-
No. We teach people that they have rights, and that these rights are secured by the principal documents that guarantee our civil liberties -- the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An informed individual who invokes his constitutional protections is doing exactly what our nation's founders intended. They created these documents to...
-
No. If a police officer asks your permission to search, you are under no obligation to consent. The main reason why officers ask is because they don't have enough evidence to search without your consent. Don't expect an officer to tell you of your right not to consent. Any time you consent to a search request you are naively waiving your constitutional rights.
-
Be aware that private security personnel outnumber police officers in the United States by three to one. As a result, you may be more likely to be confronted by a security guard than by a police officer. You must also be aware of the following places where security personnel (governmental or otherwise) are permitted to search you without a warrant...
-
College students suffer from an unfortunate lack of privacy rights in many situations. The university owns the dorm, so school officials can often search rooms at their own discretion. College students still have 4th Amendment rights that apply in other situations...
-
In addition to compromising your safety and the safety of others, driving drunk is one of the stupidest things you can do, and one of the easiest ways to create overwhelming legal problems for yourself. DUI laws vary from state to state, and they have become increasingly harsh over the years...
-
The sad fact is that most people believe that they are under some kind of obligation to acquiesce when an officer contacts them and asks permission to search them or their belongings. The truth is exactly the opposite...
-
This is a tricky issue. The simple answer is that citizens who are minding their own business are not obligated to "show their papers" to police. In fact, there is no law requiring citizens to carry identification of any kind. Once you get passed the surface, however, things get much more complicated...
-
Yes. Minors generally have the same rights as adults. For example, minors can refuse searches and decline to answer questions without an attorney present. Nevertheless, minors face unique challenges when attempting to exercise these rights...
-
As a general rule, searches conducted without a valid search warrant signed by a judge violate the Fourth Amendment, but like most rules of law, there are a number of explicit exceptions. In fact, most searches occur without warrants because police take advantage of these exceptions to the Fourth Amendment...
-
No. The courts have made it clear that police officers do not have to tell people that they can refuse to consent to a warrantless search. Also, contrary to the belief perpetuated by popular police television shows, a person will not be read their rights subsequent to being taken into custody. A person only needs to be Mirandized when...
-
Everyone should be trained to assert their constitutional rights under the 4th Amendment in order to avoid the hassle and humiliation of police misconduct and illegal searches. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on citizen-police contacts...
-
No. The Supreme Court has never ruled that police must present the warrant when performing a search. The purpose of the warrant is to...
-
Generally not. The Bill of Rights protections that matter most during police encounters are mandated by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, and all states are required to follow them. States can offer more protection of these rights, but not less. There are some variations regarding...
-
Traffic stops typically occur as a result of suspected moving violations committed by the driver of the vehicle. Passengers cannot be held responsible for the driver's conduct and are generally free to leave, unless police become suspicious of them during the course of the stop...
-
Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal, so long as you don't interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested...
|
Written by Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal
|
|
Wednesday, 17 June 2009 00:00 |
|
Federal appeals courts hearing gun rights cases after the Supreme Court's Second Amendment ruling last year in District of Columbia v. Heller are confronting an old issue: whether the amendment applies to restrict state and local laws under the incorporation doctrine.
Heller found that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to own a gun in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave. New suits challenging state and local laws have resulted in a split. Two federal appeals courts refused to apply the Second Amendment to local laws without express Supreme Court authorization. A third disagreed.
University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson told the New York Times that the case could present a dilemma for some conservative justices who scoffed at incorporation arguments in the past. Because of the touchy issues, he says he would be surprised if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear new cases on the issue.
Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar told the Times that incorporation fell out of favor after the 1960s, but it's being resurrected by liberal scholars. Most of the Bill of Rights have been applied to the states under liberal Warren Court rulings that found the 14th Amendment required incorporation. One exception is the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, which has not been applied to the states.
"The precedents are now supportive of incorporation of nearly every provision of the Bill of Rights," Amar told the Times. "Now what's odd is that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to the states."
He believes the justices will support incorporation. A post at the Volokh Conspiracy after the Heller ruling cited evidence that Justice Antonin Scalia may be on board.
Scalia's Heller opinion highlights the importance to the newly freed slaves of the right to keep and bear arms in the home-the kind of evidence used to support incorporation. One Scalia passage hints that he believes the amendment could be incorporated through the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, rather than due process safeguards, says the Volokh Conspiracy writer, University of Minnesota law professor Dale Carpenter.
Share this with the world:        
|
|
The 4th Amendment Podcast
|
|
Comments