The Bill of Rights is the first of 10 amendments to the Constitution. It explains the rights of Americans in relation to their government. It guarantees the civil rights and liberties of the individual, such as freedom of expression, press and religion. The United States is in the midst of a struggle between guaranteeing the promise of a multiracial democracy and succumbing to authoritarianism.
It is a struggle between courts committed to the rule of law and courts committed to the agenda of the conservative legal movement, between policymakers who seek to guarantee the freedoms and rights of all people and those who seek to guarantee more power for the powerful and privileged at the expense of historically vulnerable and marginalized communities. The Supreme Court makes it more difficult to protect individual and civil rights. Through the Constitution of the United States and federal laws, we must call on our state and local governments to underpin the progressive values that have always been the guide in our fight for multiracial democracy. To do this, we must reject the outdated conventional wisdom that pits “red” states against blue and coastal states and urban areas against southern, exurban and rural states and regions.
While ideological geographical classification is a reality, if we look more closely, there are vibrant progressive communities in the most conservative states and threats to multiracial democracy in the most progressive. This program guide provides a sampling of topics that address the ways in which individual and civil rights and liberties can be guaranteed and protected in states and communities across the country. The topics selected for this program guide are not exhaustive, but they are intended to provide examples of the myriad ways in which progressive people in communities across the country can fight for laws and legal systems that strengthen our democratic legitimacy, defend the rule of law, and guarantee individual and civil rights in all communities. The previous program guides provide additional information related to this work, including more information on electoral and democratic initiatives, the movement for Truth, Healing and Racial Transformation, and progressive federalism.
You can find copies of all of our previous program guides here. The Constitution, together with federal law, have long protected individual rights. From the constitutional protection of freedom of expression to the codification of the right not to be subject to odious discrimination on the basis of race, sex and national origin, among other things, in the Civil Rights Act, federal legislation has often been the first line of defense of individual rights. Because the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.
UU. The Constitution prevails over conflicting state laws; federal legal and constitutional protections have often guaranteed the rights of people who live in places where local and state laws and governments would deny those rights. For example, the Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, according to which racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, applied everywhere in the United States, including communities that would never have desegregated public schools without a federal directive.
And the Court's ruling in the case of Obergerfell v.Hodges' claim that it's unconstitutional to deny people the right to marry their same-sex partners applies to everyone in the United States, regardless of whether they live in places that prohibit same-sex marriage. In the same way, federal laws can offer greater protections than state laws, such as in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court held that Title VII prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of gender identity or sexuality across the country, regardless of state laws or the precedents to the contrary. States can go beyond federal law and the United States Constitution to explicitly protect rights such as the right to privacy, the right to abortion, and the right to free public education, and in fact many states have done so.
However, in states that do not have comprehensive constitutional protection of individual rights or that have constitutional prohibitions that restrict individual rights, the judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States have guaranteed those rights to a wide range of people who would not otherwise count with no protection. However, over the past 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted more to the right and has now been completely captured by the conservative legal movement. The Roberts Court has worked to deprive people of their rights and weaken protections for marginalized and vulnerable individuals and communities, while favoring privileged people, allowing them to use their rights as a stick.
The Court has transformed the protections of the First Amendment, which have gone from being a shield against government intrusion to the private exercise of religion and activities that protect democracy and our democratic institutions, to being a sword wielded by privileged individuals and groups who seek to undermine the individual rights of others. The Roberts Court has allowed companies such as Hobby Lobby and wedding cake manufacturers and website designers to use the First Amendment to privilege their personal religious beliefs over the civil rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community. The Roberts Court has also allowed wealthy businesses and individuals to use the First Amendment to invest unlimited amounts of money in elections at all levels in cases such as Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission and McCutcheon against the Federal Elections Commission, silencing the voices of people with more limited means. The Roberts Court also reinterpreted the Second Amendment to expand gun owners' rights in a series of cases that began with the District of Columbia v.
Heller and culminated in the NYSRPA v. Bruen case, undermining reasonable state regulations to the detriment of all. Using the new “text, history and tradition” approach to the Second Amendment announced in Bruen, well-funded groups have tried to challenge virtually all of the country's gun regulations, from limitations on high-capacity magazines and stock to the regulation of ghost weapons and age limits for licensing and registering weapons. Rahimi gun advocates tried to overturn a federal law that temporarily disarms people under a domestic violence restraining order. The goal of all of this litigation is to make gun regulation completely impossible, leaving all people everywhere vulnerable to gun violence.
