Rights of the Accused: Court Takes More Conservative Position on Civil Liberties
The Supreme Court began to take a more conservative approach to civil liberties in the years following the Warren Court. There was even an unsuccessful effort to overturn the Miranda decision. Terry v. Ohio which recognized the right of police offic...
Rights of the Accused: Death Penalty, The
The death penalty is a divisive issue that continues to haunt the court. The basic divide is between those who think the system is so flawed you cannot know for sure that someone is guilty and others who think it is fair but object to the prolonged ...
Rights of the Accused: Due Process as Protection for Disadvantaged Minorities
Most of the major advancements in due process protections coincided with the civil rights movement of the sixties. The Warren Court viewed the Constitution as a living evolving document, gaining moral authority on race issues in the 1950s and 1960s....
Rights of the Accused: Response to Increase in Violent Crimes
With violent crime on the rise there has been support in many states for stiffer punishments like multiple offender laws. Although few people spend much time thinking about prisons and prisoners, there is concern about human rights issues and whethe...
Rights of the Accused: Search and Seizure Protections
The Constitution only provides protections of the criminal process in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The most controversial element of the Fourth Amendment is the exclusionary rule which applies to objects obtained by search and seizure. A court w...
Rights of the Accused: Trial, The
When a case does go to trial, the fate of the defendant rests with a jury of his or her peers. In the United States, the accused is entitled to legal counsel whether they can pay for it or not. The quality of defense, many experts believe, does impr...
Most Basic of Rights, The: Fourteenth Amendment Extends First Amendment Guarantees to States
How do you protect individuals and minorities against the danger of state-based legislation that will violate their rights? The equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment allow the Supreme Court to maintain freedom of expre...
Most Basic of Rights, The: Limitations on Free Speech
In recent years, free speech limitations have been driven by equality issues, particularly concerns about hate speech that targets minority groups. The fact that it is a crime to deny the existence of the Holocaust in some European countries would b...
Most Basic of Rights, The: Struggle for Rights
Freedom of speech, the most basic component of the first amendment, is more extensive in the U.S. than other countries of the world. But this freedom did not come without a struggle. In fact, ratification of the Constitution by several states was co...
Most Basic of Rights, The: Religious Voice in the Public Square, The
First Amendment; ban against established religion; Supreme Court; neutrality on matters of morality; concerns about removal of religious voices