...1. Brown v. Board of Education a. Provide the Constitutional question: Does the segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprive the minority children of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment? b. Provide background information: Black children were unable to attend the same schools that white children attend because of segregation laws. One person in particular, Linda Brown, was denied admittance to an all white school, and Thurgood Marshall decided to challenge the protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. c. Provide a summary of the opinion of the Court in this case: The Court ruled that all people deserve equal protection. Although black and white areas were built equally, segregation...
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...McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) (1) Constitutional Question: Was the Maryland law unconstitutional towards the Bank of the United States, under Article I, Section 8, of the constitution, to tax the Bank? (2) Background information: The Bank of the United States was not chartered within the Maryland state which caused Maryland to impose a burdensome tax on the Bank. The Bank’s Baltimore branch would not pay the tax, and Maryland sued James McCulloch. James McCulloch soon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme court examined the case in 1819. Once they examined the case the court ruled that the Maryland tax was unconstitutional, while the Bank of the United States was constitutional. There was questioning in Article I, Section 8, which was if the congress had the power, and it was proper and...
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...The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Such language has created considerable debate regarding the Amendment's intended meaning. For example, some people believe that the Amendment's phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" creates an individual constitutional right for citizens of the United States. Under this "individual right theory," the United States Constitution restricts legislative bodies from banning or prohibiting the owning of firearms, or at the very least, the Amendment indirectly states that getting rid of or restricting citizens who own these types of weapons is unconstitutional. On the other hand, some scholars believe that because of...
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...Week Two Assignment Kacy Lane Klingle POL303: The American Constitution Lawrence Olson February 29, 2016 The topic I am going to cover in this paper is Privacy Rights. The one thing I will cover is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism or the USA Patriot Act. This Act has caused numerous concerns over the years of the federal government over stepping their bounds on their tactics of intelligence gathering after the terrorist attacks on September eleventh two thousand and eleven. This paper will discuss some advantages of the patriot act such as sharing intelligence between the federal, state, and local governments. As well it will cover harsher penalties for hackers. The paper will also cover some of the disadvantages of the Patriot Act. Such as screening peoples phone calls and E-mails possibly infringing on a persons’ Fourth Amendment rights. The first thing this paper is going to discuss is how the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism or the USA Patriot Act. The Patriot Act helps throughout the multiple levels of the government, from federal to the local government. One way is within this act it allows the multiple levels of the government to share information between organizations. “The Act removed the major legal barriers that prevented the law enforcement, intelligence, and national defense communities from talking...
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...As a consequence of Bowers Court’s refusal to expand of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee to a right to privacy to homosexuals, some states continued to exercise their power to regulate and criminalize homosexual acts. The holding in Bowers restricted the impact of the doctrine of stare decisis (which could arise from the Griswold and Brown v. Board of Education decisions) by favoring the privacy rights of heterosexual over homosexual individuals. The Bowers opinion included a “slippery slope” argument stating that the legitimization of privacy rights for homosexual relations would establish “illegitimacy” and lead to “judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.” In Brown the Equal Protection Cause of the Fourteenth Amendment was extended to include race yet the Court in Bowers refused to do...
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...Federalist Papers * John Locke * Authoritarianism * The Two Treatises Of Government * The Social Contract Theory * Thomas Hobbes * Nominalism * Materialism * Method Reading Summary or Overview The Federalist Papers were written and published in New York state newspapers between 1787 and 1788. Its purpose was to convince New Yorkers to ratify the proposed Constitution. The authors of The Federalist or The Federalist Papers were among the "founding fathers" of the United States of America. This term is used to refer to the men whose actions were responsible for creating the United States of America and the United States Constitution. View this introductory presentation on the authors of The Federalist Papers. Then, read the internet resources on The Federalist Papers. Internet Resources KAPLAN LIBRARY The "KU Online Library" link is on the left Navigation area of your course Home Page once you log in. You will be able to locate the articles below by placing the title of the article into the search engine. For any Supreme Court cases or other legal cases, once you go into the Kaplan Library, on the right side of the page you will see “databases.” Once in “databases” scroll down to “Westlaw Campus Research” and there you will be able to access the full text of court opinions, statutes, and regulations from state and federal governments. The Federalist Papers Jay, J., Goldman, L., Hamilton, A., & Madison, J. (2008). The Federalist Papers. Oxford:...
