Updated October 25, 2018

Chart of Assignments

Science and Law

Fall 2018

Prof. Eric E. Johnson

"ALW" refers to Academic Legal Writing, 5th ed., by Eugene Volokh.

"LAS" refers to Law and Science by Steven Goldberg and Lawrence O. Gostin.

-^W- denotes to the writers-group portion.

-^R- denotes to the readers-group portion.

CLASS ^NO.1

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

-^W- Picking a Topic for Your Paper

· Read all of ALW Introduction, pp. 5-8.

· Read ALW Part I through I.I., pp. 10-38.

-^R- Introduction to Science and Law

· Read LAS Ch. 1, pp. 1-5.

· Read LAS Ch. 3.I.D., pp. 129-140.

CLASS ^NO.2

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

-^W- Zeroing in on a Claim

· Read ALW Part II, pp. 40-46.

· Read ALW Part XXII, pp. 278-282.

· Engage in brainstorming and research (perhaps very meandering research) to get ideas for a claim for your paper.

· Bring to class at least two and no more than three ideas for claims for your paper. Please think in terms of formulating these as a claims (not merely vaguely stated topics). Aim for a brief statement of each. You will share these orally with the class, and the class will provide helpful feedback and ask constructive questions.

-^R- The Body, Property Ownership, and Science

· Read LAS pp. 50-52 (not including Festo), 55-59 (starting at §B and not including §C)

· Read Moore v. U.C. Regents as reproduced on pp. 256-276 of Torts: Cases & Context, Vol. 2, available for free download via https://www.cali.org/books/torts-cases-and-contexts-volume-2.

· Read pp. 658-667, of a portion of the Patentable Subject Matter chapter of Intellectual Property Law and the Information Society Cases and Materials, 4th Edition 2018 by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins, available for free download via https://law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/ipcasebook2018.pdf

********DUE: PAPER PROPOSAL********
Tuesday, September 4, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

See §10 of the Syllabus for a description of the paper proposal.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Turn in your paper proposal electronically by e-mail to me at eric.e.johnson@ou.edu. Please attach the proposal as a pdf. If, for some reason, you run into trouble generating a pdf, you can send it to me in the body of an e-mail. If you are on campus and can reasonably turn in a paper copy to Faculty Support on the third floor, I would be grateful. BUT DESPITE WHAT THE SYLLABUS SAYS, the assignment will NOT be considered late if you do not submit a paper copy by the deadline. If you get it in electronically by the deadline, the paper proposal will be considered to be on time for all purposes.

CLASS ^NO.3

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

-^W- Writing Strategy

· Read all of ALW Part III, pp. 47-59.

-^R- The Trial of Galileo

· Read “The Trial of Galileo: An Account,” by Douglas O. Linder, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1014-home

· Read “The Trial of Galileo: A Chronology,” by Douglas O. Linder, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1015-chronology

· Read Scriptural References Relevant to the Trial of Galileo, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1021-scripture

· Read Letter from Galileo to Monsignor Piero Dini (excerpt), May 1615, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1030-galileolettertodini

· Read Admonition (Injunction?) of Galileo, February 26, 1616, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1011-admonition

· Read Galileo's Depositions, April-June 1633, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1006-depositions

· Read Galileo's Defense, May 10, 1633, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1013-defense

· Read Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo, June 22, 1633, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1012-condemnation

· Read Recantation of Galileo, June 22, 1633, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1020-recantation

· Read Letter from Galileo to Diodati (excerpt), July 24, 1634, http://www.famous-trials.com/galileotrial/1031-galileolettertodiodati

CLASS ^NO.4

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

-^W- Writing the Introduction and Abstract

· Read all of ALW Part IV, pp. 60-76.

· Read all of ALW Part XXIV.C., pp. 300-304.

