Civil Liberties, Rights, and Responsibilities Ch. 13, 14, & 15 SSCG 6 SSCG 7
Constitutional Rights All Americans have basic rights. The belief in human rights or fundamental freedoms, lies at the heart of the US political system and enables citizens to worship as they wish, speak freely and read and write what they choose. Along with the enjoyment of these rights, comes a responsibility to ensure their strength and endurance. If people do not carry out their responsibilities as citizens, the whole society suffers.
Bill of Rights The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights was intended as a protection against the actions of the federal government. A process called incorporation extended the Bill of Rights to all levels of government. Incorporation meant that all citizens, anywhere in the U.S. would have the same basic rights As a result, the Bill of Rights becomes the final safeguard when personal rights are threatened, proving that the Constitution is still a living document.
First Amendment The First Amendment gives citizens five basic freedoms: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Religion The First Amendment prohibits government from establishing a religion and protects each person's right to practice (or not practice) any faith without government interference.
Religion The firsts clause of the amendment, known as the establishment clause, states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The second clause, (free exercise clause) prohibits government from unduly interfering with the free exercise of religion. Religion in you daily lives:
Speech Speech The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference.
The verbal expression of thought and opinion before an audience that has chosen to listen is pure speech, which is the most common form of speech. Because pure speech relies only on the power of words to communicate ideas, the Supreme Court traditionally has provided the strongest protection of pure speech against government control
Symbolic Speech Symbolic speech, sometimes called expressive conduct involves actions and symbols, in addition to or instead of words. During the Vietnam War, protesters burned their draft cards to express their opposition to the war. What are some examples used today? Exception: The First Amendment does not permit expressive conduct that endangers public safety.
Regulating Speech Because the rights of free speech must be balanced with the need to protect society some limits must exist. Congress and state legislatures have outlawed seditious speech---any speech urging resistance to lawful authority or advocating the overthrow of the government. Other forms of speech not protected by the First Amendment include defamatory speech. Defamatory speech is false speech that damages a person s good name, character or reputation. Two types: slander is spoken and libel is written. A person may be sued in civil court and ordered to pay damages for making false statements about someone else.
Press The First Amendment gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference. This also means people have the right to publish their own newspapers, newsletters, magazines, etc.
Prior Restraint In many nations, prior restraint or censorship of information before it is published, is a common way for the government to control information and limit freedom. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that the press may only be censored in advance in cases relating directly to national security.
Freedom of Press Pretrial publicity and news stories about the crime can make it difficult to secure a jury capable of fairly deciding a case. A gag order is an order by a judge barring the press from publishing certain types of information about a pending court case. The Court describes measures that judges can use to restrain press coverage without violating the freedom of press. Move trial to reduce pretrial publicity Limit the number of reporters in the courtroom Place controls on the reporters behavior in the courtroom Isolate witnesses & jurors from the press Have the jury sequestered, or kept isolated until the trial is over.
New York Times Co v. United States In 1971, a former Pentagon employee leaked to the NY Times a secret government report outlining the history of the US involvement in the Vietnam War. This report, known as the Pentagon Papers contained hundreds of government documents, many of them secret documents, memos and plans. The Pentagon Papers showed that former government officials had lied to the American people about the war. The NY Times began publishing parts of the report but the government tried to stop further publication, arguing that national security would be endangered. The Court ruled that stopping publication would be prior restraint.
Free Press Issues Radio & television use public airwaves so they do not have the same freedoms as other press media. Stations must obtain a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a government agency that regulates their actions.
Advertising is considered commercial speech speech that has a profit motive and is given less protection under the First Amendment than purely political speech.
Assembly The First Amendment says that people have the right to gather in public to march, protest, demonstrate, carry signs and otherwise express their views in a nonviolent way. It also means people can join and associate with groups and organizations without interference.
Freedom of Assembly Freedom of Assembly includes the right to parade and demonstrate in public. Because these take place on public streets, parks, or sidewalks, it is very possible they could interfere with the rights of others to use those facilities. Because demonstrations have the potential for violence, demonstrations are subject to greater government regulation than exercises of pure speech & other kinds of assembly.
To provide for public safety, many states and cities require that groups wanting to parade or demonstrate must first obtain a permit. Does this restrict your ability to exercise your freedom of speech and assembly? The Court said the law was intended to ensure that parades and demonstrations would not interfere with other citizens using the streets/public property.
