Automobile 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 storyBenjamin Franklin Bache
Born the grandson of Benjamin Franklin and educated in Geneva, Benjamin Franklin Bache epitomized early America’s ambivalent relationship with the press.
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.
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In 1791, the Eighth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights for the purpose of prohibiting, among other things, the requirement of ‘‘excessive bail.’’
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 storyRoger Baldwin (1884–1981)
Roger Baldwin was the founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and served as its director from 1920 to 1950. He was widely recognized as the foremost advocate of civil liberties in the United States during those years.
Read the full storyBallew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223 (1978)
The manager of an adult theater was charged in a state court with distributing obscene materials, a misdemeanor. Pursuant to state law, and over his claim that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial required a jury of at least six members, he was tried and convicted by a jury of five people.
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 storyBaltimore City Department of Social Services v. Bouknight, 493 U.S. 549 (1990)
MauriceM, after being hospitalized at age threemonths with fresh and partially healed bone fractures, was placed into shelter care by a court order but was later returned to his mother Jacqueline’s custody.
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 storyBarclay v. Florida, 463 U.S. 939 (1983)
Barclay was convicted of first-degree murder for his participation in the politically and racially motivated murder of a hitchhiker.
Read the full storyBarefoote v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880 (1983)
Many capital punishment statutes permit jurors to consider evidence of a convicted capital murderer’s ‘‘future dangerousness.’’
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