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Individual Rights Under the United States Constitution

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Chapter One – Individual Rights Under the United States Constitution I. History of Criminal Procedure a. The Magna Carta i. 1215 agreement between King John of England and English nobility creating certain civil rights. ii. Due process is referred to as "law of the land" and "legal judgment of peers." Some state constitutions continue to use these phrases. iii. A legal principle which states that no one should be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by proper legal proceeding. The principle is enshrined in the 39th clause of Magna Carta (1215) which provides that ‘no freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his freehold or outlawed or banished or in any way ruined, nor will we (ie the monarch) take or order action against him, except by the lawful judgment of his equals and according to the law of the land’. b. The United States Constitution iv. 1789 v. Bill of Rights – proposed in 1789 and ratified (became law) in 1791. vi. Chapter 1, Page 14 – Provisions of Bill of Rights – Table 1.2 vii. The notion of due process is also embodied in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution, and in Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. viii. The reference in the 5th Amendment applies only to the federal government and its courts and agencies. The reference in the 14th Amendment extends protection of due process to all state governments, agencies, and courts. c. Individual Rights in the Original Constitution ix. Habeas Corpus – Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 an individual who has been restrained, by the government, in some way, may petition a Federal Court for a writ of habeas corpus to test whether the restraint violates the Constitution of laws of the United States. – Chapter 2 x. Bill of

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