AP US Government Unit 3 (Civil Liberties, Civil Rights & Supreme Court Cases)

Civil Liberties

Personal guarantees and freedoms the government cannot abridge.

Limitations on government's power

Restrain or dictate individual actions.

Civil Rights

Provide freedom from arbitrary discriminatory treatment by government.

Anti-Federalists

Stressed need for bill of rights; notion of adding a bill of rights in the Constitution was unpopular or seen as unnecessary at the Convention.

Founding Fathers' acceptance of the bill of rights

Jefferson supported the Bill of Rights quickly; Madison was reluctant at first, but issued public letters, vowing to support a bill of rights for a seat in the House in a largely Anti-Federalist district in a race against Monroe. He was the primary author for Bill of Rights. Still seeing it as a less important project, Congress acted quickly, fearing political instability

Bill of Rights

First ten amendments, guaranteeing specific rights and liberties.

Ninth Amendment

Guarantees enumerating rights in the Constitution or Bill of Rights does not mean others do not exist.

Tenth Amendment

Defines basic principle of American federalism, stating powers not delegated to the national government are reserved to states/people.

Barron v Baltimore

Supreme Court ruling that the Bill of Rights applies only to the federal government , not to state or local governments.

Due Process Clause

Part of the 5th (federal) and 14th (state) Amendments that guarantee the government cannot deprive anyone of life, liberty, or property without fair legal procedures and protects certain fundamental rights from government interference.

Substantive Due Process

Judicial interpretation of 5th and 14th Amendments that due process clauses protect citizens from arbitrary or unjust state/federal laws.

Gitlow v. New York (1925)

Socialist Gitlow printed a manifesto, urging workers to overthrow the government, convicted for violating a New York state law, but the Court decided states are not completely free to limit political expression even though they had been prosecuting individuals for seditious speech

Incorporation Doctrine

Interpretation of Constitution holding due process clause of 14th Amendment requires state and local governments to guarantee the rights stated in the Bill of Rights.

Selective Incorporation

Judicial doctrine whereby most protections in the Bill of Rights are made applicable to states.

First Amendment

Imposes a number of restrictions on the federal government with respect to civil liberties.

Establishment Clause

Directs the national government not to sanction an official religion.

Free Exercise Clause

Prohibits government from interfering with a citizen's right to practice his or her religion.

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

The Court ruled recitation in public school classrooms of a brief nondenominational prayer drafted by the local school board was unconstitutional. This case established that government-sanctioned prayer in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)

Congress' attempt to prevent the government from making decisions that would limit an individual's free exercise.

Prior Restraint

constitutional doctrine that prevents the government from prohibiting speech or publications before the fact; generally held to be in violation of the 1st Amendment

Alien and Sedition Acts

banned criticism of the Federalist government by Democratic-Republicans, making the publication of "false, scandalous writing against the government of the United States" criminal

Schenck v. US (1919)

Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act, ruling that Congress could restrict speech that clearly presents danger that would bring about evils they should be able to prevent (anti-war leaflets were not allowed during wartime)

Clear and Present Danger Test

Test by Court to draw the line between protected and unprotected speech.

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

Court created a new test for regulating speech, protecting hate speech as long as it does not incite violence.

New York Times Co. v. US (1971)

Pentagon papers case, Court ruled the government could not block publication of secret Department of Defense documents illegally furnishd to the Times by anti-war activists

Symbolic Speech

Symbols, signs and other methods of expression protected by the 1st Amendment.

Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)

Court held high school students' rights to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War.

Hate speech

Any communication that belittles a person or group on the basis of characteristics.

Libel

False written statement that defames a person's character.

Slander

Untrue spoken statements that defame the character of a person.

New York Times Co v. Sullivan (1964)

Court overturned the conviction for them printing a full page advertisement accusing Alabama officials of physically abusing African Americans during civil rights protests, holding that actual malice must be there.

Fighting words

Words that inflict injury to incite immediate breach of peace that are not subject to 1st Amendment restrictions.

