First Amendment Applications
Applications of the First Amendment
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the American people against laws made by Congress that would restrict the right to free speech or a free press, however, with the advancement of technology Americans have created new mediums of communication and the rights guaranteed in the Constitution have had to be applied to these new mediums. As a result, the Supreme Court has determined that the different types of medium involved in communication are protected in different ways. Therefore the freedom of speech and press, guaranteed in the Constitution, has been applied to legal cases involving these differing mediums of communication in quite different ways.
When the Constitution was written the main means of communication in the public arena was the newspaper, and the founding fathers wanted to ensure that these newspapers had the freedom to print what they liked. In 1974 this freedom was tested when a political candidate demanded that a Miami newspaper, which had recently printed a critical editorial of him, print his written reply. When the paper refused, he sued and the case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the form of the case of Miami Herald Publishing Company v. Tornillo. The law that the candidate relied upon for the basis of his legal case had been enacted in 1913 and required that any newspaper printing an article critical of a political candidate offer equal space for a reply from that candidate. However, the Supreme Court determined that this "right of reply" was a case of government interfering in the freedom of the press and the law was unconstitutional.
In his opinion, Chief Justice Burger stated that "The choice of material to go into a newspaper, and the decision made as to limitation on the size and content of the paper, and treatment of public issues and public officials-whether fair of unfair-constitute the exercise of editorial control and judgment." (Miami Herald Publishing v. Tornillo, 1974) In effect, the court...
amendments are an important part of the U.S. constitution and their effect on the legal system. Generally, the constitutional amendment process is crucial to the United States Constitution and legal system because it allows it to grow and incorporate modern ideas and factual realities that might never have been imagined by the Framers. To date, some of the most important societal changes in the U.S. were directly attributable to specific
8th Amendment Amendment 8 - Cruel and Unusual Punishment The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VII) to the American constitution is part of the American Bill of Rights which was ratified in 1789. The Amendment was to prohibit the States government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment was adopted in 1971 as part of the Bill of Rights in the United States where the parliament declared "as their ancestors in like
First Amendment, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court Freedom of and from religion and freedom of speech are the distinct provisions of the First Amendment; it gives citizens of the United States the unalienable human right to assembly and speech. However, the language is intentionally vague. The framers of the Constitution, anticipating unknown applications of the amendment, gave power to the Supreme Court to act as ultimate arbiter in matters
The media has brought many important issues to life for the American public. For example, during the American civil rights movement, many areas of the country that had been hesitant to endorse full equality for African-Americans were horrified when they saw their fellow Americans being beaten simply for demanding their rights. The media was also highly influential in mobilizing the American public against the Vietnam War. Pictures showed more powerfully
First Amendment including kind cases The First Amendment is imbued with a degree of preeminence that supersedes virtually all other amendments of the United States Constitution, largely because it was the first of many. As such, its importance to the country and to protecting the rights of its citizens is largely self evident. Perhaps one of the most cogent testimonies to this fact is the numerous times this amendment has
Amending the U.S ConstitutionTo solve the problems within Congress and the law-making procedure, the term limits must be applied to the positions of Congress through Amending the Constitution of the United States. There are specific reasons as to why the amendment is required as a separate law. In the Marbury VS Madison case, Judge Marshal declared that any law which contradicts the present constitution would be considered void, which is
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