· Read “How to Write a Good Abstract for a Law Review Article” by Kevin Maillard, http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2012/01/how-to-write-a-good-abstract-for-a-law-review-article.html

-^R- Agencies, Regulation, and Science

· Read LAS Ch. 3, Part II.A., pp. 148-165.

· Read the portion from 733-759 and the conclusion on 784 of Emily Hammond Meazell, Super Deference, the Science Obsession, and Judicial Review As Translation of Agency Science, 109 Mich. L. Rev. 733 (2011), https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1161&context=mlr.

· Read LAS Ch. 4, Part III.A., pp. 298-315.

********DUE: ABSTRACT********
Monday, September 17, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

See §10 of the Syllabus for a description of the abstract.

Make sure you use the law-review article template to build your budding paper. In class, I talked about the template downloadable from Volokh’s website for the ALW book, but I noticed that his template does not have a place for an abstract or table of contents already built in. Because of this, I modified his template to add a place for the abstract and table of contents, and thus I prefer for you to use the template as I modified it. Here is a direct link: article_with_abstract_and_table_of_contents.dot

For the purpose of turning in the abstract to me, I suggest you save a copy of your article document, and then delete everything from that document except the abstract, the title, and your name. (So, for instance, delete the table of contents, the headers, and the dummy body text.) Then save as a pdf.

Turn in your abstract electronically by e-mail to me at eric.e.johnson@ou.edu. Please attach the abstract as a pdf. Despite what the syllabus may say, there’s no need to turn in a paper copy -- go ahead and skip that. Remember what I said in class: I invite you to follow the easy approach of Kevin Maillard to write the abstract, if you like.

CLASS ^NO.5

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

-^W- Writing the Background, Argument, and Conclusion

· Read all of ALW Part V, pp. 77-96.

-^R- Science at Trial, Expert Witnesses, Proving Causation

· Read LAS Ch. 4, Part IV., pp. 323-354.

· Watch the film A Civil Action, written and directed by Steven Zaillian (1998).

· Read “Expert witnesses aren't what they seem - and I should know” by Dr Theodore Dalrymple in The Telegraph (Feb. 2, 2003), https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3586982/Expert-witnesses-arent-what-they-seem-and-I-should-know.html.

· Read “Temptations for The Expert Witness” by Stanley L. Brodsky, Joel A. Dvoskin, and Tess M. S. Neal, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 45:460 –463 (2017).

o PDF: http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/45/4/460.full.pdf

o HTML: http://jaapl.org/content/45/4/460

CLASS ^NO.6

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

-^W- Towards an Outline, Progressing with Research

· Read ALW, pp. 97-101.

-^R- Scientific Consensus and Climate Change

· Tory L. Lucas, An Inconvenient Trial: Using the Nuremberg Trials as a Mock Judicial Framework to Force Human-Caused Climate-Change Proponents to Plead and Prove Their Best Case with Proposed Remedies under the Burden of Proof of Their Choosing, 10 Liberty University Law Review 399: pp. 1-30, 60-67 (skip all footnotes), [PDF].

· Gary E. Marchant & Karen Bradshaw, The Short-Term Temptations and Long-Term Risks of Environmental Catastrophism, 56 Jurimetrics 345 (2016) pp. 1-22 (skip all footnotes), [PDF].

· Dan M. Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith and Donald Braman, Cultural cognition of scientific consensus, 14 Journal of Risk Research 147 (Feb. 2011): §1-2 (pp. 147-150) and §5 (pp. 166-170), [PDF].

********DUE: OUTLINE AND RESEARCH NOTES********
Friday, September 28, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

See §10 of the Syllabus for a description of the outline and research notes.

Turn this in electronically by e-mail to me at eric.e.johnson@ou.edu. Please attach the document as a pdf. Despite what the syllabus may say, there’s no need to turn in a paper copy.

Make sure you continue to use the law-review article template to build your budding paper. Most of you already started using the template prior to turning in your abstract. If you haven’t, you can get it here: article_with_abstract_and_table_of_contents.dot. (That template is Volokh’s, modified by me to include space for an abstract. The original, if you wish to see it or prefer it, is on Volokh’s website for the ALW book.)