In addition to using constitutional provisions and amendments as a weapon, the Court has deprived individuals of the constitutional and federal civil rights that the Court and the United States have. The Court has eliminated federal constitutional protection of abortion rights, revoked voting rights protections, and allowed companies that fear that people exercising their right to be tried by a jury in a court of law will force people to submit to secret and binding arbitration. The Supreme Court has proven to be openly hostile to the rights of ordinary people who lack political or economic power. State constitutions are important sources of individual rights. And when state constitutions don't yet protect important rights that are no longer protected at the federal level, modifying them to provide greater protection is easier in some states than amending the U.S.
Constitution and may be easier than passing a federal law. Each state also has its own judiciary and its own supreme court to interpret the contours of state legal and constitutional protections without regard to the restrictive opinions of the Roberts Court. For example, in addition to protecting the right to a trial by jury, many state constitutions also protect the right to seek redress for wrongs committed. In addition to protecting freedom of expression, most state constitutions also protect the right to vote and participate in elections. Many state constitutions contain specific protections for the right to privacy, the right to public education, the right to hunt and fish, and the rights of workers.
When state constitutions do not contain a specific provision that protects an individual right, they can be changed more easily than in the United States. The available ways to amend state constitutions are contained in the documents themselves. In all states, constitutional amendments can be drafted by state legislators and can be included on the ballot for approval by voters if they receive sufficient support from other legislators. More than a dozen state constitutions also grant citizens of those states the constitutional right to participate in an initiative process to amend the constitution.
These initiatives and referendums are initiated by citizens of the state, who draft the text of the amendment and gather the support of other citizens to have the provision included on the ballot for approval by the state's voters. Amending state constitutions at the initiative of citizens can be a democratic way of challenging decisions, whether made by courts or legislatures or state executives, that undermine the individual rights that people want to guarantee themselves. The Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health case held that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion, leaving the issue up to the states, voters in California, Michigan, Ohio and Vermont approved amendments that add the right to reproductive freedom to their state constitutions. In Kansas and Kentucky, voters rejected proposed state constitutional amendments that would have denied the right to abortion under those states' constitutions.
Voters in other states, including Louisiana and Tennessee, approved those rights-denying amendments before the decision was taken in Dobbs. In November 2024, voters in at least eight states will have the opportunity to add state constitutional amendments that would protect the right to abortion. The Constitution is not the only source of individual rights in the United States, the U.S. The Supreme Court is not the sole or final arbiter of all constitutional issues.
State supreme courts are the final arbiters of state constitutions, and they are free to interpret their own constitutions regardless of the precedents of the Supreme Court of the United States, even when the state and federal constitutional language is identical. This provides state supreme courts with the opportunity to offer broader, stronger, and different protections in their state constitutions than those guaranteed by United States A couple of recent examples are instructive. In 2024, the Supreme Court of Hawaii interpreted the state's right to bear arms, in parallel with the Second Amendment, to the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of federal constitutional law. In its decision to the effect that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public, the court explained that when the Court of Justice of United States and Hawaii's constitutions contain a similar provision: “Hawaii has chosen not to follow the Supreme Court's interpretation of the federal Constitution.
He then proceeded to an independent interpretation of Hawaii's constitutional provision, rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court's “fuzzy” approach to history and traditions of exactly the same language used in the Second Amendment, and held that Hawaii's reasonable gun regulations did not violate the state's constitutional right to bear arms or the right contained in the Second Amendment. As promising as state constitutions are in protecting individual rights, state constitutional rights are only as good as the state courts that protect them. State supreme courts are subject to more rapid political change than the Supreme Court of the United States, allowing for equally rapid changes in interpretation and interpretative methods. Just as political changes led the reorganization of the United States Supreme Court in recent years to abandon its own precedent in Dobbs and in many other cases, the same is often the case in state courts.
When state Supreme Court justices are appointed, politically motivated governors have sought and achieved changes in laws and processes that allow them to fill the courts with conservatives who will interpret the state constitution and state laws the way the governors want them to. However, in most states, state supreme court judges must stand for election, posing a different political challenge to the independence of state courts. The flow of money destined for state judicial elections can change the composition of state supreme courts much faster than federal courts change. Wealthy and disappointed litigants can request the removal of judges who are unfavorable to their interests and, at the same time, use their wealth to support judicial candidates and judges who are in favor of their arguments.
