CIVIL AND FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES

INTRO TO CIVIL AND FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES

• The United States is known as the land of the free. The people within that land are afforded rights to insure the tag lines of freedom. We as Americans take advantage of these rights and would be voiceless without them. This Powerpoint will explore the many rules and policies that grant the people equal justice.
• Evaluated from 14.4-14.6 in Government by the people, 2016 presidential edition.

PROPERTY

• Having (property rights) in America is crucial to the founding fathers vision. This allows the American people to have their piece of the rock. A freedom often infringed on by the British rule they fled. While not as invasive as it was in Europe, the america system has laws allowing property to be taken for “fair value.” A price that is what the market value of the house or property would bring, disregarding the emotional connection owners have.
• This power is called eminent domain.

PROPERTY PT. 2

• Typically, a “taking” must be direct, and a person must lose title and control over the property. The government takes this action to ultimately create a better society, using the land for economic growth. Even if they don’t take the tittle away from you, making your land useless or restricted creates the same burden. this is called regulatory takings. Ex. Personal land used for airport runway when expanding.
• (Interpreted from pg. 409)

KELO V. CITY OF NEW LONDON (2005)

• In the Court Case the Court held that “public use” was not limited to eminent domain to build a road or a bridge but includes “promoting economic development,” even if the property was taken and sold for development to private developers. This use of government was highly criticized and led to many states making laws prohibiting it, showing the courts were only a part of government and the checks and balances would regulate the fairness to the people. (Interpreted from pg. 409)

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

• The amendment was created to prevent a tyrannical government from ruling over the American people, or so we think. The debate on the founders intentions with the second amendment is on going. From how it applies to high caliber rifles, high capacity fire arms, and extent of freedom we have with weapons in general. in 2008, it was the first time in over 70 years that the second amendment had been addressed in the Supreme Court.

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS PT. 2

• when it heard the case challenging the District of Columbia’s restrictive gun control law, it clarified a central question, “whether the right to own guns was a right that belonged to each person individually, or whether it was a collective right?” The court ruled that the right belonged to individuals, saying it was given to them in the first sentence of the second amendment. With each sentence not affecting the other.
• (Interpreted from 409-410)

MCDONALD VS. CHICAGO (2010)

• After hearing the ruling in the District of Columbia, the case was essentially trying to reverse the handgun ban placed in Chicago. Plaintiffs argued that the Second Amendment should also apply to the states. The district court dismissed the suits. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed.
• In the 5-4 decision the Court decided that the right was essential and thus required protection not only from the federal government, but also the states. (Interpreted from oyez summary)

DUE PROCESS

• Due process is defined as rules and regulations that restrain those in government who exercise power. The importance of due process is that it allows individuals to have freedoms and fair opportunities compared to their much more powerful government. There are basically two kinds of due process: procedural and substantive. Unlike some legal rules, it’s not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place, and circumstances.
• (Interpreted from pg. 410)

PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS

• Procedural due process refers not to the law itself but to how a law is applied. Originally, procedural due process was limited to criminal prosecutions, but it now applies to most kinds of governmental proceedings. the due process of law requires a procedure that hears before it condemns, proceeds upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after a trial or some kind of hearing.
• (Interpreted from pg. 410)

SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS

• Substantive due process limits what a government may do. Substantive due process mainly limits the legislative branch because it enacts laws. It means that a law, even if properly passed and properly applied, can be unconstitutional.
• (Interpreted from pg. 410)

FINDING A CONSTITUTION RIGHT TO PRIVACY

• The most important extension of substantive due process in recent decades. This right has three aspects 1. the right to be free from governmental surveillance and intrusion, especially with respect to sexuality 2. the right not to have the government make private affairs public. 3. the right to be free in thought and belief from governmental regulations. It also encompasses state regulation of abortion and private, adult, consensual sexual conduct. (Interpreted from pg. 411)

ROE VS. WADE (1973)

• the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy extended to a woman’s decision, in consultation with her physician, to terminate her pregnancy. Roe led to decades of heated public debate and attempts by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush to select Supreme Court justices who might reverse it. Nonetheless, Roe v. Wade was reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
• Roe’s “trimester framework,”
• (Interpreted from pg. 411)

CURRENT ABORTION LAWS

• the Court also held that the right may be subject to state regulation that does not “unduly burden” the woman’s liberty. Applying the undue burden test, the Court has held, that states can prohibit the use of state funds and facilities for performing abortions; states may make a minor’s right to an abortion conditional on her first notifying at least one parent or a judge; and states may require women to sign an informedconsent form and wait 24 hours before having an abortion.

