Abolitionist Movement
A new and aggressive phase of American abolitionism emerged in the 1830s. Called ‘‘immediatism,’’ the movement for the immediate, uncompensated emancipation of slaves without expatriation (which received institutional expression first from the regional New England Anti-Slavery Society
Read the full storyAbolitionists
Abolitionists were individuals committed to eradicating chattel slavery in the United States. The first organized abolitionist group was the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS).
Read the full storyAbortion
Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, abortion was an issue to which men, and therefore lawmakers, judges, and politicians, paid little or no attention.
Read the full storyAbsolutism and Free Speech
Absolutism is an approach to interpretation of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech that takes literally the text of the amendment when it declares that ‘‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.’’
Read the full storyAbu Ghraib
Abu Ghraib prison was originally built in the 1960s by Western contractors but achieved notoriety during Saddam Hussein’s rule as a repository for up to fifteen thousand of his political enemies.
Read the full storyAcademic Freedom
Academic freedom is a concept that encompasses notions of philosophy and contracts as well as civil liberties. In the United States the concept of academic freedom has developed primarily (although not exclusively) in the context of higher education.
Read the full storyAccess to Government Operations Information
In a democratic society, the informed citizen must have an affirmative right to gain access to information concerning the operations of government.
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Courts generally recognize two independent rights of public access to judicial records, one stemming from the common law and one from the First Amendment. Both are predicated on furthering government accountability.
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In two cases decided on the same day in 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court said that state and federal prison regulations barring journalists from interviewing individual inmates did not violate the First Amendment.
Read the full storyAccommodation of Religion
The free exercise clause of the First Amendment is often interpreted as requiring the government to accommodate religion by refraining from applying to religious practitioners general laws that interfere with the edicts of particular religious faiths.
Read the full storyAccomplice Confessions
A defendant in a multidefendant criminal trial who confesses to illegal conduct is making a direct admission regarding his acts.
Read the full storyActual Malice Standard
In the landmark case of The New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 25 (1964), the Supreme Court developed the actual malice concept.
Read the full storyAdministrative Searches and Seizures
The Fourth Amendment requires all searches and seizures to be reasonable.
Read the full storyAffirmative Action
Affirmative action has emerged as a controversial issue in American political and constitutional discourse.
Read the full storyAirport Searches
Airplane piracy increased in occurrence and success in the 1960s, leading to the creation of a 1968 task force that developed a hijacker detection and deterrence system.
Read the full storyAmerican Revolution
The words ‘‘liberty’’ and ‘‘rights’’ had far different connotations for people in the American colonies, depending on their status as slaves, free blacks, Native Americans on their homeland, women, indentured servants, loyalists, conscripted soldiers, religious dissidents, radical patriots, or propertied white males.
Read the full storyAnne Hutchinson Trial
The Puritans of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony formed a tightly knit community with a common belief system enforced by civil and ecclesiastical law.
Read the full storyAnonymity and Free Speech
Anonymity has long been an important issue in American politics and jurisprudence. The key tension in American anonymity law is between the potentially chilling effects on speech stemming from compelled disclosure of identity and the desire to hold individuals accountable for harmful speech.
Read the full storyAnonymity in On‐line Communication
The current Internet architecture allows most on-line communications to be traced back to the author’s computer. That tracing process depends on the cooperation of Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Read the full storyAnti-Abolitionist Gag Rules
The First Amendment to the Constitution provides for the right of the people ‘‘to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’’
Read the full storyAnti-Abortion Protest and Freedom of Speech
The concept of a ‘‘buffer zone’’ was first raised in the 1990s. It was based on two things: increasingly violent and intrusive protests by anti-abortion forces and clinic actions to try to keep protesters a certain distance away from the clinics.
Read the full storyAntidiscrimination Laws
Discrimination occurs when the civil rights of an individual are denied or interfered with because of the individual’s membership in a particular group or class.
Read the full storyApplication of First Amendment to States
Those responsible for adding the Bill of Rights to the new federal constitution intended those amendments to act as limits on the national government only, a point illustrated as succinctly as possible by the opening words of the First Amendment: ‘‘Congress [emphasis added] shall make no law . . . .’’
Read the full storyAppropriation of Name or Likeness
Appropriation of name or likeness, the oldest and most widely recognized branch of the invasion of privacy tort, imposes liability for unauthorized use of another’s name, likeness, or other identifying characteristics.
