American Constitutional Law LAW-210

American Constitutional LawLAW-210 Constitutional Protections of Civil Rights and Liberties

Unit Objectives At the completion of this unit, students should be able to: • Explain the importance of the Ninth Amendment to protection of civil rights and liberties. • Summarize the Court’s various descriptions of the terms civil rights and liberties. • List the various sources of protection of civil rights and liberties. • Define writ of habeas corpus, bill of attainder, and ex post facto laws. • Summarize the rights and liberties found in the Bill of Rights.

Unit Objectives(Continued) • Describe the rights afforded by the Reconstruction Amendments. • Explain how the Constitution provides protection against infringement of civil rights and liberties by state and local governments. • Describe the protections afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment. • Describe the constitutional provisions that give Congress the power to enact civil rights legislation. • Explain what is meant by the state action doctrine.

Civil Rights and LibertiesDefinition • Includes: • Protection from laws that discriminate because of such factors as race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin. • The right to fair and just proceedings in both criminal and civil cases. • Freedom from unwarranted government control in our personal, political and economic lives. • “Liberty under law extends to the full range of conduct which the individual is free to pursue, and it cannot be restricted except for a proper governmental objective.” Bolling v. Sharp, 347 U.S. 497 (1954).

Civil Rights and Libertiesand the Ninth Amendment • The Ninth Amendment provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. • This Amendment has allowed the courts to find rights even if not specifically spelled out in the Constitution.

Civil Rights and LibertiesSources of Protection • Although the Constitution provides protections for civil rights and liberties, most of the protections are found in the Amendments rather than the Articles. • Other sources of protection include federal legislation, state constitutions, and state legislation.

Original Constitutional Protections • The Articles of the Constitution guarantee the right to a writ of habeas corpus and prohibit bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. • Writ of Habeas Corpus (“You have the body”) • A judicial order to someone holding a person to bring that person to court. • Most often used to get a person out of unlawful imprisonment by forcing the captor and the person being held to come to court for a decision on the legality of the imprisonment or other holding.

Original Constitutional Protections(Continued) • Bill of Attainder • Attainder is the wiping out of civil rights that may occur when a person is found guilty of a felony or receives a death sentence; usually includes the government’s taking of all of the person’s property. • A Bill of Attainder was a legislative act pronouncing a person guilty (usually of treason) without a trial and sentencing the person to death and attainder. • Ex Post Facto (“After the Fact”) Laws • A law that retroactively attempts to make an action a crime that was not a crime at the time it was done, or • A law that attempts to reduce a person’s rights based on a past act that was not subject to the law when it was done.

Dobbert v. Florida432 U.S. 282 (1977) • Issues: Criminal Procedure, Ex Post Facto • Facts: • When Dobbert committed murders for which he was sentenced to die, a death penalty law existed in Florida. • The Florida death penalty law was subsequently declared unconstitutional and a new law was enacted. • Dobbins was sentenced to die under the new law and asked the Supreme Court to overturn the sentence based on a violation of the ex post facto rule. • Conclusion: The Supreme Court affirmed the sentence based on its finding that the changes in the law were procedural and improvements.

Protections Found in the Bill of Rights and in Other Amendments • The Amendments in the Bill of Rights (the First through Tenth Amendments), ratified in 1791, provide protection for rights regarding free speech, press, assembly, religious exercise, the right to bear arms, and the rights of those persons accused or suspected of crimes. • The Reconstruction Amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments) provide post–Civil War protection of civil rights and liberties by outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude, prohibiting both the state and federal governments from interfering with the right to vote on account of race or color, and prohibiting states from denying individuals due process of law, equal protection of the law, or the privileges or immunities of a citizen.

The Bill of Rights and State Government • Original view was that the protections found in the Bill of Rights were not applicable against the states. • Example: Barron v. Baltimore

Barron v. Baltimore32 U.S. 243 (1833) • Casenotes • Held that the provision in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, declaring that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, was intended solely as a limitation on the exercise of power by the government of the United States, and is not applicable to the legislation of the states. • Thus, the co-owner of a profitable wharf in the harbor of Baltimore was not entitled to sue under the Fifth Amendment for recovery of a portion of his financial losses caused by deprivation of deep waters by the accumulation of large amounts of sand in the harbor resulting from city development and expansion.

