10th Amendment

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This last amendment of the Bill of rights gives the states powers that help them excercise their duties. It helps to restrain the power of the federal government through the history of suppression of the British Commonwealth in the past. Nevertheless, in some cases it would make more sense to have the same rights and powers in all states.

"Tenth Amendment Movement Aims to Give Power Back to the States

By James Osborne

Published May 26, 2009

FOXNews.com

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
-- U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment

Fed up with Washington's involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government's growing intrusion on their rights.

At least 35 states have introduced legislation this year asserting their power under the Tenth Amendment to regulate all matters not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.

"This has been boiling for years, and it's finally come to a head," said Utah State Rep. Carl Wimmer. "With TARP and No Child Left Behind, these things that continue to give the federal government more authority, our rights as states and individuals are being turned on their head."

The power struggle between the states and Washington has cropped up periodically ever since the country was founded. But now some states are sending a simple, forceful message:

The government has gone too far. Enough is enough.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer recently signed into law a bill authorizing the state's gun manufacturers to produce "Made in Montana" firearms, without seeking licensing from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Similar laws are being considered in Utah, Alaska, Texas and Tennessee.

The Montana law is expected to end up in the courts, where states' rights activists hope judges will uphold their constitutional right to regulate firearms.

That would reverse a longstanding trend, said Martin Flaherty, a professor of constitutional law at Fordham Law School.

"From 1937 to 1995 there is not one instance of the Supreme Court knocking back Congress," he said. "In the Constitution the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the right to regulate commerce between the states. That gives them a lot of power. There were questions of how far they can reach, but then comes the New Deal, and Roosevelt gets all these picks on the [Supreme] Court, and they come upon a theory whereupon congressional power is almost infinite."

That 1930s understanding of the Constitution is now the norm, with advocates for the federal government arguing that issues of a certain size and scope can be addressed only by an institution with the resources of the federal government.

As an example, federal authority is necessary in the economic crisis, said U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, whose home state of Oklahoma recently passed a sovereignty resolution.

"The economic situation in our nation over the past year has not been contained in any one community or state. The industries and institutions affected by the recent economic crisis touch multiple layers of our economy and are not confined to any one state or region," he said in a statement. "I feel there was Constitutional justification for Congress's recent efforts to stabilize our economy."

But for many state leaders, the degree to which Congress regulates issues within their boundaries, using the interstate commerce clause to regulate just about everything and anything, has become untenable.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry made headlines recently when he made a passing reference to the possibility of the Lone Star State seceding from the U.S., saying, "if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that?"

States rights advocates offer countless examples of what they believe is Washington's overreach.

In Utah, 67 percent of the state's land is controlled by the federal government through wilderness preserves, limiting state leaders in their bid to fill government coffers through oil and natural gas drilling after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cancelled 103,000 acres of leases this year.

In Idaho, ranchers are furious that federal endangered species law prevents them from shooting the wolves that prey on their cattle.

"The balance of power between the states and the federal government is way out of whack," said Georgia state Senator Chip Pearson." The effect here is incalculable. Everything you do from the moment you wake up until you get to bed, there is some federal law or restriction."

Up until recently, the state sovereignty movement has remained almost entirely Republican, drawing supporters from the ranks that voted against President Obama and attended tea parties last month to protest federal tax hikes.

But the movement's rank and file are just as likely now to criticize Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, as they are the new president, pointing to what they believe were Bush's overreaching policies on education and homeland security.

Many are becoming frequent visitors to a Web site, TenthAmendmentCenter.com, which was founded in early 2007 and has become a community bulletin board for states rights activists and politicians. Up to 20,000 viewers log on to the site every day.

The site's founder, Michael Boldin, a 36-year-old Web marketer in Los Angeles who says he has no political affiliation, says he decided to launch the site after watching the Maine State Legislature fight the Department of Homeland Security on the Real ID act, a controversial Bush-era law that will require states to issue federally regulated identification cards, complete with biometric data and stringent address checks.

"Maine resisted, and the government backed off, and soon all these other states were doing the same thing," Boldin said. "The bottom line is, if there's widespread support, people can resist the federal government at the state level."

The deadline for states to comply with Real ID has now been pushed back until 2011.

The Tenth Amendment movement is not without controversy. In Georgia, a columnist for The Atlanta Journal Constitution called a sovereignty resolution in the state Senate a threat "to secede from and even disband the United States."

The resolution, which was passed as part of a group of bills that were banded together, affirmed the state's powers under the Tenth Amendment, taking its inspiration and language from Thomas Jefferson's 1798 resolution opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts -- laws enacted by the federal government during wartime to quiet protest against the government.