For the purpose of turning in the outline and research notes to me, you can save a copy of your article document, and then delete from it whatever you aren’t turning in. But remember what I said in the syllabus: This deliverable shouldn’t involve “extra work” -- it should all be work that is helping you get to your rough draft.

CLASS ^NO.7

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

-^W- Academic Ethics

· Read all of ALW Part XXVII, pp. 358-366.

-^R- DNA Evidence in Criminal Trials and Exonerations

· Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf

o The Principles of Science and Interpreting Scientific Data, pp. 111-125

o Judicial Dispositions of Questions Relating to DNA Evidence, pp. 99-101

· Report to the President: Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods, https://www.innocenceproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/PCAST-2017-update.pdf

o Executive Summary, pp. 1-20

o “Box 2” on pp. 47-48

o §2.1-2.7, pp. 25-35

· Brandon L. Garrett, Judging Innocence, 108 Columbia Law Review 55 (2008), available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/3863:

o Introduction and portion of I.A.: pp. 55-67 (1st ¶)

o Conclusion, pp. 130-131

CLASS ^NO.8

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

-^W- Scholarly Paper Presentations

· No reading for this.

-^R- Uncertain Experiment Risk

· Barry R. Furrow, Governing Science: Public Risks and Private Remedies, 131 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1403 (1983), available at: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4639&context=penn_law_review [PDF]

o Introduction and Part I: pp. 1403-1419

o Part III to end: pp. 1436-1467.

o (Skip all footnotes.)

· Eric E. Johnson, Judicial Review of Uncertain Risks in Scientific Research, in The Illusion of Risk Control: What Does it Take to Live with Uncertainty?, 67–84, available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.06474.pdf

o (Skip the endnotes.)

· Nick Bostrom, Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards, reprint from the Journal of Evolution and Technology (2002), 1-26, available at: https://nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.pdf

o (Skip the acknowledgements, appendix, and references.)

CLASS ^NO.9

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

PRESENTATIONS ONLY

We will have five presentations today. Each student has 20 minutes total, inclusive of Q&A/feedback time, which is recommended to be a minimum of 5 minutes. For the names of the students giving presentations on this day, see the e-mail sent on October 10, 2018.

CLASS ^NO.10

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

PRESENTATIONS ONLY

********DUE: ROUGH DRAFT********
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 10:00 p.m. electronically only.
(You do not need to turn in the rough draft on paper.)

See §10 of the Syllabus for a description of the rough draft.

For credit, your assignment must be received either by an e-mail to me at eric.e.johnson@ou.edu or by uploading to Canvas. While your assignment only needs to be timely received via one method, it is permissible to submit both by e-mail and Canvas, and I recommend doing both if feasible. Please attach/upload the document as a pdf. Make sure you continue to use the law-review article template to build your budding paper. Once again, that’s here: article_with_abstract_and_table_of_contents.dot.

CLASS ^NO.11

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

-^W- Style, Clarity, Revising, and Rewriting

· Read all of ALW Parts X & XVII, pp. 120-127, 159-167.

-^R- Teaching Evolution

· Read “State v. John Scopes ("The Monkey Trial"): An Account,” by Douglas O. Linder, http://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2127-home.

· Read “The Evolution-Creationism Controversy: Chronology,” by Douglas O. Linder, http://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2116-chronology.

· Read Tennessee Evolution Statutes, http://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2128-evolutionstatues.

· Read State v. Scopes trial Day 5 excerpts, http://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2122-day5.

· Read State v. Scopes trial Day 7 excerpts, http://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2124-day7.

· Read William Jennings Bryan’s undelivered summation, http://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2183-bryansummation.

· Watch the film Inherit the Wind, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, and directed by Stanley Kramer (1960).

o (Two copies are on reserve in the library.)