Political changes that altered the composition of state supreme courts, as well as their decisions, could fill this Program Guide, but two recent examples clarify this point. Current state constitutional protections and future amendments depend on state supreme courts being willing to provide those rights with the strong protection they deserve. It is not enough to amend the state constitution to add greater protections than those provided by the Constitution of the United States if the state's supreme court is not willing to defend them. A committed electorate must not only take advantage of the promise of state constitutions, but also stay informed and participate in all elections that could change the balance of the state's Supreme Court. What state constitutional provisions and state Supreme Court decisions provide greater protection than the U.S.
Constitution? What additional protections should be added to our state's constitution to better protect individual rights and isolate important government institutions that may have eroded due to decisions of the United States Supreme Court or to state laws and regulations? What are the processes available to amend the state constitution? What are the challenges in amending the state constitution? What methods of interpretation have guided our state's Supreme Court? When federal and state constitutions contain the same text, how have our state courts made an independent interpretation or reached different conclusions than those of the United States?The Supreme Court regarding these provisions? What are the advantages and disadvantages of relying on state courts to protect individual rights based on state constitutional provisions? How should we weigh the opportunities and risks associated with the relative ease with which state constitutions can be modified and with referendums and initiatives to amend state constitutions? Does the fastest-changing composition of state supreme courts allow us to better understand proposals to reform the Supreme Court of the United States, including requests for term limits? What are the pros and cons of a higher court that is more politically responsive or more democratically responsible? A central component of ensuring the rights of people in communities in cities and states across the country is the health of our democracy and our democratic institutions. States are at the center of our elections, and democracy itself provides opportunities for policymakers and leaders to create paths or barriers to the right to vote and democratic participation. The federal election clause, found in Article I of the U.S. UU. The Constitution states that “the time, place and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by its legislature, and Article II also gives states the responsibility of administering presidential elections.
Each state is also responsible for setting the rules and administering its own elections. As in federal elections, state elections are subject to the requirements and limitations imposed by the Constitution of the United States and federal legislation, including the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as well as each state's own constitution and laws. Since the publication of these program guidelines, the Supreme Court decided Alexander v. the South Carolina NAACP State Conference, a case in which the Court's conservative block announced a new rule in cases of racial manipulation that are challenged under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The case involved challenging a manipulated map, which traced the boundaries of districts in a way that eliminated tens of thousands of black voters from a district to create a safe Republican district. Although a three-judge panel ruled that race was the predominant factor in drawing the district, the Supreme Court refused to give credence to the court's ruling. Judge Samuel Alito's majority opinion held that courts should review lawsuits with “the presumption that the legislature acted in good faith in drawing legislative districts.” In addition, the Court required plaintiffs to provide an alternative permissible map to prevail. This case was resolved near the end of the Court's most recent term of office, so it remains to be seen to what extent it could undermine efforts to challenge the racially discriminatory redistricting initiatives of state legislatures.
How could the Court's “presumption of good faith” be articulated? In the Alexander v. case, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, does it operate in light of decades of state legislatures manipulating state and congressional legislative districts to dilute the vote of racial minorities? What kind of evidence could the courts accept to overcome this presumption? How could Congress more vigorously protect the right to vote by using its authority under Article I and the Fourteenth Amendment? Seventy years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, a case that would “transform America.” The decision and its progeny, especially Brown II and Swann v. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education aimed to eliminate segregation in schools and to compel states to take proactive steps to ensure equal access to quality public education for all students.
But resistance came quickly and aggressively. Violent white parent protests in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mansfield, Texas, Boston, Massachusetts, and cities across the country encouraged local and state leaders to resist the elimination of segregation at all times. Schools, referred to as “segregation academies” by researchers and academics. The result was a resegregation of schools; public schools served mostly black students with fewer resources, while enrollment in well-resourced, white-only private schools doubled.
Conservative legislators' financial and government support for private schools to avoid integration persists to this day. Voucher programs and other “school choice” initiatives work to transfer public funds from public schools to private schools with mostly white enrollment. Segregation academies continue to operate in the South with support of state legislators. A recent report from the Department of Education highlighted research showing that “many of the advances in school diversity that occurred after Brown's decision were rescinded in the 1990s and have now stalled.
Seventy years after Brown, school voucher programs and other initiatives to channel public funds into private education continue to hamper efforts to integrate schools and reduce the achievement gap. In addition to undermining efforts to achieve equity in education, publicly funded private schools threaten another fundamental constitutional value. According to the most recent data available from the Department of Education, about 77% of all students (K-1) enrolled in private schools attend a religious school. For decades, courts and First Amendment scholars understood that allocating public funds to religious schools was a clear violation of the separation of church and state, but three Roberts Court decisions in a few years opened the door increasingly to allowing, and in some cases even requiring, public funding of religious schools.