SAME SEX MARRIAGE

• Although the federal courts did not protect intimate relationships between consenting adults, several state supreme courts protected privacy rights for gay couples based on their own state constitutions rather than relying on the U.S. Constitution. In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Court struck down the Texas law making consensual homosexual sodomy a crime. the challenges have asserted that such laws violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Interpreted from pg. 412)

UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURES

• the Fourth Amendment, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
• (Takes from pg. 413)

UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PT. 2

• A search warrant is usually needed to search a person in any place he or she has an “expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable,” including, for example, in a hotel room, a rented home, or a friend’s apartment. In short, the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, from unreasonable governmental intrusions. However, probable cause is highly criticized.
• (Interpreted from pg. 413)

THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE

• A requirement that evidence unconstitutionally or illegally obtained be excluded from a criminal trial. This exclusionary rule was adopted to eliminate any incentive for police misconduct. Police officers know that if they obtain evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment, it cannot be used against a defendant at trial. Critics question why criminals should go free just because of police misconduct or ineptness.
• (Interpreted from pg. 414)

PROTECTION > PEACEFUL LAW

• How do we find the correct balance between preserving national security and protecting civil liberties? Congress created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 1978, often referred to as FISA. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) expanded the size of the court, lowered the requirement to approve warrants in cases involving terrorism, and permitted searches for foreign intelligence.

THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

• During the seventeenth century, courts in England forced confessions from religious dissenters by torture. However, the Founders included the Fifth Amendment: the provision that persons shall not be compelled to testify against themselves in criminal prosecutions. This protection against self-incrimination is designed to strengthen the principle that no person has an obligation to prove innocence. the burden is on the government to prove guilt. (Interpreted from pg. 415)

Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

• Announced that no conviction could stand if evidence introduced at the trial had been obtained by the police during “custodial interrogation” unless suspects were notified that they have a right to remain silent and that anything they say can and will be used against them; to terminate questioning at any point; to have an attorney present during questioning by police; and to have a lawyer appointed to represent them if they cannot afford to hire their own attorney. ( interpreted from pg. 416)

THE RIGHT TO AN ATTORNEY

• until 1963, defendants who could not afford an attorney to represent them in state criminal trials were left to defend themselves against charges brought by state prosecutors. In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court cited our complex adversary legal system and the possibility of being denied one’s physical liberty to rule that the government must provide an attorney to a criminal defendant who cannot afford one, creating a fair representation and opportunity. (Interpreted from pg. 416)

FAIR TRIAL

• Procedural protections are guaranteed at each of the phases in the criminal process: (1) pretrial, (2) trial, (3) sentencing, and (4) appeal. Before a person can be forced to stand trial for a criminal offense they must be indicted by a grand jury, or before a judge in what is called an information proceeding. A grand jury is concerned not with a person’s guilt or innocence, as a petit jury would be, but merely with whether there is enough evidence to warrant a trial.

FAIR TRIAL PT. 2

• Grand jury — A jury of 12 to 23 persons, depending on state and local requirements, who privately hear evidence presented by the government to determine whether persons shall be required to stand trial. If the jury believes there is sufficient evidence that a crime was committed, it issues an indictment.
• Petit jury— A jury of 6 to 12 persons that determines whether a defendant is found guilty in a civil or criminal action.

FAIR TRIAL PT. 3

• The defendant has the right to call witnesses, try for plea bargains, and stand for innocence. He or she is also promised an impartial jury and fair representation. However, sentencing is something the judge or jury decides on.
• (All fair trial slides interpreted from pg. 416-418)

THE DEATH PENALTY

• The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment has never been interpreted by a majority of the Supreme Court to bar the death penalty. the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause indicating that a person not be denied of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” provides further evidence that those voting to ratify the document understood that a person’s life could be taken as long as the government used procedural safeguards. (Interpreted from pg. 418)

THE DEATH PENALTY PT. 2

• In the early 1970s the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the mechanism by which most states meted out the death penalty failed to meet the standards required by the Eighth Amendment. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision upholding Georgia’s revised death penalty rules, many states followed Georgia’s lead and revised their own rules, and the federal government increased the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed.
• (Interpreted from pg. 419)

SOURCES

• (McDonald vs. Chicago) https://www.oyez.org/cases/2009/08-1521
• Government by the people, 2016 election edition