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The Fourteenth Amendment, although not (obviously) a part of the Bill of Rights, presents rights that are as central to our democracy as those outlined in the Bill of Rights, including an expansion of the definition of citizenship to include the slaves freed after the Civil War, and what is known as the "due process" clause. This clause argues that the government cannot act against its citizens without allowing them the protection of the "due process" of all applicable laws and other protections.
In the case of the Fourteenth Amendment, as is true for those of the other Amendments discussed here, the courts (including both the lower courts -- which have a great deal more power than many people realize -- and the Supreme Court have a rather mixed record on upholding what seem clearly to be the intentions of the amendment. While no recent court would deny that blacks are citizens (except for those who argue that Barack Obama himself is not a U.S. citizen!), what constitutes "due process" has been interpreted in a range of strict...
In the case of Bowers v. Hardwick the United States Supreme Court failed to strike down Georgia's sodomy laws, as they applied to homosexuals, because rather than treat the matter as one of privacy rights, the court instead viewed the case from the perspective of whether there existed within the United States and its traditions, a right to engage in homosexual activity. In the Supreme Court's opinion, privacy in this
5.0 Conclusion As this paper has argued, the Second Amendment was designed not only to protect the militias; it was also intended to protect an individual's right to own and bear arms. Those groups opposed to the private ownership of firearms should base their arguments on their own personal beliefs rather than a Constitutional interpretation defense. As supported by its historical background and analysis of Constitutional context and meaning, "A well
The framers did not mention police departments or other local governmental units, which has led to some misconceptions about the right of people to arm themselves when protected by municipal government agencies. However, this is because municipal police forces, as they currently exist, did not exist at the time of the Revolutionary War. The closest approximation was a standing army or militia, and the concerns about the citizenry failing
Briefly, statutes that seek to prohibit or regulate conduct that is not constitutionally protected need only satisfy the lowest level of constitutional review: the rational basis test. According to that standard, as long as the state has a rational basis for the regulation and the manner of regulation is logically related to achieving those rational bases, the statute is constitutional (Dershowitz, 2002; Friedman, 2005). For statutes seeking to regulate
The prima facie evidence provision in this statute blurs the line between these two meanings of a burning cross. As interpreted by the jury instruction, the provision chills constitutionally protected political speech because of the possibility that a State will prosecute -- and potentially convict -- somebody engaging only in lawful political speech at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect. Id. At 556. In his
Constitutional Law The case of the 'Lawrence vs. Texas' of June 26, 2003, was in a nutshell about privacy rights and 'equal protection' under the law, and whether 'sodomy' can come under the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Who were the Petitioner(s) and the Respondent(s)? The case deals with two gay men, or in other words, homosexual men, that is, men who prefer partners of the same sex, who happened to be
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