Essay– Flowers v. Mississippi

I’m working on a Law question and need guidance to help me study.

A. Introduction:

1. Identify the name of the case and when it was heard before SCOTUS.

2. Identify the parties involved in the case.

3. Briefly describe the focus of the case.

B. Describe the case itself: What was the controversy in the case?

C. How did the case move through the courts before reaching SCOTUS?

1. What court had original jurisdiction in the case?

2. How had previous courts ruled in the case?

D. What did the SCOTUS rule in the case?

1. What was the argument of the majority opinion?

2. What was the argument of the minority opinion?

E. What was the reasoning used by the SCOTUS to reach its decision? How did it reach its decision?

E. Conclusion: How does the Court’s ruling in the case affect Americans today?

1. Has the Court’s ruling in the case affected other rulings in other cases?

2. Has the Court’s ruling affected the interpretation and enforcement of any particular laws, and how those laws are enforced?

3. If applicable: Has the Court’s ruling in this case affected you, or someone you know, personally?

5. Write your essay. If you organized your information based on the suggested outline, then all you have to do is write down what you have learned from your research, and put it into a footnoted two to three page essay. Your first paragraph is the introduction (the information under letter A of your outline). The second paragraph is the information under letter B, and so on.

6. Sources: Be sure to cite your sources, using sequentially numbered footnotes. That means any information you learned from another source, such as a website, a magazine article, a videotaped interview, etc., must be properly noted in your essay. Make sure you use footnotes in proper BlueBook citation style. Footnotes appear at the bottom of each page, not at the end of the document (those are endnotes).