Senior Seminar:
Gideon v. Wainwright
AMH 4930
Keene-Flint 109
© Elizabeth Dale 2008
Professor: Elizabeth Dale
Office hours: Tuesday: 8:30-10:30
Thursday: 8:30-10:00
and by appointment
Offices: 224 at Keene-Flint
Phone: 273-3387
Email: edale@history.ufl.edu
Course blog: http://caseashistory.blogspot.com/
(for updates and some online materials)
Required texts: Anthony
Lewis, Gideon's Trumpet (Vintage, 1989) ISBN-10 0679723129
Mark Tushnet, editor, The Warren Court
in Historical and Political Perspective (University of Virginia Press, 1996)
ISBN-10 0813916651
Samuel Walker, Popular Justice (Oxford University Press, 2d ed,
1997) ISBN-10 0195074513
William Rehnquist, The Supreme Court (Vintage Press, rev'd
ed., 2002) ISBN-10 0375708618
and case materials and articles available
online or through the UF Library (see syllabus)
Recommended text: Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing History (Bedford/St.
Martin's Press, 5th ed. 2007) ISBN-10 031244673X
(this book is good for advice on citation form,
bibliography form and provides a general background on writing research papers)
Assignments:
Since this course is designed
to teach you about historical research and have you do a significant research
project, there are two types of assignments. The first type
(research practice) are short assignments intended to introduce you to
various tools in the library and on line. The second type
(paper projects) are geared towards helping you define a paper topic and
prepare your paper. The different projects and the percent of your grade they
represent are listed below.
Your final paper for the
class should be a research paper on a trial (a list of possible trials and some
other resources are below). It should be 20 pages long, double spaced 12 pt type, with a bibliography and proper footnotes.
Research practice (each of these assignments is
worth 2 points)
1. Case project, due
week 2
2. Book review project,
due week 3
3. Journal project, due
week 4
4. Primary source
project, due week 5
5. Article project, due
week 6
Total
points for these assignments: 10 points
Paper
projects (these assignments are worth
different points, the number is in the parenthesis):
1. Preliminary topic
proposal, due week 3 (2.5 points)
2. Specific topic
proposal, due week 5 (2.5 points)
3. Bibliography, due
week 7 (worth 5 points)
4. Oral presentation,
due week 10-11 (worth 15 points)
5. Draft paper, due week
13 (worth 15 points)
6. Final paper, due
Tuesday December 17 (worth 50 points)
Total
points for these assignments: 90
points
Total points possible: 100 points
Recommended paper topics will
be set out the first class session. Students should pick a Supreme Court case
(preferably case involving criminal law) from this list.
It is best if only one
student do research based on a single case, but I will consider a well-thought
out project proposal that focuses on a single topic but looks at several
trials. My preference is that each student do a different topic (ie, that there not be two or more projects on a single
case). I will approve trial topics on a first come, first served basis.
First week
Introduction to the course and discussion:
Read
the Supreme Court’s opinion in Gideon v. Wainwright
for class
Case assignment given out
Second week
Background: Criminal Law
Reading: Walker, Popular
Justice
Case assignment due
Book
review assignment given out
Discussion
of preliminary topic proposal
Third week
Background:
the Supreme Court
Reading:
Rehnquist, The Supreme Court
Book review project due
Preliminary topic proposal due
Journal
assignment given out
Fourth week
Background:
the Players, Part I
Reading:
Tushnet, The Warren Court
Journal assignment due
Primary
source assignment given out
Discussion
of specific paper proposal
Fifth week
Background:
the Players, Part II
Alfieri, “Gideon in White/Gideon in Black” (download
from here)
[read the entire article, not just the abstract]
Specific paper proposal due
Primary source project due
Article project given out
Sixth week
Supreme
Court practice
Read:
Briefs filed in Gideon v. Wainwright,
available online through the UF library (Making of Modern Law: US Supreme Court
Records and Briefs)
You
must read the petitioner’s brief and the respondent’s brief; if you have time,
read the briefs by the amici
Article project due
Discussion
of bibliography assignment
Seventh week
Oral
argument discussion
Assignment:
listen to the oral argument in Gideon
available here.
Bibliography
due
Eighth week
Individual conferences on papers, no class
Ninth week
Gideon v. Wainwright and history, Part I
Reading:
Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet
Tenth week
Gideon v.
Wainwright and history, Part II
Readings:
J. Harvie Wilkinson, III, “Oversimplifying the
Supreme Court,” Journal of Supreme Court
History 31 (2006): 81; Michael J. Klarman, “is
the Supreme Court Sometimes Irrelevant? Race and the Southern Criminal Justice
System in the 1940s,” Journal of American
History 89 (2002): 119
Eleventh week
Oral presentations
Twelfth week
Oral
presentations
Thirteenth week
Oral presentations
Fourteenth week
Drafts of papers due
Fifteenth week
Individual conferences on papers this week and next
Sixteenth week
Individual
conferences on papers
Final papers due December 9