Amex final review guide

The US Supreme Court and Fundamental Legal Definitions

• Total Number of Justices: The Supreme Court consists of $9$ justices.

• Current Chief Justice: John Roberts.

• Precedent: A legal decision that serves as an authoritative rule or pattern for future, similar cases.

• Due Process Rights: The constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that the government will respect all legal rights owed to a person (found in the $5th$ and $14th$ Amendments).

• The Exclusionary Rule: A legal rule preventing evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights (like illegal searches) from being used in a court of law.

• Double Jeopardy: The prosecution of a person twice for the same offense, which is prohibited by the $5th$ Amendment.

• Eminent Domain: The power of the government to take private property for public use, provided the property owner is given just compensation.

The Bill of Rights and Amendments

• First Amendment Protections:

  • Freedom of speech.

  • Freedom of petition.

  • Freedom of assembly.

  • Freedom of press.

  • Freedom of religion.

  • Freedom of expression.

• Second Amendment: Right to bear arms.

• Fourth Amendment: Right to refuse quartering troops (as specified in the transcript).

• Fifth Amendment:

  • Right to be charged in front of a grand jury.

  • Right to remain silent.

  • Protection against Double Jeopardy.

  • Guarantee of Due Process.

  • Protection regarding Eminent Domain.

• Sixth Amendment:

  • Right to be told of charges.

  • Right to a speedy and fair trial.

  • Right to face prosecution witnesses.

  • Right to a defense lawyer.

• Eighth Amendment:

  • Ensures punishments are fair based on the crime.

  • Protects against excessive bail or fines.

  • Prohibits cruel and unusual punishment (a definition that evolves based on societal standards of decency).

• Ninth Amendment: Protects all rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.

Freedom of Expression and Judicial Precedents

• First Amendment Limitations: Freedom of speech is not absolute. Limitations include:

  • Incitement to imminent lawless action.

  • Defamation (comprised of libel and slander).

  • Obscenity.

  • Speech that creates a "clear and present danger."

• Right to Protest: Protected under the rights to peaceably assemble and petition the government; however, local governments can enforce reasonable restrictions on the "time, place, and manner" of the protest.

• Establishment Clause: Part of the $1st$ Amendment prohibiting the government from establishing an official national religion or unduly favoring one religion over another.

• Free Exercise Clause: Part of the $1st$ Amendment preventing the government from interfering with a person's practice of their religion.

• Key Supreme Court Cases on Student Speech:

  • Tinker v. Des Moines ($1969$): Ruled that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Protected symbolic speech (wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War) providing it does not cause a material disruption.

  • Bethel School District v. Fraser ($1986$): Ruled that schools can discipline students for using lewd, vulgar, or offensive language in a school setting.

  • Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier ($1988$): Ruled that school administrators can exercise prior restraint and censor student-led school newspapers if the censorship is reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.

  • Morse v. Frederick ($2007$): Ruled that school officials can prohibit students from displaying messages that promote illegal drug use (e.g., the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" banner) at school-sanctioned events.

• Search and Seizure in Schools:

  • NJ v. T.L.O. ($1985$): Ruled that school officials do not need a warrant or probable cause to search a student; they only need "reasonable suspicion" to maintain safety and order.

Capital Punishment and Sentencing

• Sentencing: The formal legal punishment given to a convicted criminal, which must be proportional to the severity of the crime committed.

• Methods of Execution: Include lethal injection (the most common modern method), electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, and firing squad.

• Roper v. Simmons ($2005$): Ruled that executing individuals who were under the age of $18$ when they committed their crimes violates the $8th$ Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Civil Rights and Voting Amendments

• Thirteenth Amendment ($1865$): Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.

• Fourteenth Amendment ($1868$): Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the US; guaranteed equal protection under the laws and due process at the state level (Equal Protection Clause).

• Fifteenth Amendment ($1870$): Prohibited the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

• Nineteenth Amendment ($1920$): Granted women the right to vote (women's suffrage).

• Twenty-fourth Amendment ($1964$): Abolished the use of poll taxes in federal elections.

• Twenty-sixth Amendment ($1971$): Lowered the legal voting age from $21$ to $18$.

Post-Civil War History and Segregation

• Reconstruction ($1865$-$1877$): The period when the South was rebuilding itself and reintegrating into the North, adapting to new laws.

• Methods to Prevent Voting in the South:

  • Poll Taxes: Requiring citizens to pay a fee before voting (disproportionately affecting Black and low-income voters).

  • Literacy Tests: Intentionally difficult, biased reading and civics tests administered by white officials.

  • Grandfather Clauses: Allowed citizens to bypass literacy tests/taxes if their grandfathers had voted before $1867$, exempting poor whites while excluding Black citizens.

  • Intimidation and Violence: Physical threats and violence carried out by groups like the KKK.

• Plessy v. Ferguson ($1896$): Ruled that the "separate but equal" doctrine was constitutional and legalized segregation.

• Brown v. Board of Education ($1954$): Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson; ruled that segregated schools are unconstitutional.

• Jim Crow Laws: Laws enforcing racial segregation through "white only" and "colored" signs for schools, buses, and restrooms, as well as bans on interracial marriages.