The resolution asserts that any instance of the federal government taking action beyond its enumerated powers "shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America."

"It's been taken out of context by some editors," said Pearson, who sponsored the bill. "It certainly never meant secession. The intent was to communicate that the actions of the federal government are an infringement on states' rights."

Robert Natelson, a law professor at the University of Montana who was involved in drawing up that state's sovereignty resolution over a decade ago, argues that states up until now have been unwilling to take action of any real consequence in checking federal power.

"Back then they passed the resolution, but they didn't turn down any federal dollars," he said.

"If the states are serious about returning the federal government to its historical origins, they're going to have to do more than pass resolutions. They're going to have to turn down money and litigate.""

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/26/tenth-amendment-movement-aims-power-states/

The 10th amendment gives the stated rights that are not given to the federal government. Now the states want to resist the power of the Government which is in their mind to powerful. To me this makes sense in certain boundaries to revel up against legislatures that they think are not useful in their states as the restriction to shoot wolfs that pray on the cattle. Nevertheless, I think it is hard to balance the needs of all the people in this country and I do not think that there is any sense in trying to revolutionize the country and be an own state. Especially in these days when the US still has to struggle with the economy, the states rely on the federal Government for money and other messures to help them in this situation. If they were an own country, they would have to help out themselves which from my point of view they are not capable to.

This kind of makes no sense to me, that states want their sovereignty. What would they do without the help of the federal government? Be their own country? Coin their own money? It is not like there is any oppression or violence in this country nor any dictatorship. Democracy rules and the federal states have to accept this. And they did as up to now there are still all states in the union.

9th Amendment

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

This amendment is very important as it gives the people the rights that are not enumerated in the constitution. Thsi documents taht the constitution is a living document and has to change and adjust itself to different times.

"February 23, 2005

The Forgotten Ninth Amendment

Here's a quick Constitutional law quiz: Name the last case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Ninth Amendment was a substantive limit to the reach of the Government power.
Having trouble? Let's change the angle of visions, then. Name the first.
If you are stumped, there is a reason. The Ninth Amendment is a dead letter in American law. If there is a case in which a majority of the Court has ever given the Amendment teeth, I missed it. 
The United States Supreme Court agreed this week to hear the case of Gonzales v. Oregon, a federal challenge to Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law.  The law was upheld last fall by the Ninth Circuit. In Oregon, a doctor may help a terminally ill patient die. This is a classic example of a state's exercise of its police power to assure the health and welfare of its citizens.
How did the federal government stick its nose under this tent flap?
The feds are pressing an interpretation of the federal Controlled Substances Act that limits the use of such substances to "legitmate medical purpose." Doctors who help terminally ill patients die violate that act, saith Uncle Sam. Except, of course, when the Government wants to kill someone, in which case it is all right. Side note: Do death row inmates have a right to die? Devil's Advocate
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
That's the Ninth Amendment. It speaks of a government of limited powers, and of a free people yielding only so much authority over themselves as has been expressly granted. It reminds the Government that silence is not an invitation to tyranny. Put another way, just because only certain rights are referred to in the Bill of Rights does not mean that we have forfeited everything else to the State.
The Oregon case is a perfect case to test the Ninth Amendment. I hope it is briefed and pressed. It is obscene to be required to petition the Government for the right to die. Death is, alas, akin to a duty; it is the price Nature exacts for the joy of living.
A right to die? Silly. Rather, by what right does the Government say live you must?"

Source: http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2005/02/the_forgotten_n.html

The help of doctors to terminate ones life is to me a very controversial issue. On the one side, a person has the right to end his/her life if he/she sees no way out, i.e. in the case of aggressice cancer etc. Nevertheless, the doctors have sworn an oath to help people to get healthy. This kind of forbids them to kill people. Still, if there is no hope and the family wants it to, they can pull the plug and end life supporting machines. This is also some kind of help to die. I think, doctors should not be allowed to help people die as in the future there might be cures for illnesses that today cannot be cured. Who would have though 20 years ago that HIV positive people could survive and life their lives in a good way with taking the medcine today?



To me, the equality of marriage may it be homo- or heterosexual is a natural right and I am proud that in Germany same sex marriage is allowed. Germany still is a christian nation. Nevertheless, no one can force ones own religion on others and forbid them to marry and love whoever they want. So this is clearly a right to me that should be given to the people.

8th Amendment

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

I personally agree with the first part of this amendment as it is not fair to impose excessive bail to people just to keep them in prison without any reliable reason. Nevertheless, I have a problem with the death penalty. I think nobody has the right of taking the life of others because then we are not better than the murderer him(herself. This is an action that cannot be reversed and human behavior is not withou fault. Therefore, since there is a chance of error, this penalty should never ever be excercised. It is a cruel punishment and should be abolished on these grounds.