· Read LAS Ch. 4, Part I.B. (Edwards v. Aguillard), pp. 248-258.

********DUE: COMMENT DRAFT********
Friday, November 2, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

See §10 of the Syllabus for a description of the comment draft.

Please attach the document as a pdf. Despite what the syllabus may say, there’s no need to turn in a paper copy.

For credit, your assignment must be received either by an e-mail to me at eric.e.johnson@ou.edu or by uploading to Canvas. While your assignment only needs to be timely received via one method, it is permissible to submit both by e-mail and Canvas, and I recommend doing both if feasible. Make sure you continue to use the law-review article template, which is here: article_with_abstract_and_table_of_contents.dot.

CLASS ^NO.12

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

-^W- Logic, Rhetoric, and Evidence

· Read all of ALW Parts XII, XVI, & XVIII, pp. 130-134, 156-158, 168-218.

-^R- One vs. Many: Human-Subject Research, Vaccines, Public Health

· Read James Lobo, Vindicating the Vaccine: Injecting Strength into Mandatory School Vaccination Requirements to Safeguard the Public Health, 57 Boston College Law Review 261 (2016), available at: https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol57/iss1/7

o Read the whole article, but skip or skim all footnotes.

· Read Jennifer S. Bard, Closing the Gaps in Human Subject Research Law: Regulating Clinical Research Conducted Outside of the United States, 21 Annals of Health Law 201 (2012), available at: https://lawecommons.luc.edu/annals/vol21/iss1/19

o Read the whole article, but skip or skim all footnotes.

CLASS ^NO.13

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

-^W- Paragraphs, Sentences, Words, and Phrases

· Read all of ALW Parts XIII–XV, pp. 135-155.

-^R- National Security and Science

· Read LAS, pp. 105-129.

· Read U.S. v. Progressive, in LAS, pp. 219-227.

· Read Mutant-flu paper published, by Ed Yong, Nature, May 3, 2012 pp. 13-14, available in two formats:

o HTML: https://www.nature.com/news/mutant-flu-paper-published-1.10551

o PDF: https://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.10551!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/485013a.pdf.

********DUE: FINAL PAPER********
Monday, November 26, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.
Note that you may turn in the final paper early, i.e., prior to this date.

See §10 of the Syllabus for a description of the final paper.

Please attach the document as a pdf. Despite what the syllabus may say, there’s no need to turn in a paper copy.

For credit, your assignment must be received either by an e-mail to me at eric.e.johnson@ou.edu or by uploading to Canvas. While your assignment only needs to be timely received via one method, it is permissible to submit both by e-mail and Canvas, and I recommend doing both if feasible. Make sure you continue to use the law-review article template, which is here: article_with_abstract_and_table_of_contents.dot.

CLASS ^NO.14

Wuesday*, November 27, 2018

* This is a Tuesday treated as a Wednesday on the school calendar.

-^R- The Planetary Status of Pluto

· Read pp. 4 & 5 of issue 3, p. 8 of issue 9 (not including right column) and p. 1 of issue 10 (not including any colored boxes) of Dissertatio Cvm Nvncio Sidereo III, Pragae, MMVI 16, 24 & 25. VIII., Series Tertia, appearing on pages 16, 17, 52, and 53 of this pdf: https://www.iau.org/static/publications/ga_newspapers/20060812.pdf

· Review IAU adopted resolutions B5 and B6, https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf

o (Note: The text of these resolutions can be found within the above reading, but this document shows only what was adopted.)

· Read IAU, “Pluto and the Developing Landscape of Our Solar System,” https://www.iau.org/public/themes/pluto/

· Read Kimberly K. Ferzan, A Planet By Any Other Name …, 108 Michigan Law Review 1011 (2010), available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1284&context=mlr

· Read IAU, “Buying Stars and Star Names,” http://www.iau.org/public/themes/buying_star_names/

-^W- Wrap Up

· No reading.