“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,” Mapp V. Ohio (1961) dealt with that very sentence of the constitution. Were the officers at fault or Mapp? This complex question has a complex answer one that puzzled the Supreme Court and led to a change in criminal procedure. The verdict was a strict interpretation of the constitution. The fourth amendment was relevant because the fourteenth amendment grunted due process. It was a very good decision, it protected the black minority who at the time were being routinely harassed and convicted for no reasons. This decision certainly did not stop that but it made it harder…
As a person in the United States there are certain rights given to the people such as the first amendment, a law which doesn’t allow rules to be made against freedom of speech and expression. Despite all this, in fiction and reality, rights such as the first amendment have been denied to the people. For a fictional example, there is Fahrenheit 451 which denies people the right to read. In reality, there is an event that took place less than 100 years ago known as the Nashville sit ins where people passively fought for equality. The events in Fahrenheit 451 and at the Nashville Sit Ins have common ground in their basic history and ideals, yet when it comes to the actions they turn out very differently.…
There exists a fine line between the degree of responsibility a government has for its citizens, and the control it assumes to ensure the proliferation of its power. While freedom may be a traditional American value, how it is defined is a question that has long been a source of debate. Furthermore, when an institution follows a course of action that becomes detrimental to society, what responsibility, if any, do the citizens have to show their dissent, and what form should that dissent take?…
Every society determines what laws are necessary to preserve the natural, moral, and ethical rights of its constituents. Laws are social structures put in place to maintain order and balance. Often, however, there has been a discrepancy between the justice served and the justice deserved as the law has been manipulated by a powerful group to exploit a weaker group. For example, during the mid 19th Century there was a steady increase in efforts for women’s rights, most notably the Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. Later in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution cemented the status of all people born or naturalized in the U.S. as citizens and promised the protection of the all associated rights.…
Many people today use the government to their advantage to get away with things or to claim something is unconstitutional. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were specifically designed for the people, to protect their rights but it still wasn’t all that perfect. Since the separation from England and Parliament on July 4th, 1766, Americans had a hard time being able to govern themselves. This had proved that the central government needed to be stronger to avoid many arguments between the states and people.…
The first amendment of the US Constitution has come into a lot of political controversy because it gives us some of the very essential rights to be whom we want to be. Under the first amendment we as United States citizens have the right to “freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble”, which some people don’t want us to have these rights and will try to come up with laws to restrain us from using them so it can benefit their cause (Ivers, 2013). I feel that the government wants to have the power to keep us in control and be able to do what they want, when they want with us.…
The hardest part about standing up for one’s rights is that everyone else may agree with the government’s prejudiced beliefs. Society is often guilty for persecuting entire races, sexes, and nationalities; it’s not just their leaders. Inequality is so common that it can be witnessed daily. Individuals should still try to abolish these ideas no matter the consequences or how hard it may be. The United States of America has a declaration of independence that…
According to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the 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.” Consequently, citizens from different occupations often file legal challenges for court adjudication on perceived injustice. This paper focuses on numerous momentous cases related to three of the provisions of the First Amendment, namely freedom of speech, press, and religion. The cases as enumerated shortly represent such examples, in which citizens challenge social norms and seek for Supreme Court hearing or interpretation. In addition, the paper evaluates the rights and responsibilities that the Constitution gives American citizens.…
Addressing the case of the government forcing the citizens to evacuate their homes, Amendment 3 states that no man should be forced out of his house. Forcing families and people to evacuate their homes is an action against the Constitution due to the fact that the peoples’ rights are to reside in and have full ownership of their house, which means that the government doesn’t have the right to come in and take over a citizen’s house. I believe that the government had no reason to force people to evacuate their houses, if they believe they would rather be in their own quarters than out at a different “safe haven”, the government had no right to force the evacuation process.…
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government,” Thomas Jefferson once said. The government is a precarious, but influential, part in the world today. Many believe that everything the government does should be implemented in order to keep structure in our daily lives. However, bureaucracy is not always right. The government can often prove it can not be credible, plausible, or dependable. For as long as democracy has been in place, people have disagreed with it. Yet, if it were not for these disputes, government would never be anything that it is today. It is appropriate to go against the government if there is a conscience-challenged problem that can be solved civilly.…
The Bill of Rights is a hallowed and sacred document. Too many, it represents the core of the democratic institutions that make America such a desireable place to live in. Indeed, the legal protections afforded by the Bill’s amendments were and still are to some degree, unprecedented in the world we live in. But, despite the lofty mythos surrounding the awesomeness of the Bill of Rights, there exists substantial controversy over the interpretation of some amendments. Namely, the 2nd and 4th amendments; the 2nd amendment assures the right to bear arms and maintain a well regulated militia, and the 4th amendment prohibits searches and seizures of property without probable cause. Many soon-to-be voters from Kent Denver’s student body agreed that,…
In New Orleans, and many other states there has been a major gun violence problem, that the government has been working to get rid of. Gun buyback programs have been implemented as a way to to get guns out of the streets, so communities would become safer. Some people argue that gun buy-back are effective, but most people say they are not effective. New Orleans council members should make decisions that will affect the whole state. They should take into consideration the safety, of the youth, and the privacy of their citizens.…
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the…
It is important that citizens have a suitable way of implementing their constitutional rights against the government; those rights may be emphasized both offensively and defensively. For example a person accused of committing a crime has a series of rights which are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and state laws. Therefore, if you have been accused of a crime, just how do you know if your rights have been…
The Constitution’s Structural Limits on Power Should Be the Focus of the Bill of Rights” contains many valuable insights. In particular, it re-affirms the proposition – lost for many years but perhaps gaining some new currency – that the so-called “structural” provisions of the Constitution are, and were intended to be, not merely matters of mundane and perhaps outdated institutional design but core protections of individual liberty. Further, it rightly emphasizes that the antifederalist-inspired Bill of Rights amendments work together with the Constitution’s structural provisions to limit government and promote individual liberty by reducing the federal government’s power even in areas in which it is granted authority.…