The Fourteenth Amendment • The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, provides the greatest protections against the infringement of civil rights and liberties. • Set forth four basic concepts: • All persons born in the United States or naturalized are citizens. • No state can make or enforce laws that abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens (the Privileges and Immunities Clause). • No state can deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process (the Due Process Clause). • No state can deny a person equal protection of the laws (the Equal Protection Clause).

The Incorporation Doctrine • The Incorporation Controversy addresses the issue of whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the protections of the Bill of Rights to make them applicable against the states. • Before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Supreme Court held in Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore, that the protections found in the Bill of Rights were not applicable against the states -- the Fourteenth Amendment reopened the door for the argument that the Bill of Rights should also be applied against the states. • The Supreme Court first addressed this argument in the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872).

The Incorporation Doctrine • Slaughter-Houseis important for several reasons: • Slaughter-Housewas the Supreme Court’s first interpretation of the Civil War Amendments, which applied against the states. • The Court refused the invitation to redistribute power away from the states and toward the federal government. • In particular, the opinion narrowly construed the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. • Most of the decision has since been reversed, and the Court has much more liberally construed the Fourteenth Amendment – the current view is one of selective incorporation where most of the Bill of Rights protections have been extended against state action (the Incorporation Doctrine). • Example: Twining v. New Jersey

Twining v. New Jersey211 U.S. 78 (1908) • Casenotes • Holding: • Test is whether the claimed right is “a fundamental principle of liberty which inheres in the very idea of free government and is the inalienable right of a citizen of such a government.” • The Court found that the right against self-incrimination is not such a fundamental right and therefore neither the Privileges and Immunities Clause nor the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extended this Fifth Amendment protection to action by a state. • Note: This position was later changed.

Incorporation DoctrineTimeline

Incorporation DoctrineTimeline(Continued)

Brown v. Board of Education347 U.S. 483 (1954) • Casenotes • Held that segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a state solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment – even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal. • Overturned the 1896 landmark decision of Plessy v. Ferguson that established the “separate but equal” standard.

Saenz v. Roe526 U.S. 489 (1999) • Casenotes • Held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to travel in three ways by: allowing citizens to move freely between states, securing the right to be treated equally in all states when visiting, and securing the rights of new citizens to be treated like long-time citizens of a state. • The Court explained that by paying first-year residents the same Temporary Assistance to Needy Families benefits they received in their state of origin, states treated new residents differently than others who have lived in their borders for over one year. • Thus, enforcement of this provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) unconstitutionally discriminated among residents.

Summary of Civil Rights and Constitutional Amendments

Summary of Civil Rights and Constitutional Amendments(Continued)

Congress and Civil Rights Legislation • Congress has used the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as well as the “necessary and proper” clauses found in various amendments, especially the Fourteenth Amendment, as authority to enact civil rights legislation.

The State Action Doctrine • The State Action Doctrine provides that the Fourteenth Amendment and others control state action not actions of individuals. • However, the Court finds state action where: • Individuals are acting on behalf of the state, or • Individual action has a strong nexus or connection to the state. • Example: Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883)

Civil Rights Cases109 U.S. 3 (1883) • Casenotes • Held that the Fourteenth Amendment restrains only state action, and the fifth section of the Amendment empowers Congress only to enforce the prohibition of racial discrimination on state action. • Thus, the Amendment did not authorize national legislation on subjects which are within the domain of the state. Private acts of racial discrimination were simply private wrongs that the national government was powerless to correct.

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States379 U.S. 241 (1964) • Casenotes • Held that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate local incidents of commerce, and that the Civil Right Act of 1964 passed constitutional muster. • Found that the applicability of Title II was "carefully limited to enterprises having a direct and substantial relation to the interstate flow of goods and people. . ." • Thus, places of public accommodation had no "right" to select guests as they saw fit, free from governmental regulation.

United States v. Morrison529 U.S. 598 (2000) • Casenotes • Held that Congress lacked the authority to enact the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) under either the Commerce Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment, since the statute did not regulate an activity that substantially affected interstate commerce nor did it redress harm caused by the state. • Thus, any civil remedy for a victim of gender-motivated violence must be provided by the state, not the federal government.

American Constitutional Law LAW-210