Advocates of school voucher plans have made the decision in the Carson case and have tried to go even further. For example, the decision in the Carson case did not address the issue of non-discrimination requirements that could make a school unable to receive public funding. Dissatisfied with their victory, advocates returned to Maine to challenge the state's Human Rights Act, which prohibits educational institutions from discriminating on the basis of gender identity, as this would make some religious schools in the state unable to receive vouchers. A federal judge recently denied a preliminary injunction on the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act, while noting the parties' intention to appeal the decision.
Following Carson's decision, the state board overseeing Oklahoma charter schools approved a request from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa to establish the first publicly funded religious charter school. The virtual school was scheduled to open in the 2024-2025 school year, but the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the state's establishment of a religious charter school violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, the Oklahoma Constitution and Oklahoma statutes. The school's board of directors, which argued that the Free Exercise Clause prohibited Oklahoma from denying its right to charter school solely because it was religious, and the state's autonomous board announced its intention to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, the Court did not limit its rewriting of the case law on religious clauses to the question of public funds used in private schools. The Court has also chosen to erode long-established protections that prevent religious teaching from reaching public schools. In the same period in which it handed down judgment against Carson, the Court handed down its disastrous decision in The Kennedy v. Bremerton School District case overturned Lemon's fifty-year precedent against Kurtzman and replaced it with a “test of history and tradition” when interpreting the Establishment Clause.
The court misrepresented the facts and the law by blessing the public prayer that a public high school soccer coach said on school property with student athletes after soccer games. As Judge Sotomayor noted in her dissent, the Court once again paid “exclusive attention” to the protection provided by the Free Exercise Clause for the individual exercise of religion, without ignoring the prohibition of establishing a religion by the State, contained in the Establishment Clause. And conservative legislators and public officials have certainly taken note. A week after the Louisiana law was enacted, the Oklahoma state superintendent ordered all public schools to not only place a copy of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, but also to teach the Bible as part of the public school curriculum.
School administrators and advocates are challenging the superintendent's legal authority to issue such directives. Those who seek to further erode the separation between church and state, particularly with regard to schools, smell like blood in the water, given that the United StatesRecent Supreme Court decisions on the Free Exercise and Establishment Clause. Christian nationalists and their allies not only advocate for public funding of sectarian schools and religious (exclusively Christian) education in public schools, but they also demand that any material or idea that they disagree with be removed from libraries and school curricula. Moms for Liberty, which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center has links to extremist and hate groups, including white nationalists, has gained national notoriety for its efforts to “attack teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, promote conspiratorial propaganda, and spread hate images and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.” The ban on books, a primary tool for Christian nationalist efforts to impose their ideological hegemony on students, has skyrocketed in popularity and, according to the American Library Association, a record number of books have been challenged. Titles that represent the “voices and lived experiences” of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC people represented 47% of books subject to censorship attacks.
Many of these bans have been challenged in court, and plaintiffs are starting to see promising results. With the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the protections offered by the United States Constitution in relation to criminal legal systems were expanded to apply to states, including the Fourth Amendment's guarantee not to be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to an attorney enshrined in the Sixth Amendment, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments, enshrined in the Eighth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment also guarantees equal protection and due process within the states' criminal legal system. The Department of Justice and federal courts provide support to ensure that constitutional rights are respected in different state systems.
They can only review and intervene in a small proportion of cases, leaving the administration of justice to a large extent at local discretion. Violations of civil and human rights are still common in the U.S. These violations are most intensely experienced by historically marginalized communities. In recent years, national movements for justice reform have prompted the federal government and many states to focus on reducing incarceration and eliminating disparities in sentencing.
However, commentators and advocates have criticized the implementation of the First Step Act and have pointed out, among other problems, racial bias in the algorithm used to predict recidivism, resulting in persistent racial disparities that harm black and brown people. One of the most protracted battles over cruel and unusual punishment has been the continued application of the death penalty in the United States, which is the only Western democracy that maintains the death penalty. Like the criminal legal system in general, racial prejudice has long been present in capital punishment, and black defendants accused of killing white victims are much more likely to be tried with capital punishment and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court briefly declared a moratorium on the practice in Furman v.