Cox v. New Hampshire (1941) Cox was one of several Jehovah s Witnesses convicted of violating a law requiring a parade permit. He challenged his conviction on the grounds that the permit law restricted his rights of free speech and assembly. The Court upheld the law stating that it was designed to ensure that parades would not interfere with other citizens using the streets.
Protection for Picketing Workers on strike often form picket lines. Picketing conveys a message, so is therefore a form of speech. Many people will not cross a picket line, depriving a business of its workers and customers. The Supreme Court has ruled that peaceful picketing is a form of free speech. However the court has upheld state laws that prohibit picketing a business unless there is a labor dispute.
Rights of the Accused The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Police must state under oath that they have probable cause to suspect someone of committing a crime to justify a search. They must obtain a warrant from a court official before searching for evidence or making an arrest. The warrant must describe the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.
Special Situations The police do not need a warrant to search and arrest a person they see breaking the law. Whren v. United States (1996) the Court held that the police could seize drugs found in a suspect s vehicle when they stopped him for a traffic violation. Police do not need a search warrant to search garbage placed outside a home for pick-up. (California v. Greenwood 1998)
Exclusionary Rule In Weeks v. United States (1914), the Court established the exclusionary rule any illegally obtained evidence cannot be used in a federal court. That decision did not apply to state courts until Mapp v. Ohio (1961). Should a criminal go free simply because an officer made a mistake collecting evidence? United States v. Leon (1984) ruled that as long as the police act in good faith when they request a warrant, the evidence they collect may be used in court, even if the warrant is defective. (In Leon case, the warrant was issued on a probable cause that later was found to be invalid.
Fourth Amendment in High Schools The Supreme Court has ruled that school officials do not need warrants or probable cause to search students or their property. All that is needed are reasonable grounds to believe a search will uncover evidence that a student has broken school rules. Veronia School District 47J v. Acton (1995) upheld mandatory suspicionless drug tests for all students participating in interscholastic activites.
Fifth Amendment The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. No one shall be required to testify against himself. The government bears the burden of proof. Defendants are not obliged to help the government prove their case. The 5 th Amendment also protects against double jeopardy being tried for the same crime, twice.
Sixth Amendment The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to have the assistance of counsel (an attorney) for his defense.
Equal Protection The 14 th Amendment forbids any state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. State & local governments cannot draw unreasonable distinctions among different groups of people.
Rational Basis Test The rational basis test provides that the Court will uphold a state law when the state can show a good reason to justify the classification. The test asks if the classification is reasonably related to an acceptable goal of government. A law prohibiting people with red hair from driving would fail the test because there is no relationship between the color of a person s hair and driving safely. In Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) the Supreme Court upheld a law that gives longer prison terms for people who commit hate crimes.
Discrimination Laws that classify people unreasonably are said to discriminate or treat people unfairly solely because of their race, gender, age, religion, ethnic group, etc. Washington v. Davis (1976) the Supreme Court ruled that to prove a state guilty of discrimination, one must prove an intent to discriminate. Two African Americans challenged D.C. s police dept. requirement to pass a verbal ability test saying the requirement was unconstitutional because more whites passed the test. The Court ruled it was not unconstitutional because the test was not intended to discriminate. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal laws, not equal results.
Struggle for Equal Rights By the late 1800 s, about half of the states (mainly in the South) had adopted Jim Crow laws. These laws required racial segregation in schools, public transportation and hotels. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court ruled that the 14 th Amendment allowed for separate facilities for different races, as long as they were equal.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Brown v. Board of Education overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, saying that the separate but equal was unconstitutional. This decision marked the beginning of a long battle to desegregate the public schools.
End of PPT for non-ap
The Fourteenth Amendment provides a broad definition of citizenship. Its Due Process Clause has been used to apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states. This clause has also been used to recognize: (1) substantive due process rights, such as parental and marriage rights; and (2) procedural due process rights requiring that certain steps, such as a hearing, be followed before a person's "life, liberty, or property" can be taken away. The amendment's Equal Protection Clause requires states to provide equal protection under the law to all people within their jurisdictions.
Citizenship means "a productive, responsible, caring and contributing member of society." Civic Responsibility is defined as the "responsibility of a citizen." Civic responsibilities include paying taxes, voting, registering for military service, serving on a jury, and obeying the law.
Selective incorporation: a theory or doctrine of constitutional law that those rights guaranteed by the first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution that are fundamental to and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty are incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. Selective incorporation means that certain guarantees in the Bill of Rights protect citizens from state government as well as the federal government.