• Types of Segregation:

  • De jure segregation: Segregation by law (e.g., Jim Crow laws).

  • De facto segregation: Segregation in practice (e.g., residential patterns).

• Sharecropping: A system where freedmen used land from former masters, paying with crops; employers also provided seeds and tools.

• Tenant Farming: Farmers rent land from a landowner and pay with cash or a portion of their crops.

• Lynching: The illegal, extrajudicial killing of an individual by a mob, historically used as a tool of terror and racial control against Black Americans in the South.

• The Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacy Organizations:

  • Groups included the KKK, the White Brotherhood, the Men of Justice, the Constitutional Union Guards, and the Knights of the White Camelia.

  • Initial objective: To stop Black people from voting.

  • Later objectives: Undermine Black political and economic power; attacking successful Black businessmen and preventing the formation of protection groups like trade unions.

  • Methods included breaking into houses at night, kidnapping, and torture.

Key Figures and Organizations in Civil Rights

• Alice Paul: A prominent suffragist and strategist who used aggressive protests, hunger strikes, and parades to secure the $19th$ Amendment; author of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

• Carrie Chapman Catt: President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) who implemented the "Winning Plan" for state and national voting rights.

• Harriet Tubman: Abolitionist who worked with the Underground Railroad, a secret network built for slaves, rescuing nearly $70$ enslaved individuals.

• Dolores Huerta: Civil rights activist and labor leader who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the UFW) with Csar Chvez.

• Charles Hamilton Houston: NAACP Litigation Director known as "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow" for his legal strategy that paved the way for Brown v. Board of Education.

• NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in $1909$ to fight prejudice, lynching, and Jim Crow segregation.

LGBTQ+, Disability, and Native American Rights

• Stonewall Riots ($1969$): Spontaneous demonstrations by the LGBTQ+ community in response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn (NYC); catalyst for the modern gay liberation movement.

• Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT): A $1993$ policy barring openly gay individuals from the military; repealed in $2011$.

• Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA): A $1996$ law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman; struck down by the Supreme Court in Windsor ($2013$) and Obergefell ($2015$).

• Same-Sex Marriage: Legalized nationwide in $1015$ following Obergefell v. Hodges.

• Current Concerns of LGBTQ+ Americans: Transgender healthcare access, non-discrimination in housing/employment, and school curricula restrictions.

• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA - $1990$): Prohibits discrimination in public life (jobs, schools, transport) and requires "reasonable accommodations."

• Indian Citizenship Act of $1924$ (Snyder Act): Granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the US; however, it failed to fulfill the promise of citizenship because it did not grant voting rights.

Labor History and Social Reform

• The Jungle ($1906$): Novel by Upton Sinclair exposing meatpacking conditions, leading to the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire ($1911$): Tragic fire in NYC that killed $146$ garment workers (mostly young immigrant women) due to locked exit doors; led to safety regulations and stronger unions.

• AFL (American Federation of Labor): Founded in $1886$ by Samuel Gompers; focused on wages, hours, and conditions for skilled craft workers.

• National Farm Workers Association: Founded in $1962$ by Csar Chvez and Dolores Huerta.

• Farm Workers Strike in Delano ($1965$-$1970$): Boycott of table grapes by Filipino and Mexican workers leading to the first major union contracts in agriculture.

• Title IX ($1972$): Prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs receiving federal funding, expanding opportunities for women in sports.

• University of California v. Bakke ($1978$): Upheld affirmative action as a factor in admissions but banned explicit racial quotas.

Principles of Economics

• Economics Definition: The social science studying how individuals, governments, firms, and nations allocate scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants.

• Needs vs. Wants: Needs are required for survival; wants are desired but not required for survival.

• Factors of Production:

  • Land: Natural resources not created by humans.

  • Capital: Equipment and factories used in production.

  • Labor: People with all their efforts and abilities.

  • Entrepreneurs: Individuals who start new businesses or bring products to market.

• Opportunity Cost: The value of the next best choice.

• Economic Indicators:

  • GDP (Gross Domestic Product): Total monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within a country in a specific time.

  • Stock Market/Dow Jones: Measures performance of publicly traded companies.

  • Unemployment Rate: Percentage of the labor force without a job who are actively seeking employment.

• Monopoly: Market structure with a single seller of a unique product, giving the company complete control over prices.

• Inflation: A general increase in prices and fall in purchasing value; caused by demand-pull, cost-push, or increase in money supply.

The US Civil War and Leadership

• Main Causes: Disagreements over slavery (specifically expansion into western territories) and the balance of states' rights versus federal authority.

• South (Confederacy) Advantages:

  • Experienced military leadership (e.g., Robert E. Lee).

  • Fighting a defensive war on familiar territory.

  • High initial motivation.

• North (Union) Advantages:

  • Larger population.

  • Superior industrial capabilities for manufacturing.

  • Vast railroad network.

  • Functional navy to blockade ports.

• Assassination of Lincoln: Shot on April $14$, $1865$ by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre.

Presidential Succession Order

1. Vice President

2. Speaker of the House

3. President pro tempore of the Senate

4. Secretary of State (followed by remaining Cabinet secretaries in order of department creation)