gov test ch.4
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Created by:
virginiagn_chs on December 14, 2008
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47 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 civil liberties | legal constitutional protections against government |
| Bill of Rights | first ten amendments to constitution, define basic liberties like freedom of religion, speech, press, and guarantee defendants' rights |
| First Amendment | establishes freedom of the press, speech, religion, and assembly |
| Barron v. Baltimore | held that the Bill of Rights restrained only the national government |
| Gitlow v. New york | held that the freedoms of press and speech are protected by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment and the states have to uphold them |
| Fourteenth Amendment | adopted after the civil war and says that no state shall make or enforce laws which contradict the Bill of Rights, contains due process clause |
| due process clause | part of the fourteenth amendment that guarantees that persons cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property by the U.S. or state governments without due process of law |
| incorporation doctrine | legal concept under which the Supreme Court has nationalized the Bill of Rights by making most of its provisions apply to the states throught the fourteenth amendment |
| establishment clause | part of the first amendment stating that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion |
| free exercise clause | provision of the first amendment that prohibits government from interfering with the practice of religion |
| Lemon v. Kurtzman | held that aid to church related schools must 1) have a secular legislative purpose 2) have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion and 3) not foster excessive government entanglement with religion |
| Zelman v. Simmons-Harris | held that a state could provide vouchers for tuition at religious schools |
| Engel v. Vitale | held that state officials violated the first amendment when they wrote a prayer to be recited by New York's schoolchildren |
| School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp | held that Bible reading in schools violated the establishment clause of the first amendment |
| prior restraint | a government preventing material from being published; unconstitutional in the U.S. according the the first amendment and confirmed in Near v. Minnesota |
| Near v. Minnesota | held that first amendment protects newspapers from prior restraint |
| Schenck v. United States | upheld the conviction of a socialist who urged men to resist the draft during World War I, said that government can limit speech if the speech provokes danger |
| Zurcher v. Stanford Daily | held that a proper search warrant can be applied to a newspaper as well as to anyone else without necessarily violating the first amendment rights to freedom of the press |
| Roth v. United States | held that obscenity is not protected by freedom of speech and press |
| Miller v. California | decision that tavoided defining obscenity by holding that tocmmunity standards be used to determine wheter material is obscene |
| libel | publication of false or malicious statements that damage someone's reputation |
| slander | spoken defamation, vs. libel which is written |
| New York Times v. Sullivan | established the guidelines for determining wheter public officalos and public figures could win damage suits for libel, they must prove that the defamatory statements were made with malice and reckless disregard for the truth |
| Texas v. Johnson | held that burning an American flag is symbolic speech protected by the first amendment |
| symbolic speech | nonverbal communication such as burning a flag or wearing an armband |
| commercial speech | communication in the form of advertising |
| Miami Herald Publishing Company v. Tornillo | held that a state could not force a newspaper to print replies from candidates it had criticized, illustrating limited power of government to restrict the print media |
| Red Lion Broadcasting Company v. Federal Communications Commission | upheld restrictions on radio and television broadcasting, much tighter that those on print media |
| NAACP v. Alabama | protected the right to assemble peaceably when it said NAACP did not have to reveal its membership list |
| probable cause | situation occurring when the police have reason to believe that a person should be arrested, police are then allowed legally to search for and seize incriminating evidence |
| unreasonable searches and seizures | obtaining evidence in a haphazard or random manner, prohibited by fourth amendment, probable cause and a search warrant are required for a legal and proper search |
| search warrant | written authorization from a court specifying the area to be searched and what the police are searching for |
| exclusionary rule | rule that evidence cannot be introduced into a trial if it was not constitutionally obtained |
| Mapp v. Ohio | held that the fourth amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures must be extended to the states as well as to the federal government |
| Fifth Amendment | protects the rights of persons accused of crimes, including protection against double jeopardy self incrimination, and punishment without due process of law |
| self-incrimination | when an individual accused of a crime is compelled to be a witness against himself or herself in court, forbidden by the fifth amendment |
| Miranda v. Arizona | set guidelines for police questioning of accused persons to protect them against self-incrimination and to protect their right to cousel |
| Sixth Amendment | right to cousel, right to confront witnesses, and the right to a speedy and public trial |
| Gideon v. Wainwright | held that anyone accused of a felony where imprisonment may be imposed has the right to a lawyer |
| plea bargaining | the defendant will plead guilty to a lesser crime in exchange for the state's promise not to prosecute the defendant for a more serious crime |
| Eighth Amendment | forbids cruel and unusual punishment |
| cruel and unusual punishment | court sentences prohibited by the eighth amendment |
| Gregg v. Georgia | upheld the contitutionality of the death penalty, court did not believe the death sentence constitutes cruel and unsual punishment |
| McCleskey v. Kemp | uphled the contitutionality of the death penalty against charges that it violated the fourteenth amendment because minority defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty than were White defendants |
| right to privacy | right to a private personal life free from the intrusion of government |
| Roe v. Wade | held that a state ban on all abortions was unconstitutional, forbade state control over abortions during first trimester but said states could limit abortions to protect the mother's in second trimester and said states could protect the fetus during the third trimester |
| Planned Parenthood v. Casey | lossened the standard for evaluating restrictions on abortion from one of "strict scrutiny" of any restraints on a fundamental right to one of "undue burden" that permits considerably more regulation |
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