"Is the death penalty Constitutional?

The execution last week in Texas of Betty Lou Beets for the murder of her husband has put capital punishment in the headlines again. Many critics of the death penalty argue that it is unconstitutional because it violates the 8th Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual" punishments. What should be made of these arguments? What is the definition of "cruel and unusual" and does the death penalty fall under that definition?
You correctly note that the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids punishments that are "cruel and unusual." Various legal interpretations of the meaning of "cruel and unusual" have been offered, but generally the term "cruel" is taken to mean excessively painful or brutal. Punishments such as torture and dismemberment seem to clearly fall under this heading. "Unusual" has generally been understood to mean a punishment that is not usually associated with a particular crime but which is nonetheless applied arbitrarily in some cases. If nine of every ten jaywalkers were cited and fined $5 while the remaining one out of ten were fined $5,000, such a penalty would be "unusual." Furthermore, both terms taken together suggest that punishments should be proportionate to the crime that was committed. Life imprisonment for shoplifting would be "cruel and unusual" not because it is an unacceptable form of punishment under any imaginable set of circumstances, but because it is excessive given the crime in question.
The Supreme Court has addressed the question of whether the death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment several times. In doing so, it has generally considered all three of the definitions of "cruel and unusual" noted above. The Court has never ruled the 8th Amendment completely rules out the use of the death penalty. That is not to say, however, that the Court might never rule in such a manner. In its decisions, the Court has explicitly stated that the meaning of the 8th Amendment can and does evolve over time as society's norms and values change. In the late 1700s, for example, shortly after the Constitution was ratified, whippings were commonly recognized as acceptable punishments for particular crimes. Such practices are no longer considered appropriate because society's views of "cruel and unusual" have changed. With regard to the death penalty, however, the Court has maintained that there remains broad public support for the death penalty as a remedy for the most serious of crimes.
While the Supreme Court has maintained that the death penalty is not excessively "cruel" in and of itself, it has ruled that if its application is "unusual" it violates the 8th Amendment. The two most important decisions about the application of the death penalty came in 1972 and 1976, both in response to challenges of Georgia death penalty statutes. In the 1972 case, Furman v. Georgia, the Court concluded that the arbitrary application of the death penalty and the disproportionate number of minorities that were executed made the death penalty "unusual." In response to this decision, the death sentences of about 600 death row inmates were commuted to life and no executions were allowed in the United States four about four years. By declining to rule that capital punishment was unconstitutional in and of itself, however, the Court left the door open for state legislatures to draw more narrowly construed death penalty statutes that would satisfy the Court's misgivings.
In 1976, Georgia's newly written death penalty statute was challenged before the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia. The Court ruled that Georgia had successfully responded to the Court's concerns in creating a statute that applied the death penalty in response to specific, carefully defined crimes, allowed for the consideration of the particular circumstances of the crime and allowed for expedited appeals in cases where the accused was sentenced to die. In a series of cases since the Gregg decision, the Court has consistently required the federal and state governments to apply the death penalty consistently and fairly and then only in proportion to the crimes committed. The Court has, for example, found that the death penalty is too severe a punishment for the rape of an adult when the victim is not killed. Just what kinds of actions merit the death penalty (other than the direct commission of a murder), however, remains somewhat unclear.
In ruling that the death penalty is not a "cruel and unusual" punishment under the 8th Amendment, the Supreme Court has cited the 5th Amendment which the Court believes strongly implies that the Framers did not intend to prevent the use of capital punishment. The 5th Amendment guarantees that no one shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The clear implication is that depriving someone of his or her life is permissible under the Constitution.
In spite of the Supreme Court's rulings, the death penalty remains a controversial issue. Critics maintain that evil should not be returned with state-sanctioned evil. Others argue that we can never be 100% confident in the accuracy of trial verdicts and that persons should not be put to death even if their is the slightest chance they may be innocent. Supporters of the death penalty, however, assert that there are some crimes which are such an affront to human decency and to the norms of society that an individual who commits them surrenders his or her right to live. In this nation's ongoing effort to strike the appropriate balance between liberty and order, the death penalty forces each of us to consider fundamental questions about nature of political society, the rights and responsibilities of individuals and the extent of governmental power."

Source: http://www.thisnation.com/question/018.html

This article clearly sets out why the Surpreme Court still allows capital punishment. Nevertheless, it is still possible that the death sentence will be forbidden in the future. This is a controversial issue in this country and all over the world and I hope, the US as one of the last countries abolishes the death sentence in the near future.



