Transcript Bill of Rights

Bill of Rights
You and the Law
McGuire
 Freedom
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of
Speech and expression
Religion
Protest
Press
Tinker vs. Des Moines
Bethel vs. Frasier
 The
2nd Amendment
protects the right to
bear arms
 The
3rd Amendment says “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 means that we cannot be forced to
house or quarter soldiers.
 The
4th Amendment protects the people from
unreasonable searches and seizures.
 This means that the police must have a
warrant to enter our homes. It also means the
government cannot take our property, papers,
or us, without a valid warrant based on
probable cause (good reason).
 The
5th Amendment protects people from
being held for committing a crime unless they
are properly indicted (accused)
 Grand jury for capital crime
 You may not be tried twice for the same crime
(double jeopardy)
 You don’t have to testify against yourself in
court. (Self-incrimination)
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The 6th Amendment guarantees a
speedy trial (you can’t be kept in
jail for over a year without a trial)
an impartial jury (doesn’t already
think you are guilty)
that the accused can confront
witnesses against them
the accused must be allowed to
have a lawyer
 The
7th Amendment guarantees the right to
a speedy civil trial.
 A civil trial differs from a criminal trial. A
civil trial is when someone sues someone
else. A criminal trial is when the state tries
to convict someone of a crime.
 The
8th Amendment
guarantees that
punishments will be fair
and not cruel, and that
extraordinarily large
fines will not be set.
Alaska (1957)
Hawaii (1948)
Iowa (1965)
Maine (1887)
Massachusetts (1984)
Michigan (1846)
Minnesota (1911)
North Dakota (1973)
New Jersey (2007)
New Mexico (2009)
New York (2007)
Rhode Island (1984)
Vermont (1964)
West Virginia (1965)
Wisconsin (1853)
Dist. of Columbia (1981)
Troy Davis
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Convicted of murder of Mark
MacPhail in 1991
Executed on September 21,
2011
Claimed his innocence all the
way until his lethal injection
7 of the 9 key witnesses
recanted their testimonies or
changed their testimonies
after the trial
New York Times Editorial
September 27, 2009
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“To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death
penalty — it’s immoral, does not deter murder and
affects minorities disproportionately — we can add
one more. It’s an economic drain on governments
with already badly depleted budgets.”
“States waste millions of dollars on winning death
penalty verdicts, which require an expensive second
trial, new witnesses and long jury selections. Death
rows require extra security and maintenance costs.”
“There is also a 15-to-20-year appeals process, but
simply getting rid of it would be undemocratic and
would increase the number of innocent people put to
death. Besides, the majority of costs are in the
pretrial and trial.”
NYT Editorial continued
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“According to the organization, keeping inmates on
death row in Florida costs taxpayers $51 million a year
more than holding them for life without parole. North
Carolina has put 43 people to death since 1976 at $2.16
million per execution. The eventual cost to taxpayers in
Maryland for pursuing capital cases between 1978 and
1999 is estimated to be $186 million for five
executions.”
“Perhaps the most extreme example is California,
whose death row costs taxpayers $114 million a year
beyond the cost of imprisoning convicts for life. The
state has executed 13 people since 1976 for a total of
about $250 million per execution. This is a state whose
prisons are filled to bursting (unconstitutionally so, the
courts say) and whose government has imposed
doomsday-level cuts to social services, health care,
schools and parks.”
NYT Editorial continued
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“Money spent on death rows could be spent on
police officers, courts, public defenders, legal
service agencies and prison cells. Some
lawmakers, heeding law-enforcement officials
who have declared capital punishment a low
priority, have introduced bills to abolish it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28mon3.html?_r=0,
September 27, 2009
State Name
Washington
# of Executions Since 1976
# of Executions before 1976
Current Death Row Population
# of Innocent Persons Freed From Death Row
5
105
9
1
State Name
# of Executions Since 1976
# of Executions before 1976
Current Death Row Population
Texas
477
755
321

In Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1878), the
Supreme Court commented that drawing and
quartering, public dissection, burning alive and
disembowelling someone was an example of
cruel and unusual punishment.

Convicts were fastened to a wooden panel, and drawn by
horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged
(almost to the point of death), emasculated,
disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into
four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in
prominent places across the country, such as London
Bridge. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of
high treason were instead burnt at the stake.
 The
Supreme Court declared executing the
mentally handicapped in Atkins v. Virginia,
536 U.S. 304 (2002), and executing people
who were under age 18 at the time the crime
was committed in Roper v. Simmons, 543
U.S. 551 (2005), to be violations of the
Eighth Amendment, regardless of the crime.
 the
rights listed in preceding amendments (e.g.,
speech, religion, fair trial) are not the only rights
the people have; it recognizes that there are
rights that were simply not mentioned
 The
10th Amendment states that any power not
granted to the federal government belongs to the
states or to the people.