1972. However, the fractured decision, which included a brief per curiam decision accompanied by several concurrences and dissensions, was short-lived and caused a general reaction among the states. Georgia: The Court reinstated capital punishment through a process that, according to States, would provide greater predictability and fairness in the application of the death penalty. The process approved by the Court, in fact, offered neither predictability nor equity, and fueled a boom in executions that lasted well into the decade of 2000. Today, the application of the death penalty is highly dependent on the region.
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have completely abolished the death penalty, while another six have established moratoriums on the practice. Other states, such as Pennsylvania and Montana, have not carried out executions this century. New death sentences are now piling up in a handful of states, such as Texas, which executes more people than any other state, and Oklahoma, which has executed more people per capita. Because of these variations, contemporary defense against the death penalty takes many forms.
Capital punishment attorneys continue to use federal litigation to limit the circumstances in which capital punishment can be imposed. Thanks to its efforts, the Supreme Court has gradually reduced the category of people who can be legally executed, excluding people who were children at the time the crimes were committed and people with serious intellectual disabilities. Meanwhile, state litigation has led to judicial abolition in Washington and Delaware, and new efforts are being made to ensure judicial abolition in California. While “cruel and unusual punishment” is frequently discussed in the context of the death penalty, the concept has also been applied to laws that attempt to criminalize status.
In a historic 1962 case, Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court struck down a California law that sought to criminalize drug addiction. In the case of 2024 City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, however, the Supreme Court refused to ask Robinson to overturn a local ordinance that made it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside.
The majority of the Court reasoned that, while the precedents of the Eighth Amendment may prohibit laws that criminalize status, they do not prevent the state from criminalizing conduct, in this case, the act of sleeping. Meanwhile, dissenting judges Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson focused on the lawmakers' stated intention to make conditions so uncomfortable for homeless people that they would “move” in the future. Dissenters argued that criminalizing essential biological functions, such as sleep, for people who are homeless is functionally no different from criminalizing homelessness as a status. This case has already had a ripple effect.
On July 25, less than a month after the Grants Pass decision, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that directly references the Supreme Court's decision on Grants Pass. The order orders state agencies to target camps located on state property through eviction operations (i.e., the order provides only 48 hours notice or less in the case of “pressing circumstances” that pose an imminent threat to life, health, security or infrastructure). The executive order also encourages local governments to use their resources, including state funding for housing and intervention, “to humanely remove camps from public spaces. Other cities and states are likely to follow their example in their efforts to criminalize homeless people, including the twenty-four states that filed an amicus brief in which they advocated the position that the Court eventually adopted.
While much of the criticism of the criminal justice system has focused on the unfairly harsh consequences for poor people and people of color, activists have also called for more accountability by the powerful, including politicians and police officers. The Court's conservative majority, citing concern about federal overreach, ruled 6-3 that, although the law prohibits bribes arranged before a corrupt act, it does not apply to tips granted after the events. Dissenting judges Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson criticized the decision for ignoring the simple text of the statute and overriding the intent of Congress. Until Congress rewrites the law, the Court's ruling leaves states and localities solely responsible for holding public officials to account using state anti-corruption laws and ordinances.
While the enforcement of local and state anti-corruption and bribery laws is important, when local corruption is so entangled that federal intervention is required, the Court has limited the tools available to federal prosecutors. However, advocates continue to push for change both through the legislative process and in state and federal courts. Colorado, New Mexico and Connecticut have passed laws that limit or eliminate qualified immunity under state law. In addition, in a recent ruling, the Nevada Supreme Court refused to extend qualified immunity to block monetary compensation for violations of rights derived from its state's constitution.
In Green v. Thomas in 2024, Judge Carlton Reeves, of the Mississippi District Court, refused to apply the Supreme Court's qualified immunity doctrine to protect a police detective, considering that her actions violated a clearly established law and that qualified immunity in and of itself “had no basis” cool”. The Supreme Court has invoked federalist motives both in its Grants Pass decision, which returned more powers to local officials to establish their criminal laws, and in reducing 18 U.S. dollars, C.
How can the federal government help to encourage or support criminal justice reform efforts in states? Are there any key reforms from other states that would be beneficial to carry out in your state or community? Police resistance has been a major obstacle to changing qualified immunity laws. What types of data would be most useful in building support for reform in your community? Are there other reforms that could achieve similar objectives with less resistance? How can criminal justice reformers manage the risk of a violent public backlash? ACS is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization. Freedom, an Alexandria criminal defense law firm, is the backbone of American society and the principle behind its founding. The founders of the United States emphasized this freedom in many original documents, such as the U.S.