The spot clearly lines out, why I am against capital punishment. You can never be sure that you have the right suspect even if all evodences point to him/her. There is clearly a chance to be wrong and this is a punishment that cannot be taken back. In Germany there is a system for murderers and dangerous convicts that sets out right at the conviction that this person will never be let free. Lifelong sentence in Germany is at least 15 years and if the convict is considered a danger to society by court he/she will go into another security system where he/she stays in at least for another 5 years and will only be set free, if psychologists say, the person does not put any danger to society anymore.

7th Amendment

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

This amendment relieves the jury as they do not have to take any court cases under a certain amount of money. It also protects the people of any retrial id they have already been tried for the crime and gives the the right for a jury trial also in common law cases.

"A primer on the 7th Amendment  
Thursday, September 17, 2009
By Anna Buck
The Constitution protects citizens from the powerful.  The right to a jury trial in the criminal and civil court systems is fundamental to that protection.
Not long before the Revolutionary War, John Adams, the Boston lawyer who would become the nation’s second president, wrote, “Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle and fed and clothed like swine and hounds.”
John Adams was not alone in his belief.
Thomas Jefferson, then a Virginia lawyer who would succeed Adams as president, wrote to Thomas Paine in 1789, “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
James Madison, the father of the Constitution and the nation’s fourth president, anchored the Bill of Rights around the Sixth and Seventh Amendments, which give citizens the right to a jury trial in criminal cases and in civil cases.
The Seventh Amendment says: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
By ensuring the right to a jury, the nation’s founders sought to protect the individual from the hold that the wealthy and privileged have on society.
In his 1833 treatise on the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story called the Seventh Amendment “a most important and valuable amendment; and places upon the high ground of constitutional right the inestimable privilege of a trial by jury in civil cases, a privilege scarcely inferior to that in criminal cases, which is conceded by all to be essential to political and civil liberty.”
Pennsylvanian Anti-Federalist author, and later judge,  Samuel Bryan argued in the Letters of Centinel in 1787 that judges are predisposed toward “a bias towards those of their own rank and dignity; for it is not to be expected, that the few should be attentive to the rights of the many.
“This [the civil jury trial] therefore preserves in the hands of the people, that share which they ought to have in the administration of justice, and prevents the encroachments of the more powerful and wealthy citizens.”
More recently, in a 1975 Supreme Court case striking down a state law excluding women from jury service, Justice Byron White wrote: “The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power–to make available the common sense judgment of the community . . . in preference to the professional or perhaps over-conditioned or biased response of a judge.”  Taylor v. Louisianna, 419 U.S. 522, 530 (1975).
The jury system ensures that parties standing trial are granted a fair hearing. Jurors are chosen from a random pool of citizens, and are solely accountable to the consciences. Jury duty is part of the defense envisioned by the founders against tyranny.
Alexis de Tocqueville put it in these words: “[Jury service] rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.”
For more information, please see Charles W. Wolfram, The Constitutional History of the Seventh Amendment, 57 Minn. L. Rev. 639, 695-96 (1973)."

Source: http://www.protectconsumerjustice.org/a-primmer-on-the-7th-amendment.html

This article defines and explaines in detail what the seventh amendment mean to the people. The right to a jury trial is very important as they themselves have to serve their jury duty within their lifetime and understand the justice system in this country and the consequenses of their and others behavior.



The case of this woman is just unbelievable. The doctor has ruined her face and she cannot even receive her right amount of compensation given by the jury trial as there is a cap on compensation. This is a scandal and should be changed. People who have been mirtreated have to have the chance to a fair compensation for the damage they have suffered and in this case, it is so obvious as the scars are in the face of the woman.

6th Amendment

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

In my opinion, this is a very important amendment to make sure the justice system works for the public. It is important that everybody is treated equally and has the same rights no matter what color, nationality, religion... A fair trial is important as to not create a dictatorail justice system where randomly the "enemies" of the government are tried and pleaded guilty no matter if the really are.