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...Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961) was a very important case and turning point in our nation's history. It changed our legal system by extending the evidence exclusionary rule that was originally decided in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914). It also marked the final incorporation of the fourth amendment into the due process clause of the fourteenth. The exclusionary rule was created in Weeks which prevented the federal government from using evidence that is found during an illegal search without a warrant. Years later in Wolf v Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949) the Supreme Court ruled that both state and local governments must obey the fourth amendment by getting a warrant before conducting a search. The court also said the exclusionary rule did not apply to the states allowing state prosecutors to use illegally seized evidence in trial. Mapp v. Ohio gave the Supreme Court the chance to overrule Wolf and apply the exclusionary rule to the states. Mapp v. Ohio was quite the interesting case. It started on May 23, 1957, when three Cleveland police officers arrived at Dolly Mapp's home regarding information suggesting that a person wanted for questioning in connection with a bombing was hiding in the house, and upon a large amount of paraphernalia in the home (Mapp v. Ohio). The officers demanded entrance but Ms. Mapp refused entrance to the home without a search warrant after telephoning her attorney (Mapp v. Ohio). They took surveillance of the house and arrived some...
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...However, the decision was close and had many opinions. In “Partisan Gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act”, Richard Forgette and John Winkle provided a historical background on the decision: “In late April 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote affirmed the lower court judgment in Vieth and dismissed the plaintiffs' claims. On the issue of partisan gerrymandering, however, the ruling proved anything but conclusive. The significance of the ruling, it seems, now lies in its fractured set of opinions” The Justices’ split decision left the door open to reinterpreting the judiciable grounds for gerrymandering under the right circumstances. As displayed thus far, gerrymandering by Republicans has implied racial discrimination. While previous cases have...
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...Justifying the Bill of Rights Professor Maria Toy, J.D. LEG107 The amendments to the United States Constitution play an important role in the history, politics and law of our country. When the Bill of Rights was originally proposed to the First Federal Congress in 1789 by James Madison, the intent was for the amendments to be integrated into the original text of the Constitution. As we now know, Madison’s idea did not prevail and Congress decided the first ten amendments and the subsequent seventeen be appended (BYU Journal of Public Law [Volume 25], January 1, 2011). The amendments are an integral part of the Constitution, the framework of the incomparable American justice system that has great impact on the legal system and political climate of the United States. Each of the amendments was written either to overrule a Supreme Court decision, to force societal change, or to revise details of the existing Constitution. The Constitution is an evolving document that some believe is “a living constitution that was written so it could adapt to a changing nation” (Huey-Burns, 2010). Additionally, many of the modern day issues we face such as same-sex marriage, healthcare and insurance policy, and immigration reform, have deep constitutional roots. Amendments are crucial because they give us a mechanism to update and reflect changes in time and public opinion. The process of amending the Constitution fulfills a crucial part of the checks and balance system of our...
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...Exigent Circumstances to Search and Seizure The Fourth Amendment to The Constitution of the United States Kirk H. Andersen Park University July 2012 Abstract One of the greatest rights the Founding Fathers of the United States of America gave to its citizens was the right against unreasonable search and seizure. This right is guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. When this right is abridged by the government, what recourse does the citizen have to try and right this wrong? The appellate court system, up to the United States Supreme Court, was created to protect citizens rights. However, the courts have found, that under certain circumstances the government is capable of executing a search or seizure without a warrant as the Fourth Amendment so requires. This paper addresses exigent circumstances to search and seizure. Exigent Circumstances to Search and Seizure The Fourth Amendment to The Constitution of the United States The Constitution of the United States is the basic document that governs the citizens of the United States of America. The framers of the Constitution wrote it with deep emotions in response to how the American Colonies had been treated under the British Crown. The Fourth Amendment, in particular, to protect citizens from unreasonable search and seizure, was written in response to how the colonist had been subject to writs of assistance, which were warrants that British Customs Officers and soldiers...