Read the full storyArraignment and Probable Cause Hearing
Depending on whether the crime charged is brought federally or within a state jurisdiction, an individual accused of a crime could be faced with a few different pretrial proceedings.
Read the full storyArrest Warrants
Law enforcement officials in America and in England in the period preceding the American Revolution did not have broad inherent authority to search and seize; such actions required authorization, and the warrant system was the primary means to confer that authority.
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An arrest constitutes a seizure and must therefore satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that all searches and seizures be reasonable.
Read the full storyAssisted Suicide
It was not until the last decade of the twentieth century that the U.S. Supreme Court decided three cases in which the Court began what remains a tentative exploration of whether (if at all) the U.S. Constitution guarantees a choice concerning the time and manner of one’s death.
Read the full storyAsylum, Refugees and the Convention against Torture
The United States provides several forms of relief to refugees, or individuals fleeing persecution in their home country. The legal framework governing refugees derives principally from international law and has been implemented in statutes and regulations.
Read the full storyAutomobile Searches
The Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment regulates government actors and provides, in part, the ‘‘right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.’’
Read the full storyAutopsies and Free Exercise Beliefs
As government has grown in the United States, conflicts between religious observers and the law have increased proportionately. Modern dilemmas are easy to find. Members of the Native American church seek to use peyote despite laws prohibiting its possession.
Read the full storyBad Tendency Test
Emerging by the early nineteenth century, the bad tendency test remained the predominant judicial approach to determining the scope of free expression for over a century.
Read the full storyBalancing Approach to Free Speech
‘‘Balancing’’ refers to a method of adjudication used by judges to reach decisions through weighing the parties’ competing interests or rights.
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In constitutional adjudication, the balancing test is the predominant mode of case resolution, although major differences exist on ‘‘how to strike the balance.’’ The balance that must be struck is between individual freedoms and societal needs such as the need to preserve order.
Read the full storyBaldus Study (Capital Punishment)
The Baldus Study, conducted by Professors David Baldus, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski, was a sophisticated empirical analysis of 2,484 Georgia homicide cases that were charged and sentenced in the 1970s.
Read the full storyBallot Initiatives
Method by which the people of various states exercise their retained right to initiate and adopt legislation directly.
Read the full storyBaptists in Early America
From the time in the early 1600s that some of the early Puritans came to believe that infant baptism could not be justified on biblical grounds, to the final abolition of the last remaining compulsory religious taxation system in Massachusetts in 1833, the Baptists bore the brunt of the religious persecution and discrimination meted out in early American communities.
Read the full storyBible in American Law
To speak with precision of the Bible’s influence on American civil liberties is impossible because of its pervasive general presence in American culture during important formative periods of its history and jurisprudence.
Read the full storyBill of Attainder
A bill of attainder imposes punishment on specific individuals or members of a group through an act taken by the legislature rather than a judicial trial.
Read the full storyBirth Control
Birth control is the generic term to describe methods used to limit the number of children. These methods fall into two main categories: those that try to prevent conception, and those that terminate an embryo or fetus.
Read the full storyBlacklisting
Blacklisting is similar to blackballing. As the latter is associated with the placement of a black marble among the white ones in a bag, signifying that the applicant to a club has been denied membership by a single member, a blacklist is a powerful tool wielded by employers that denies the possibility of work to anyone whose name has been placed on a specific list.
Read the full storyThe Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, Discussed in a Conference between Truth and Peace
Roger Williams began his religious career as a Puritan minister, and when he arrived in Massachusetts in 1630 he was initially well received.
Read the full storyBlue Wall of Silence
The blue wall of silence is an unwritten code that prohibits police officers from providing adverse information against fellow officers. In essence, the code states that ‘‘cops don’t tell on cops.’’
Read the full storyBoston Massacre Trial (1770)
Troops had been stationed in Boston and other cities in the colonies as a result of growing resistance by the colonists against imperial laws, especially the hated Townshend Acts.
Read the full storyBrandenburg Incitement Test
Even though the U.S. Constitution provides strong protections for speech, in a number of early decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court gave government broad authority to prosecute those who engage in speech advocating violence or illegal activity.