"Court rejects Sixth Amendment habeas challenge to the representation of African Americans in the jury pool

In 1993, Diapolis Smith was convicted of second-degree murder in Kent County, Michigan.  All twelve of the jurors who convicted him were white; Mr. Smith and the thirty-six other witnesses to the shooting in question were African American.  The venire panel from which the jury was drawn included no more than three African-Americans in its sixty to one hundred members.  Mr. Smith appealed his conviction on the ground that he had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community.  The Supreme Court had announced that right in Taylor v. Lousiana (1975), and in Duren v. Missouri (1979) it held that a criminal defendant must establish three things to demonstrate a prima facie violation: that (1) a “distinctive” group (2) is not fairly and reasonably represented in jury pools because of (3) “systematic exclusion” from the jury selection process.  After the Michigan Supreme Court rejected Mr. Smith’s arguments, he sought federal habeas relief, which the Sixth Circuit granted.  (My earlier overview of the case is here, and my summary of the oral argument is here; briefs, argument transcript, and opinion are available on the Berghuis v. Smith SCOTUSwiki page.)
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reversed.  In a unanimous decision, it held that Mr. Smith had failed to establish that the decision of the Michigan Supreme Court “involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” — the standard of review for habeas petitions after the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.  Writing the majority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recounted the facts of Duren, the baseline against which “clearly established” violations of the fair cross-section requirement are judged.  In Duren, women were 54.7% of the jury-eligible population, but made up only 26.7% of those summoned for jury service, and only 14.5% of the pool from which jurors were actually drawn.  Missouri law allowed women to opt out of jury service: many opted out explicitly, and Jackson County (where Duren was tried) regarded a failure by a woman to respond to her jury summons as an effective opt-out.  In this case, the underrepresentation of African Americans in the jury pools of Kent County was considerably smaller (no matter how that disparity was measured) and less clearly caused by systematic exclusion.
Although a considerable portion of both the briefs and the oral arguments were devoted to the question of how underrepresentation is appropriately measured, the Court merely observed that each of the available tests “is imperfect.”  Instead, the Court rested its decision on the “systematic exclusion” element of the Duren test.  Mr. Smith had argued that African-American jurors were systematically excluded by Kent County’s practice of first assigning jurors to local district courts, and only then filling the jury pools of the county-wide courts where Mr. Smith and other alleged felons were tried.  (A large majority of the African-American residents of Kent County live in Grand Rapids, home to a single local court.)  As Justice Ginsburg wrote, “Evidence that African-Americans were underrepresented on the [county-wide] Circuit Court’s venires in significantly higher percentages than on the Grand Rapids District Court’s could have indicated that the assignment order made a critical difference.  But… Smith adduced no evidence to that effect.”  Justice Ginsburg indicated that “Smith’s best evidence of systematic exclusion was… a decline in comparative underrepresentation, from 18 to 15.1%, after Kent County reversed the assignment order,” filling the county-wide jury pools first.  But even Mr. Smith’s lawyer had conceded that this was not “a big change.”
Mr. Smith had also argued that Kent County’s practice of excusing potential jurors who alleged hardship or failed to report for jury service, its reliance on notices of jury duty mailed to addresses at least fifteen months old and its decision not to follow up on non-responses, along with the refusal of Kent County police to enforce court orders for the appearance of prospective jurors, collectively amounted to systematic exclusion because each practice was likely to have a disproportionately large impact on African-American potential jurors.  Justice Ginsburg rejected these arguments, explaining that “[n]o ‘clearly established’ precedent of this Court supports Smith’s claim that he can make out a prima facie case merely by pointing to a host of factors that, individually or in combination, might contribute to a group’s underrepresentation.”  She went on to note that “furthermore, [the Court] has never ‘clearly established’ that jury-selection-process features of the kind on Smith’s list can give rise to a fair-cross-section claim.”  Quite the opposite: “in Duren, the Court understood that hardship exemptions resembling those that Smith assails might well ‘survive a fair cross-section challenge.’”
Justice Clarence Thomas concurred.  Agreeing that Mr. Smith had not shown any violation of clearly established law, Justice Thomas stated that he would be willing in a future case to reconsider the “fair cross-section” precedents, on the grounds that because “[h]istorically, juries did not include a sampling of persons from all levels of society or even from both sexes,” the requirement therefore “seems difficult to square with the Sixth Amendment’s text and history.”"

Source: http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/04/court-rejects-sixth-amendment-habeas-challenge-to-the-representation-of-african-americans-in-the-jury-pool/

This article shows that the execution of the 6th amendment rights are still an issue even today. Though the Surpreme court rejected the case of Mr. Smith, it is still important to have a cross-sectional jury in one's trial.....



This video shows that still today courts violate the 6th amendment. In this case, the judge lets the woman be in the jury even if she knows the suspect. Therefore, the jury is not impartial anymore, no matter if the woman says, she will not be influenced. I thin, one has to enforce those laws more strictly.

5th Amendment

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The famous Miranda rights are very important as a person has the right to not say anything at all if confronted with a crime. It is important that a person is able to keep silent to protect oneself. This is a very touchy subject, but I think one could be stuck in a situation and evidences might point to this person being guilty if he/she talks and cooperates. The statement could lead to the judge and jury thinking the person commited the crime whereas he/she just does not have an alibi to demonstrate his/her innocence. And even id the suspect keeps silent, the jury and judge can convict him/her because of evidences if they believe in the guilt.