Individual rights refer to the rights of individuals. Individual rights advocates tend to argue for increased codification of individual legal rights to protect individuals from state infringement of their natural rights. The role of the government is solely to identify, protect, and enforce the natural rights of the individual while attempting to assure just remedies for transgressions.
Liberal governments that respect individual rights often provide for systemic controls that protect individual rights such as a system of due process in criminal justice. Locke believed that all individuals are entitled to liberty under the natural law that governed them before they formed societies. Locke's concept of natural law required that no one should interfere with another's life, health, liberty, or possessions. According to Locke, governments are necessary only to protect those who live within the laws of nature from those who do not.
The public interest refers to the "common well-being" or "general welfare." The public interest is central to policy debates, politics, democracy and the nature of government itself. While nearly everyone claims that aiding the common well- being or general welfare is positive, there is little, if any, consensus on what exactly constitutes the public interest.
There are different views on how many members of the public must benefit from an action before it can be declared to be in the public interest: at one extreme, an action has to benefit every single member of society in order to be truly in the public interest; at the other extreme, any action can be in the public interest as long as it benefits some of the population and harms none.
All laws rely on some form of classification, and in many instances the laws only apply to certain people and not to others, and people may be treated differently under terms of the same law.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution forbade all states from denying any citizens not only due process of law but equal protection of those laws. From the very beginning the meaning of "equal protection" has at times been confusing, perhaps because the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment left us no explanation of exactly what they meant. The phrase could be read to mean that any law, no matter what common sense suggests, will be applied rigidly to all people.
Why do we pay taxes? The federal government uses your tax dollars to support Social Security, health care, national defense and social services such as food stamps and housing. The city or county where you live provides water and garbage service, police and fire protection and also contributes to public schools. Taxes are meant to help everybody in the system. Our tax system is based on our "ability to pay."
Different types of taxes include: Real estate taxes - are imposed by local government in order to pay for schools, police/fire services, hospitals, garbage disposal, sewage/sanitation, road maintenance, parks, and libraries. Sales taxes - can be imposed at any level of government, but the largest percentage is at the state level. The funds from sales taxes go towards the State's budget and will vary from state to state. Income tax - is imposed at the federal level as well as the state level (with some exceptions). Income tax is a progressive tax in the United States. This means that the tax rate increases as the amount subject to taxation increases. The proceeds from income tax are used for the Federal budget. There are of course other types of taxes such as the Payroll (FICA), Capital Gains, Corporate, Estate, Gift, and Excise taxes.
Why do we vote? Voting is personally costly. It takes time to register and to learn about the candidates' views. Some see voting as a habitual behavior cued by yard signs and political ads. Others say voting may be a form of egocentrism called the "voter's illusion." Self-expression expression is likely to play a role as well. Some research suggests that people are motivated to vote because they want to "fit in."
Some people, of course, vote because they believe their vote will make a difference. Voting may be just plain habit for some people. Habitual voters are much more likely to have lived at the same address over several elections and possess a "stable context" for voting. Less-habitual voters may vote due to social pressure.
Do Jury Duty All adult American citizens and those with permanent residency status are required to serve as a member of a jury from time to time. The number of times an individual will serve jury duty depends on the selection process stipulated by the county and state of his or her residence.
If you are called to jury duty and are regularly employed for more than thirty hours per week, your employer is required to pay you for up to five days of jury duty. Jury duty can be postponed; but it cannot be waived except for in very special circumstances in which an individual is, for one reason or another, incapable of serving.
Obey the Law Obeying the law is a general moral obligation. Usually, laws are written from societal ethical codes; therefore the law can embody morality. Obeying the law is a general moral obligation that should reflect the greatest good for the greatest number.
Perform Public Service Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income. Public service tend to be those considered so essential to modern life that for moral reasons their universal provision should be guaranteed, and they may be associated with fundamental human rights.
Steps to staying informed Watch the news. Make sure you get a paper. Subscribe to news and opinion magazines. Stay balanced. Read books by top officials, pundits, and those in the know. Check news sites as often as you can. Talk with other informed people.
Respecting different opinions An opinion is a belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof. Once you know that someone has stated an opinion, you have four basic options: you can a) accept the opinion and keep quiet, b) state your own opinion, c) express your agreement with the opinion, or d) express your disagreement with the opinion. Respect the person for taking a stance and having enough courage to share the opinion.