Miller v. California

Court set out a test redefining obscenity, concluding that lower courts must ask whether the work shows sexual conduct in an offensive way as defined by state law.

Freedom of assembly and petition

Relate to speech and press because the freedom hinges on peaceful conduct.

DC v. Heller (2008)

Court offered clarification, holding the 2nd Amendment protected an individual's right to own a firearm for personal use in DC, and later broadening ownership rights to citizens of other states.

Writs of habeas corpus

Petition requesting a judge order authorities to prove a prisoner is being held lawfully and that allows the prisoner to be freed if the government's case does not persuade the judge.

Ex post facto laws

Laws that make an act punishable as a crime even if the action was legal at the time it was committed (prohibited in Article I).

Bills of attainder

Laws declaring an act illegal by a person without a judicial trial (prohibited in Article I).

4th Amendment

Protects people from unreasonable searches.

Searches allowed without a warrant

The person arrested, things in plain view, places or things that the arrested person could touch or reach otherwise in the arrestee's immediate control.

Reasonable suspicion

If someone is committing or about to commit a crime for 'stop and frisk' searches; consent from occupants present.

Searches allowed with a warrant

Houses and offices.

5th Amendment

imposes restrictions on federal government for rights of persons suspected of commiting crimes (present cases before a grand jury, right not to self-incriminate)

Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

Court ruled the 5th Amendment requires individuals arrested for a crime to be advised of their right to remain silent and to have counsel present.

Miranda rights

Statements required of police that inform a suspect of his or her constitutional rights from the 5th Amendment.

Double jeopardy clause

Protects individuals from being tried twice for the same offense in the same jurisdiction (5th Amendment).

Mapp v. Ohio

Court ruled all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution cannot be used in a state court.

6th Amendment

Sets out requirements of due process for federal courts to follow in criminal trials.

Gideon v. Wainwright

Supreme Court case ruling that the 6th amendment right to an attorney applies to state courts, requiring states to provide lawyers to defendants who cannot afford one.

Right to privacy

Right to be left alone (private personal religious beliefs, guarantee against unreasonable searches).

Griswold v. Connecticut

Some constitutional rights aren’t explicitly written but are inferred from other amendments, creating “zones of privacy” that courts protect, even during war or national emergencies.

Roe v. Wade

Court found woman's right to abortion was protected by right to privacy that could be implied from guarantees in the Bill of Rights applied to states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Court ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and added slaves could not bring suits in federal courts since they were not citizens.

13th Amendment

Bans slavery in the US.

Black Codes

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves in southern states, laying groundwork for Jim Crow laws.

14th Amendment

Guarantees equal protection and due process of the law to citizens.

15th Amendment

Enfranchised newly freed male slaves.

Jim Crow laws

Laws by southern states that required segregation in public venues and schools.

Poll taxes

Tax levied in southern states and localities that had to be paid before an eligible voter could cast a ballot.

Literacy tests

Let local voter registration officials administer difficult reading comprehension tests to potential voters they did not know.

Grandfather clause

Voter qualification provision in southern states that allowed citizens whose grandfathers had voted before Reconstruction to vote unless they passed a wealth/literacy test.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Court ruled separate-but-equal accommodations did not violate equal protection in the 14th Amendment.

Suffrage movement

Drive for voting rights for women.

19th Amendment

Guaranteed the right to vote for women.

Brown v. Board of Education

Court held school segregation was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

Language of Fourteenth Amendment suggests

Protections might prevent state infringement on individual rights.

When secular law conflicts with religious law

The right to exercise one's religious beliefs is often denied (illegal drugs - peyote, snake handling, polygamy)

During times of war

Court gives the other branches more leeway on the First Amendment freedoms (speech and press clause does not disallow government regulation)

States prosecuted those who published articles critical of governmental policies related to slavery

Positive information about slavery in the North was an offense, while abolitionist papers were censored in the South

Lincoln and free speech

Made it unlawful to criticize the government or the Civil War in print and arrested newspaper editors, ignoring the Court