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...Liberty in a constitutional meaning is freedom enjoyed by the citizens of a country or state under the protection of its constitution; the aggregate of those personal, civil, and political rights of the individual which are guaranteed by the constitution and secured against invasion by the government or any of its agencies. If one is entitled rights, one has the duty to support the public authority that protects its rights. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or press; or the right of the people to peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” These various aspects of liberty were lumped together in first amendment for the sake of convenience, considering the original clause of the first amendment was establishment of church. That is why the establishment clause of the first amendment was simply not intended to declare government hostility towards religion, it just simply kept the church separated from politics. Right to his Property, in Fourth Amendment it clearly stated “the right of people to secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.” Nobody knew more...
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...deny the marriage license would violate their Constitutional rights.” Thus began the long judicial history of same-sex marriage , as well as the conversation about the interpretation of Constitutional rights that runs parallel with it. This history has most recently culminated in the Obergefell v Hodges case, in which the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the entire nation. This paper begins with a brief glimpse at the history of the topic of same-sex marriage in the United States. The paper will then focus on the case of Obergefell v Hodges, and will specifically analyze the contentious role of the interpretation of the Constitution involved in the final decision. Cleary the Supreme Court, an extremely high authority in the United States, found that that the nationalizing of same-sex marriage was constitutional. However there were dissenting opinions that opposed the decision on the grounds that the Constitution specified that such rights were up to the state legislature. Lastly,...
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...THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE Geoff Moore LSTD503 CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROCESS The Exclusionary Rule In 1763, William Pitt spoke in front of Parliament. In that speech he stated that the King of England cannot enter with all his forces. It can be said that the American colonists went to war, the Revolutionary War, with England to stand up for their rights. One of those rights was the protection from illegal searches and seizures. When the Congress debated on the wording of the Fourth Amendment, they had an extreme importance of needed protection from government encroachment. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was designed and written specifically to protect citizens from illegal searches and seizures: “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.” [1] The exclusionary rule excludes evidence that was collected from an illegal search from being presented to convict someone of a crime. It is asserted to reject illegitimate police behavior by not allowing unlawfully seized evidence from being allowed in court. [2] When defense lawyers use the exclusionary rule, properly, it consistently damaging the district attorney’s case. This is why the officers are constantly being...
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...Korb Versus Raytheon: The Constitution and Wrongful Termination Darryl Mitchell Strayer University PAD525- Constitutional and Administrative Law August 13, 2012 Dr. Danette O’Neal Abstract This report reviews and analyzes individual rights afforded by the constitution and their applicability to the suit for wrongful termination in the case of Korb versus Raytheon. The specific constitutional rights under review are the freedom of speech, freedom of information and challenges associated with employment law. Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and current employee of Raytheon, a large equipment manufacturing company for the U.S. military was terminated after making public statements criticizing defense spending and calling for a reduction of Navy’s fleet. Raytheon, a manufacturer of Navy ships terminated Korb because they viewed his comments as contrary to the success of their business operations. This report will explore the challenges presented by the freedom of speech, freedom of information and employment law and their impact on the outcome of the case. Korb v. Raytheon Case Analysis In Korb V. Raytheon, the defendant (Raytheon) was a large equipment manufacturing company for the U.S. military. The Plaintiff, Lawrence Korb was employed by Raytheon as a Vice-President at corporate headquarters based in Washington, D.C. According to Masscases.com, in December 1985, Korb joined a non-profit organization called...
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...Garrie Allen IV Professor Deborah Anthony PSC 416 Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties 2 October 2014 ASHCROFT v. AL-KIDD The plaintiff, born with the name Lavoni T. Kidd, converted to Islam while in college and adopted the name Abudullah al-Kidd. In 2003 at Dulles International Airport, Al-Kidd was arrested by the FBI and held for two weeks under the federal material-witness statute because he was getting ready to leave the country to attend school in Saudi Arabia and they wanted him to testify in the trial of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen. Mr. al-Hussayen was tried and acquitted on charges of supporting terrorist organizations. Al-Kidd filed a civil suit against then Attorney General John Ashcroft alleging that “in his more than two weeks of detainment, he was strip-searched, shackled, interrogated without a lawyer present and treated as a terrorist. He was never charged with a crime and never called to testify against al-Hussayen, who was acquitted of the most serious charges against him” (Washington Post). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represented al-Kidd, claimed that he is one of 70 Muslim men who were treated similarly (Washington Post). Aschroft argued that he had absolute immunity from such civil suits seeing as how he was acting within the scope of his duties as US Attorney General. He also claimed that since...
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