Read the full storyBurden of Proof: Overview
If the notion of civil rights or civil liberties entails some fundamental freedoms from governmental overreaching, one of the most telling but perhaps subtle expressions of a commitment to the preservation of civil liberties is found in the legal concept of burden of proof.
Read the full storyCameras in the Courtroom
The phrase ‘‘cameras in the courtroom’’ refers to the presence of news media cameras, both still and television cameras, inside courtrooms recording trial proceedings for the public.
Read the full storyCampus Hate Speech Codes
During the 1980s and early 1990s, many colleges and universities responded to incidents of racial and sexual harassment by adopting campus hate speech codes.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and Race Discrimination
Race detrimentally affects the administration of capital punishment in the United States.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and Resentencing
Sometimes a defendant facing the death penalty once will have to undergo another trial for the same capital offense and face the death penalty again.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and Sentencing
Currently, forty jurisdictions (thirty-eight states, the federal government, and the military) authorize capital punishment.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and the Equal Protection Clause Cases
Although the legal institution of slavery was dismantled by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, discrimination on the basis of race and racially motivated violence continued unabated.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment and the Right of Appeal
Appellate review should ensure that no death sentence is handed down in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment for Felony Murder
Felony murder must not be confused with murder during the course of a felony. Murder during the course of a felony is an ordinary, intentional murder.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment Held Not Cruel and Unusual Punishment under Certain Guidelines
After its finding the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), in 1976, the Supreme Court confronted newly enacted death penalty statutes from five states.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment Reversed
In the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalties of three men.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
When Congress in the mid-1990s began considering reforms of federal post-conviction review, lawmakers faced an ongoing dilemma about the scope of habeas corpus law.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Due Process Limits
The Due Process Clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution have played an important role in efforts to promote fairness in the use of capital punishment.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Eighth Amendment Limits
The U. S. Supreme Court has interpreted the prohibition on ‘‘cruel and unusual punishments’’ in the Eighth Amendment to regulate but not forbid the use of capital punishment.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Execution of Innocents
Until recent years, the execution of innocents was mostly an abstract debate.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Lynching
Lynching has a long history in the United States, beginning at least around the time of the Revolutionary War.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Methods of Execution
Jurisdictions with capital punishment use one or more of the following methods to implement the sentence: hanging, firing squad, electrocution, lethal gas, and lethal injection.
Read the full storyCapital Punishment: Proportionality
Proportionality in principle justifies, limits, or condemns capital punishment. That deeply held common value—that punishment must not be grossly disproportionate to the crime—dominates U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Read the full storyCaptive Audiences and Free Speech
The idea that speech may be curbed to protect the sensibilities of an audience held captive by the speaker is rooted in the notion that governmental power. . .
Read the full storyCategorical Approach to Free Speech
The ‘‘categorical approach’’ is a method of judging where decisions are reached through use of a preestablished system of classifications or categories.
Read the full storyCeremonial Deism
One of the difficult church–state issues is determining when the use of religious language by the government violates the Establishment Clause.
Read the full storyChain Gangs
In the late 1860s, state legislatures authorized judges to sentence offenders to work on chain gangs.
Read the full storyChaplains: Legislative
The practice of using a chaplain to offer a prayer at the beginning of each legislative session dates back to the first session of the first congress.
Read the full storyChaplains: Military
Military chaplains originated in biblical times and have long been recognized as an important component of many armed forces. They have served in Western armies since at least the fourth century.
Read the full storyCharitable Choice
Charitable Choice is a set of statutory parameters attached to a social service program with the purpose of making the government more welcoming to all faith-based social service providers.
Read the full storyCheckpoints (Roadblocks)
If police set up a checkpoint (also known as a roadblock) on the highway, requiring all drivers to stop and answer some questions, is that constitutional? The answer is yes if certain conditions are met.
Read the full storyChicago Seven Trial
The 1968 Democratic convention was held in one of the most tumultuous times in recent history. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, racial tensions exploded into riots in cities across the country, and student protests paralyzed college campuses.
Read the full storyChild Custody and Adoption
In the area of adoption, the interest that takes center stage is that of the biological parents.
Read the full storyChild Custody and Foster Care
In America, the family serves as both the primary vehicle for the care and rearing of children and as a private realm of intimate association and moral autonomy.
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Sunday Mail (1810–1830)