"School Admin Takes Fifth Amendment in "Peeping Tom" Case

By: David Murphy, 04.18.2010 

Lawyers for Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins are claiming that the teenager's school district has used built-in tracking software on students' laptops to take "thousands" of unauthorized images, "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping."
The motion, filed April 15 by Michael and Holly Robbins, is the latest salvo in a class-action lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, PA earlier this year. The issue of remote laptop surveillance came to light after school administrators accused Robbins of "improper behavior in his home," based on a photograph that was taken through the school's remote-monitoring software, LANrev.
Around 2,300 students across two schools in the district have received $1,000 Macintosh laptops for use with said software preinstalled and, as allegedly confirmed by one of Harriton's assistant principals, it can be remotely activated at any time, for any reason.
According to the lawsuit, "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it." Consequently, the suit is accusing the school district of violating various federal and state statutes against surveillance and wiretapping, including the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act. 

From the Associated Press:
Mark Haltzman, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Robbins and his family, said evidence now shows the district used the tracking software for non-authorized reasons — for instance, when students failed to pay the required insurance or return the laptops at year's end. At least once, a name mix-up led the district to activate the wrong student's laptop, he charged.
"Thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes, many of which never reported their laptops lost or missing," Haltzman wrote in a motion filed Thursday.
According to Haltzman, technology coordinator Carol Cafiero refused to answer his questions at a recent deposition, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. She and technician Michael Perbix were the only employees authorized to activate the webcams. Perbix did not fight the deposition.
Haltzman called Cafiero a possible "voyeur" and wants access to her personal computer to see if she downloaded any student images. To support the charge, he cited her response to an e-mail from a colleague who said viewing the webcam pictures was like watching "a little LMSD soap opera."
"I know, I love it!" Cafiero allegedly replied.
Her lawyer, Charles Mandracchia, did not immediately return a message Friday, but has said his client did nothing wrong. Cafiero makes $105,000 and Perbix $86,000. Both are on paid leave."

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362791,00.asp


This is a situation where an accused pleaded the fifth. The public and many other people build their opinion about this person, but nobody knoes what really happened. The court can still order a warrant to search her house and computer. This will show if she has pictures/videos of kids oin there. Maybe the colleague talked about some other webcam pictures that would put the accused in an even worse situation. Still, since everybody has the right to remain silent, the attorney has to find other ways and evidences to prove the guilt.
 



To me this video just right on in how important it is to be able to keep silent. The man shows so many situation where your testimony can be used against you even if you are innocent. To me, I would always wait until I could talk to a lawyer and then talk to the police. The lawyer can assess the situation and tell me what to do.

4th Amendment

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This is a right for the people of this country to keep their privacy. It is to me very important that privacy and a security from unreasonable searches is given. I am personally living with a Saudi who is really cool. But I know that our neighboors would search our house right away if they just could to make sure no terrorist activities go on here. This is just ridiculous to judge a person because of his/ner nationality or appearance. Therefore I feel better to know nobody can interrupt into my privacy without a reason.

"The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves

By Adam Cohen Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.

It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.

After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism."

The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state — with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's — including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's pro-privacy ruling was unanimous — decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania.""

Source: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013150,00.html

This articale totally points out how dangerous it is to give police forces the right to search a person and his/her property anytime. In the GDR one could not even trust own family members as they could be part of the Stasi and report any comment against the state to the state. To be tracked by GPS and not know it to me is a non tolerable situation. How are you supposed to put your car in a private space when you are living in an apartment building with a parking lot? Hopefully, this ruling will be overturned or we will life in this country and be watched by "Big Brother" at every step we take.



This discussion shows the controvery about the fourth amendment. How to protect people and enforce the law and at the same time keep privacy rights of people to be searched? To me, still, privacy has the upper hand as long as there is not an overwhelming evidence situation that shows signs of terrorism.

3rd Amendment

"No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

This anedment to me has not an important role in daily American life today. When the constitution was crafted of course it played an important role to be able to keep soldiers out of the houses since that is exactly what the British did. Nevertheless, to me this amendment does not have any current signifance as most American people would house a soldier anyway to support the troops.

