1. Chapter Fifteen Order and Civil Liberties

2. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-2 The Bill of Rights The failure to include a bill of rights was the most important obstacle to the adoption of the Constitution. As it was originally written, the Bill of Rights imposed limits on the national government but not on the state governments.

3. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-3 The Bill of Rights (Cont’d) The Constitution guarantees Americans numerous liberties and rights. The protection of civil liberties in the Bill of Rights has been a center of conflict between the basic values of freedom and order.

4. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-4 Freedom of Religion The First Amendment prevents government from interfering with freedom of religion in two different ways.

5. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-5 Freedom of Religion (Cont’d) The Supreme Court has affirmed the establishment clause, which requires government to maintain religious neutrality but does not bar all assistance to religious institutions. The current standard for assessing whether or not the establishment clause has been violated was established by the court in Lemon v. Kurtzman.

6. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-6 Lemon v. Kurtzman The case held that government programs and laws under the clause: Must have a secular purpose Must have a primary effect that does not advance or inhibit religion Must not entangle the government excessively with religion.

7. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-7 Freedom of Religion (Cont’d) Contemporary interpretation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects religious beliefs but not actions based on those beliefs.

8. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-8 Freedom of Expression According to the dominant view, the freedom of expression clause confers on individuals the right to unrestricted discussion of public affairs, as long as public order is not directly threatened.

9. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-9 Freedom of Expression (Cont’d) Freedom of the press prohibits the imposition of prior restraint, censorship before publication.

10. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-10 Freedom of Expression (Cont’d) According to the clear and present danger test, government has the right to restrict freedom of speech when public order is threatened.

11. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-11 Freedom of Expression (Cont’d) Symbolic expression, or nonverbal behavior, has been upheld by the Court; although it is generally less protected than free speech, the courts have upheld certain types of symbolic expression.

12. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-12 Freedom of Expression (Cont’d) Fighting words are not protected speech because those words inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate disturbance of the peace.

13. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-13 Miller vs. California Case decided that obscene material is entirely excluded from constitutional protection: The work taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest The work portrays sexual conduct in a patently offensive way The work taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

14. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-14 Freedom of Expression (Cont’d) The First Amendment guarantees that government will not interfere with the freedom of the press.

15. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-15 The Right to Bear Arms The Second Amendment has been the focus of heated controversy in recent years. Though restrictions on gun ownership have passed constitutional muster, prohibitions on gun ownership may infringe on the Second Amendment.

16. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-16 The Right to Bear Arms (Cont’d) Gun control advocates argue that the right to bear arms should apply only to state militias, not to individuals.

17. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-17 The Bill of Rights and the States Because of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, most of the individual protections found in the Bill of Rights now apply to the states.

18. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-18 Figure 15.1: The Incorporation of the Bill of Rights

19. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-19 The Bill of Rights and the States (Cont’d) Even before its amendment, the Constitution set some limits on both the national and the state governments with regard to citizens’ rights.

20. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-20 The Bill of Rights and the States (Cont’d) The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment has allowed individuals to contest state violations of their liberties.

21. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-21 The Bill of Rights and the States (Cont’d) The Supreme Court has ruled, however, that extension of the Bill of Rights guarantees to the states via the due process clause applies only to “fundamental” rights.

22. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-22 The Bill of Rights and the States (Cont’d) The application of constitutional procedural safeguards in criminal proceedings to the states has reshaped the American criminal justice system in the last thirty years.

23. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-23 The Ninth Amendment The Ninth Amendment, which protects rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, has been used by the Supreme Court to define the limits of government encroachment on personal autonomy.

24. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-24 The Ninth Amendment (Cont’d) In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court asserted that the Bill of Rights created a zone of privacy for the individual that gave the individual the right to make choices regarding sexual intercourse and reproduction.

25. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 15-25 The Ninth Amendment (Cont’d) In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s right to seek an abortion during the first three months of her pregnancy rests on the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.