Civil Liberties

1. Civil Liberties Chapter 15

2. Protection Under Bill of Rights • Students do not shed Constitutional Rights at the door, but they are also not absolute. • Seen as encouraging illicit drug use

3. Civil Liberties Civil Liberties Civil Rights The constitutionally protected rights of all persons, not just citizens to due process and equal protection. 5th and 14th amendments • The Constitutionally protected freedoms of all persons against governmental restraint. • Protected largely by due process clause of 5th and 14th Amendments

4. Fundamental Protected Rights • Speech • Assembly • Religious practice w/o government interference • Bear arms • Unreasonable search and seizure • Free from self-incrimination/ double-jeopardy • Right to an attorney in criminal proceedings • Citizens job to challenge government when they attempt to infringe on these rights

5. Rights in Original Constitution • Writ of habeas corpus – a court order requiring explanation to a judge why a prisoner is being held in custody • Ex post facto – after the fact

6. The Bill of Rights and the States • Originally B.o.R. only applied to federal government. • Belief that citizens could control their own states • Reality became states infringed on liberties more than feds • 1868 14th Amendment not applies protections to states

7. Freedom of Religion • Establishment • Free exercise • Religion vs. nonreligion

8. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)AKA Lemon Test • A law must have a secular legislative purpose • It must neither advance nor inhibit religion • It must avoid “excessive government entanglement with religion”

9. Free-Exercise • Religious oaths unconstitutional for public office • The right to certain religious rituals can be restricted

10. Constitutional Tests of Speech Restrictions • Bad Tendency Test- forbid speech encouraging illegal action • Clear and Present Danger- speech that will lead to evil or illegal acts • Preferred Position Doctrine- free speech so important people only punished for actions not speech

11. Protected Speech • Prior Restraint- censorship before publication. • Military, national security, and school newspapers not protected • Content Neutral • All handbills vs. religious handbills

12. Non-Protected Speech • Libel • Obscenity • Fighting words • And commercial speech • Limp Bizkit

13. Obscenity and Pornography • A work may be considered legally obscene if 1) the average person, applying contemporary standards of the particular community, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to a purientinterest in sex; 2) the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable law or authoritatively construed (meaning that the legislature must define in a law each obscene act); and 3) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

14. Other Media Communications • Broadcast and Cable Communications • FCC • Profane Broadcast Restrictions • The FCC has defined profanity as “including language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance.” • Like indecency, profane speech is prohibited on broadcast radio and television between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. • $325,000 fine for each obscenity

15. The Internet • In general internet regulation has been unsuccessful • Recent uprisings “Arab Spring” • What restrictions would you be willing to have on the internet

16. Assembly • Restrictions on times, places, and manners

17. Property Rights • Eminent Domain- government power to take property for public use • Kelo v. City of New London (2005) • Public use can include promoting economic development

18. Due Process • Procedural • How the law is applied. • Governments follow proper methods • Limits how they may exercise power • Substantive • Limits what a government may do. • Governments act reasonably • Substance of laws is to be fair and reasonable

19. Privacy Rights • Part of substantive due process, the right to privacy. • Right to privacy created in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut by Supreme Court combining 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th, amendments.

20. During the 1st trimester it is unreasonable and unconstitutional to interfere with her liberty and privacy rights for a state to set any limits on her choice to have an abortion. • 2nd trimester state may make reasonable regulations about how, where, and when abortion is possible. • 3rd trimester essentially banned except to save woman’s life “viability” Abortion and Sexual Rights

21. Abortion and Sexual Rights • Bowers v. Harwick (1986) Boy Scouts of America bans homosexual troop leaders • Lawerence v. Texas (2003)struck down Texas law banning homosexual sodomy.

22. Rights of Criminal Suspects • Unreasonable search and seizure • Evidence not allowed “exclusionary rule” • Remain Silent • Miranda Warning

23. Fair Trial Procedures • Pretrial • Trial • Sentencing • Appeal • Must be indicted by grand jury (12-23 people bring formal charges) • Plea Bargain- plead guilty to reduced sentence

24. Death Penalty • Ban in late 1960s early 1970s • Brought back, not cruel and unusual depending on how it is carried out

25. Protecting our Civil Liberties: Whose Responsibility? • Seriously Who?