Judging cases Media Law & Ethics COMS 400 This is a media law moot court site intended for students in the Media Law course (COMS 400) at Radford University. All cases are hypothetical. Cases (Mood court home page) Procedures (p. 2) Writing a brief (p. 3) Oral Argument  (p. 4) Judging a case (p. 5) Schedule

You must be present for oral arguements to judge a case. You must also have both briefs.  

Listen and think about the case as it is being argued. Are there any points that need to be drawn out? Is the research solid? Do the conclusions match the research? Ask questions if you think something needs clarification. Interrupt, especially if the attorneys are being long-winded.

Judges opinions are due as soon as possible or at the final exam. The opinion is based on the law. Do you find for the petitioners or the respondents? Why? What particular Constitutional argument did you find compelling? Why?

Cases are group work; judges opinions are individual. Thus, your case briefs are usually group projects, except in unusual circumstances, in which individuals may write their own briefs. However, a judge's opinion on someone else's case must be submitted individually. The opinion is graded separately as part of your final exam.

If you rely on the email system, you must submit your opinion a few days before, as papers sent as attachments have been lost and grades have suffered. You want to be sure that your attachment made it through. (One thing that helps is to make sure you send a document that hasno spaces in the name and the doc suffix. "My.opinion.doc" or "My_opinion.doc" and never, ever "My Opinion in the Moot Court Case"

Each student will be asked if all members of the group participated in the research and brief writing. Individual grades may vary for students who did not work with their groups. Conversely, students who would prefer to submit their own briefs independently may do so.

The opinion should be two pages long describing what you see as legal merits of the case and backing up your opinion with references to cases, precedents, historical trends and/or constitutional interpretations. You may do additional research or you may check the research that was done to ensure that the case if correctly cited.

You may certainly criticize other students for failing to perform basic research.

The opinion counts as the essay portion of your final exam. It will be graded on legal thinking and scholarship. Personal opinions are fun and sometimes interesting but mostly irrelevant. What I want is your legal reasoning.