Category Archives: Criminal Justice Rights

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8th Amendment Excessive Fines Clause Incorporated

We need to update our lecture notes, lesson plans, textbooks, etc. The Supreme Court has incorporated another right: the prohibition on “excessive fines” from the Eighth Amendment. 

As Ruthann Robson write:

Now the only rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights that are not incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment to the states are the Third Amendment prohibiting quartering of soldiers, Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury indictment in a criminal case, and the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in civil cases.”

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A useful case study for discussing civil liberties: Nurse refuses blood test on unconscious patient; gets cuffed


This incident can be used to illustrate a lot of core concepts, including government use of force; rule of law / limited government / constitutional government / securing rights; separation of powers; and the Fourth Amendment.

Link to article

Link to US Civitas Facebook Discussion Thread

 

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Teaching the Principles of American Government with China’s “Charter 08”

News of the tragic death of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo–who was serving an 11-year prison sentence for his role in the writing of the democratic reform document called “Charter 08“–led me to read an English translation of that remarkable expression of yearning and advocacy for liberal democracy. Charter 08–publicly released in China on the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (on December 10, 2008)–begins by identifying “democracy and constitutional government” as “the fundamental framework for protecting” the “universal values” of “freedom, equality, and human rights.” It then goes on to advocate for the establishment in China of laws, practices, and institutions that have long been hallmarks of the American system of government and politics. Among other things, it advocates for rule of law and constitutionalism; the separation of powers (especially an independent judiciary); free and open elections; protections for the freedom of speech, Continue reading →

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Useful Blog Post for Provoking Critical Thinking about Civil Liberties

I find Radley Balko’s blog, The Watch, to be a generally useful source of materials for discussing current events pertaining to civil liberties. The fact that his blog is highly opinionated is, in my view, an asset insofar as discussion questions encourage students to critically evaluate his perspective. But at the end of 2014, Balko offered an especially useful post entitled “Horrifying Civil Liberties Predictions for 2015.” The entire post reads, as the title would suggest, as a set of predictions for 2015, but it is actually a roundup of the stories and developments chronicled on The Watch in 2014. I would think this is a wonderful way to get students thinking about civil liberties.

 

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Your Bill of Rights

It is a few years old now, but I just now found out about this excellent series of short videos on the Bill of Rights produced by Time. As they describe it,

In this series of ten short videos, TIME brings to life the words of the Founding Fathers and explores how these deeply felt ideas about liberty and property have evolved into the amendments as we interpret them today.