"The Third Amendment and the War on Terror

posted by Gerard Magliocca

I’ve long wondered — mostly in jest — whether the Third Amendment says anything meaningful for modern constitutional analysis.  Griswold v. Connecticut cited the Amendment as support for the “right to privacy,” but that’s the only time it’s really been used.  But here’s an thought experiment (partly fun, partly serious).
Here’s the text of the amendment:
“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”
Most people overlook the fact that this means Congress has the power to quarter soldiers in your house during a war (it just needs to pass a law to do so).  If the Third Amendment is construed as expressing a privacy principle, then this suggests that Congress has greater latitude to invade our privacy during a war.  Of course, this begs the question of what “war” means.  Does that mean there must be a declaration of war?  Or is it just “not peace,” given that peace is stated as a condition in the preceding clause?  If Congress decides that we need to put soldiers in private homes to fight the war on terrorism, would that be constitutional?
Moreover, one could say that the Third Amendment offers some useful guidance about issues such as domestic surveillance without a warrant.  In one sense, it suggests a textual basis for thinking that our reasonable expectation of privacy is diminished in wartime (at least with respect to federal action).  On the other hand, it also suggests that Congress must concur in any invasion of our privacy — the President cannot unilaterally quarter soldiers in your house under the Commander-in-Chief Clause.  (References to “law” in the Constitution, I think, always refer to statutes.)
You may think that this is just a professorial ego trip, but John Bingham (the primary drafter of the Fourteenth Amendment) actually made a Third Amendment analogy to defend the legality of the use of military commissions to try Lincoln’s assassins.  (I just read this the other day.)  Basically, he said that the Third Amendment supported the proposition that the federal government could take actions in war that it could not take in normal times and pointed to the suspension of habeas corpus as evidence that Congress had authorized the use of military commissions instead of civilian courts for trials of those connected with the rebellion."

Source: http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/08/the-third-amendment-and-the-war-on-terror.html

This opinion definately supports my thoughts in the third amendment. There is so much gray area in the constitution that one can interpret it one way or another. This is the good thing about this living document but also a very dangerous issue that needs to be followed.



To me this video tries to point out the ridicule of the third amendment by exagerating the situation in a situation that could mostly not happen (girl being uninformed of soldier living in her house).

2nd Amendment

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

This amendment kind of stands back behind the other very important amendments in the Constitution as for example the first amendment.
To me as a European it is hard to understand why one should bear arms at all. Why should I have a pistol in my cabinet? If I am not a sports shooter I would not have a gun. In Germany arms have to be registered which has been inforced more rigidly since the last school shooting in March 2009. All the school shooters in Germany have received their arms through either parents who are sport shooters and did not put their weapon away securily or the shooters have been sport shooters themselves. This leads me to thinking, that guns have nothing to do in the hands of private people.
Nevertheless, this is just a culture difference between Europe and the US and has to be accepted as it is.

"Gun lobby victory as every American's right to bear arms upheld by ruling

National Rifle Association celebrates US supreme court ruling that ends localised gun control laws in America

Monday 28 June 2010 21.56 BST 

Supporters of gun rights in the US won a major legal victory today, when the highest court in the country ruled that an individual's constitutional right to bear arms applied to every corner of the country and throughout its 50 states.

The US supreme court delivered a split judgment along the familiar 5-4 conservative-liberal divide. The ruling specifically overturned a ban on handguns in Chicago that has stood for 28 years.

Its general finding – that all states must comply with the second amendment to the constitution – is likely to have a sweeping impact on local gun laws, particularly in inner-city areas.

The judgment was greeted with joy by the National Rifle Association, the leading proponent of gun rights in a country that has the highest prevalence of civilian gun ownership in the world. The NRA's Wayne LaPierre called it "a great moment in American history".

But in a statement, the Violence Policy Center said: "People will die because of this decision. The gun lobby and gunmakers are seeking nothing less than the complete dismantling of our nation's gun laws." The centre estimates that 30,000 people die in the US every year through gun violence.

The supreme court was called upon to consider the consequences of its own ruling a year ago in which it struck down, by the same 5-4 margin, the ban on handguns in Washington DC. That was the first time the court had ever delivered a major judgment on gun rights. Washington is a district and not a state, so that ruling had no bearing on the rest of the US. This week's case, McDonald v Chicago, was designed to reach a conclusion about the wider picture.

In their majority opinion, the five conservative supreme court judges, led by Justice Samuel Alito, said that the Chicago handgun ban was unconstitutional because it breached the right of the individual to own guns in his or her own home. "Self-defence is a basic right, recognised by many legal systems from ancient times to the present, and individual self-defence is the central component of the Second Amendment", the opinion says.

Alito was backed by John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. But the four liberal judges — Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and John Paul Stevens — disagreed. In his dissenting judgment, Breyer said there was no consensus over a fundamental right to self-defence. "The historical evidence is, at most, ambiguous."