Constitution. As a U.S. citizen, you are likely to expect to enjoy certain liberties, but you may not know exactly what these liberties are. The Constitution serves as a guide to the freedoms you can enjoy as an individual.
However, the Constitution itself and the liberties it offers can be difficult to understand, especially if you have never been questioned about your rights. You may wonder what individual freedom is and how it differs from other types of freedom. You may also wonder what exactly the Constitution does to protect you. Individual freedom stems from stories and philosophies that value allowing people to pursue their interests and goals. The concept dates back to the founding of the first democracy in Greece.
Its democracy placed more value on the individual and on their relationship with the government. Democracy has continued throughout history and, finally, it came to the United States when the colonists set out to defend their rights against the laws established by the British monarchy. Several foundational documents, such as the Constitution, reflect the values of individual freedom. The Constitution forms the basis of the United States system of government, but it did not originally protect individual rights to the extent that it does now. As the Constitution intended to establish a limited government, the founders thought at first that it would be unnecessary to establish individual liberties.
They imagined that limited governing powers alone would be enough to protect people from their government. However, the founders soon realized that the Constitution would not be enough. That's when they established the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights includes 10 amendments that protect the rights of citizens. You may recognize some of the freedoms offered by these amendments because you probably hear about them often.
The First Amendment defends freedom of religion, speech and the press. Other amendments protect the right to a trial by jury, the right to bear arms and other liberties. The first 10 amendments opened the door to further revision of the Constitution. If citizens agreed that the current Bill of Rights does not protect certain freedoms, they could add an amendment to protect that issue.
Since drafting the Bill of Rights, legislators have added 17 additional amendments. These include greater protections and opportunities for women and rights for formerly enslaved people. If you believe that your rights have been violated, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment gives you the right to take legal action. Different offenses may require different courses of action, and an attorney can help you through this process.
In general, the person must prove that their right has been violated and that, as a result, they have suffered harm. The courts will then examine the evidence using various methods of scrutiny. If the court finds that your case adequately demonstrates a violation of individual rights, you may receive some form of compensation. Another way to protect your civil rights is to report violations to various government departments. The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are two government organizations that allow individuals to file complaints of civil rights violations.
The Constitution and its amendments protect your liberties as a U.S. citizen. Unfortunately, you may be faced with situations where an organization denies you these freedoms. In these scenarios, legal help is available and you don't need to face the problem alone. The legal professionals at The Brown Firm can explain your freedoms and rights in greater detail and can advise you on possible steps to take if you have suffered a violation of your rights.
Contact the Brown Firm civil rights department for more information or to schedule a consultation. Ask a question or request a consultation and we will respond to you in a timely manner. The Brown family has maintained a tradition of excellence as legal professionals for more than 65 years. For three generations, the family has defended its clients in a way that far exceeds customer expectations. Representing your clients demonstrates the ideal practice of law.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution constitute the Bill of Rights. James Madison wrote the amendments as a solution to limit government power and protect individual liberties through the Constitution. For example, the Founders viewed the ability to speak and worship freely as a natural right protected by the First Amendment. Congress is prohibited from enacting laws that establish religion or restrict freedom of expression.
The Fourth Amendment protects the right of citizens not to be subject to unreasonable government intrusion into their homes by requiring a court order. Even with judicial review in place, courts are not always willing to dismiss the actions of other branches of government. In more general terms, as Marshall said, “it is, without a doubt, the competence and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. The United States has a common law system in which the law is largely developed through binding court decisions.
With roots in medieval England, the system was inherited by the American colonies along with many other British traditions. The Constitution recognizes a number of inalienable human rights, such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair and speedy trial by a jury. Wealthy individuals can also use the amendment process initiated by citizens to undermine State Supreme Court decisions that harm their interests. The Inter-American system for the protection of human rights was created with the adoption of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man in 1948, under the auspices of the Organization of American States (NOW).
In protecting states, the Eleventh Amendment prohibited courts by stating: “The judiciary of the United States shall not be interpreted to extend to any lawsuit of right or equity, initiated or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State. It encompasses search and seizure, the rights of the defendant, due process of law, jury trials, and protection against the cruel and unusual punishments guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. In Florida, voters added an amendment to the state's constitution in 1980 to expressly protect the right to privacy. The government must have a certain level of power to protect its citizens, but excess power can lead to abuse of that influence.
