
be explaining the courts rationale later.
5. Rationale: The Court stated that, while in the past no Takings case had
been based on
The reasoning, or rationale, is the chain of argument
which led the judges in either a majority or a
dissenting opinion to rule as they did. This should be
outlined point by point in numbered sentences or
paragraphs.
6. Separate Opinions: Justice OConnor stated that
I will usually only ask you to brief the main opinion
and, sometimes (as in the Kelo case) the dissent.
Here you would focus mostly on the decision and
rationale in one section since all the other details
should be the same for all opinions.
7. Analysis: This case completely changed the understanding of the
Takings Clause
Here you should evaluate the significance of the
case, its relationship to other cases, its place in
history, and what is shows about the Court, its
members, its decision-making processes, or the
impact it has on litigants, government, or society. It
is here that the implicit assumptions and values of
the Justices should be probed, the rightness of
the decision debated, and the logic of the
reasoning considered.
