COMM 317: How to "brief" a case

Legal "briefs," so goes the old lawyers' joke, are anything but ...

Today we will brief the grave constitutional issues raised in a landmark judicial decision in the U.S. District Court at Augusta, Ga., by "Blackie the Talking Cat." Blackie did not testify on his own behalf, but it was argued -- unsuccessfully -- that his right of free speech under the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitition was abridged when his masters were required to pay a business tax to the city of Augusta when they asked pedestrians on the city streets to pay money to hear the talking cat. The case, perhaps not surprisingly, was decided on other issues.

Robert J. Beck, an international law professor, has guidelines on how to brief a case linked to a course syllabus at Tufts University. It is unusually clear. Let's use it to analyze the decision of U.S. District Judge Dudley H. Bowen in Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Ga., 551 F.Suppl. 349 (1982).