John Bruce, an expert on gun control policy at the University of Mississippi, described the ruling as a "big deal". He said: This ruling snuck up on people when they were distracted by other events."

Bruce predicted there would now be a flurry of legal challenges, as the gun lobby tried to use the supreme court ruling as a green light to push back controls in states across the country.

The first area affected is Chicago, which must now allow the sale of handguns to lawful owners. It had argued before the court that it had a duty to keep its citizens safe from an ongoing epidemic of gun violence. In the first five months of this year, 164 people in Chicago were murdered with guns, a rise of 4% on the same period in 2009. Over a single weekend this month, 10 people were killed and 60 wounded.

Other big cities that have introduced tough restrictions on gun ownership, such as New York, are also likely to face challenges. Daniel Vice, a lawyer at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the gun lobby and criminals would now be emboldened to try to push back local laws. But he thought that in the overwhelming number of cases, those challenges would be rejected by the courts,

"Cities will still be allowed to regulate the type of guns that can be bought and to keep them out of the possession of dangerous people," he said."

Source http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/28/gun-lobby-victory-american-right-to-bear-arms-ruling

I personally cannot understand the decision of the court. The violence numbers in Chicago speak for themselves and if arms would be banned in any way they would most probably go down sharply. One can defend oneself in many other ways and not do harm to any innocent people.



This video to me shows that times have definately changed since the founding fathers wrote the constitution. It makes fun by ironically pointing out the literal meaning of bear arms, but I think in the time, when the second amendment was written, it was a lot more dangerous out on the streets than it is now. So people needed to be able to defend themselves. Nevertheless, times have changed and there is a better justice system out there so we need to adjust our way of thinking to this.

1st Amendment

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 

To me this is one of the most important amendments or rules within the US Costitution. It forbids a dictatorship of religion by seperating church from state. American people can exercise whichever religion they perfer to and I personally think this is very important. Even if this nation is build on christian grounds, everybody is free to believe in whatever he/she thinks is right or even nothing at all if it does not infringe on others.
It is imporant the be able to express one's opinion may it be within the press or through demonstrations in the public. This is an important right as it helped a lot of cases to receive importance (as the Civil Rights Movement).

"First Amendment no big deal, students say

Study shows American teenagers indifferent to freedoms

WASHINGTON — The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.

It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.
The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.
Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.
“These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous,” said Hodding Carter III, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which sponsored the $1 million study. “Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation’s future.”
The students are even more restrictive in their views than their elders, the study says.
When asked whether people should be allowed to express unpopular views, 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of school principals said yes. Only 83 percent of students did.

Indifference, misunderstanding
The results reflected indifference, with almost three in four students saying they took the First Amendment for granted or didn’t know how they felt about it. It was also clear that many students do not understand what is protected by the bedrock of the Bill of Rights.
Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It’s not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can’t.
“Schools don’t do enough to teach the First Amendment. Students often don’t know the rights it protects,” Linda Puntney, executive director of the Journalism Education Association, said in the report. “This all comes at a time when there is decreasing passion for much of anything. And, you have to be passionate about the First Amendment.”
The partners in the project, including organizations of newspaper editors and radio and television news directors, share a clear advocacy for First Amendment issues.
Federal and state officials, meanwhile, have bemoaned a lack of knowledge of U.S. civics and history among young people. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has even pushed through a mandate that schools must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the date it was signed in 1787.
The survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, is billed as the largest of its kind. More than 100,000 students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools took part in early 2004.

Lack of education
The study suggests that students embrace First Amendment freedoms if they are taught about them and given a chance to practice them, but schools don’t make the matter a priority.
Students who take part in school media activities, such as a student newspapers or TV production, are much more likely to support expression of unpopular views, for example.
About nine in 10 principals said it is important for all students to learn some journalism skills, but most administrators say a lack of money limits their media offerings.
More than one in five schools offer no student media opportunities; of the high schools that do not offer student newspapers, 40 percent have eliminated them in the last five years.
“The last 15 years have not been a golden era for student media,” said Warren Watson, director of the J-Ideas project at Ball State University in Indiana. “Programs are under siege or dying from neglect. Many students do not get the opportunity to practice our basic freedoms.”"

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6888837/

This article shows, how important it is to teach the basic freedoms that people have in this country. It is shocking that so many students would compromise their right to a free speech, which is the conernerstone of democracy. They should be exposed more to controversial issues and how media reacts to it.




This report of CNN shows how the 1st amendment is crippled by the government. It might sometimes be a good idea to not get the news out if it prevents for example a mass panic reaction because of certain terroristic threats. This is not the case if one only wants to cover up failure or other inconvenient topics.