Judicial Branch Article 3 of the Constitution Judicial

Judicial Branch Article 3 of the Constitution

Judicial power • The Constitution states that Judicial power is the United States is held in the Supreme Court and lower courts established by congress.

Federal District Courts • Trial courts for the US government • These courts determine guilt or innocence.

Federal Courts of Appeal (Circuit Courts) • Hear appeals on rules of laws and Constitutional rights • Do not determine guilt or innocence

US Circuit Courts

United States Supreme Court

US Supreme Court

What does the Supreme Court do? • Protect the Constitution • Interpret the Constitution

How does the Supreme Court Protect the constitution?

Judicial Review • Power of the Supreme Court to declare a law or action unconstitutional and thus void.

Lets say that we have a school constitution that states… • The principal of the school has the power to permanently remove a student from class for rule violations. • Students have the right to speak appropriately in school

How does the Supreme Court interpret the Constitution?

“Students have the right to speak appropriately in school” • • • “I hate this class. ” “This class sucks. ” “The hell with this class” “Damn this class” “F this class”

Precedents • A court decision that sets a standard for future similar cases. • The basis of our court system

“Students may not eat in class”

Supreme Court Justices • 9 of them (since 1869) • Serve for life • Can be impeached for treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. • Appointed by the President and approved with a majority vote of the Senate

Supreme Court Justices

John Roberts Appointed 2005(Bush) Chief Justice (conservative)

Antonin Scalia 1982 (Reagan) very Conservative

Anthony Kennedy 1988 (Reagan) Centrist

Clarence Thomas 1991 (Bush Sr. ) very Conservative

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1993 (Clinton) liberal

Stephen Breyer 1994 (Clinton) leans liberal

Samuel Alito 2006 (Bush) conservative

Sonia Sotomayor 2009 (Obama)

Elena Kagen 2010 (Obama)

Conservative leaning judges

Likely Liberal leaning judges after 2010

Swing Judge (Kennedy)

Choosing a case • They get thousands of requests to hears cases each year. • They only hear 100 -150 each term • Rule of 4 (Writ of Certiorari) – 2 minute video

Hearing and deciding a case • Hear two cases a day (Monday –Wednesday) from October – June • Each case typically lasts 1 hour • Each side presents their case • Eventually the justices will get together and vote on the case. • Whatever decision has support from a majority of justices win. • Will announce their decision a few months after the case is hear.

• Oral Arguments US v Alvarez 2012 • Law was Stolen Valor Act – Made it illegal to claim a person had received a military medal. – While a 6 -3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed that the law was unconstitutional under the First Amendment's free speech protections,

• (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, a federal law that criminalized false statements about having a military medal. The law had been passed as an effort to stem instances where people falsely claimed to have won the medal in an attempt to protect the "valor" of those who really had. While a 6 -3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed that

Opinions • Majority • Dissenting • Concurring

• • Articles of Confederation (1781 -1787) The Constitution (1787 - Present) The Amendments 27 of them over the history of the United States • Bill of Rights • The first ten amendment passed in 1791 • They are designed to protect us from our government

• “Majority rule only works if you also have individual rights. You can’t have five wolves and a sheep voting on what is for supper. ” Larry Flynt

Amendment I (1791) • Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of Religion • What is freedom of Religion to you? • Does freedom of religion mean that everyone can worship freely? • Does it mean we are free to not believe and participate in religion? • Does it mean that all can worship however they want?

Religious liberty in early America • New England colonies made the Puritan church and Southern colonies the Anglican church their established churches. • Taxpayers money went to those churches • Colonists were forced to go to church on Sundays and could be whipped for failing to know religious doctrines

• In New England Quakers were executed for their faith. • Four colonies did not create established churches. (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island). • After the Revolutionary War American’s were calling for religious freedoms.

• “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg” - Thomas Jefferson • "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. " -H. L. Mencken

• “Government and Religion will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed” – James Madison

Establishment Clause Thomas Jefferson

Establishment Clause • Prevents the government from establishing an official religion (an official church) or giving preference to a religion. • This gives us our “separation of church and state”

• No one should have an advantage or a disadvantage because of their religion • Government is to remain neutral • The First Amendment give the people Religious CHOICE

Everson v. Board of Education (1947) • Establishment Clause Assignment

What about religion in school? • Can you pray in school? – Voluntary prayer? – School sponsored prayer? – Religious groups?

Free Exercise Clause

Free Exercise Clause • We have the “freedom to believe but not necessarily the freedom of action” • “We have the right to swing our arms up to the point of another man’s chin” • When can we be punished for our religion?

Freedom of Speech

Marketplace of ideas • We allow all speech, even offensive speech. • Fight speech with more speech rather than censorship.

• “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ” Voltaire • “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it” Aristotle • “If freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. ” George Washington

Marketplace of Ideas

Types of Speech • Pure Speech – The spoken word • Symbolic speech – Action that conveys a purposeful message or statement to those viewing it

Pure Speech

Symbolic Speech

Where do we have free speech? Public Forum • Any place that has been traditionally used for speech like a public park or street • The Government cannot deny the content of a speech in a public forum • Government can regulate time, place and manner of speech in a public forum

Public Forum

Peaceably Assemble • Your right to gather in groups in an orderly manner to protest, picket, support, etc a particular idea or cause.

Peaceably Assemble

Limitations on Free Speech

Obscenity 1. Anything that depicts sex or nudity in a way that violates societies standard of decency. 2. The average person would find that the work has an obsessive interest in sex. 3. The work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, a type of sexual conduct prohibited by law” (Child Pornography) 4. The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Obscenity

Defamation • Damaging someone’s reputation through false information • Slander is defamation through the spoken word

Defamation

Fighting Words • Threats • Abusive or insulting language known as fighting words. • The Supreme Court ruled that they have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence.

Fighting Words

Commercial Speech • Ads and commercials are not fully protected. The Government can regulate false ads or ads for illegal products or services.

Commercial Speech

Clear and Present Danger • You can be punished for your speech if it causes an immediate threat of criminal action. • Inciting a riot is also a crime. • Can’t be punished if say “Lets overthrow the Government” • Can be punished if say “Blow up the courthouse at 9 pm tonight”

Clear and Present Danger

Speech in Special Places

Speech in Special Places • Speech may be restricted in some places if it interferes with the purpose of the facility. (schools, prisons, court houses, military bases)

Tinker vs. Des Moines (1969)

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) • Students don’t give up their First Amendment rights when they are in school. • However, student speech can be limited if it “materially and substantially interferes with the operation of the school”

What about student speech outside of school? • Students can be punished for speech outside of school if that speech caused a disruption IN school.

Bethel School Dist. v. Fraser (1986) • School officials can punish students for lewd or indecent speech at school events even if that same speech would be protected outside of school.

A couple more student speech cases

Morse v. Frederick (2007)

Guiles v. Marineau (2007) (2 nd circuit court) • a straw and an alcoholic beverage. • At the bottom of and on the back of the Tshirt were accusations of him of being addicted to cocaine. • Depictions of Bush, cocaine and alcohol were also present on the sleeves

Morse v. Frederick (2007) • Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment does not prevent educators from suppressing student speech, at school supervised events, that is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use

Guiles v. Marineau (2007) • Student had the right to wear the shirt because it was political speech and because he had worn the shirt several times prior to getting in trouble.

More Cases • • Disruptive Student anti-gay remark Student anti teacher website Mom arrested in grocery store

Freedom of the Press

• What is the difference between an opinion and an INFORMED opinion?

• “When the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. ” Thomas Jefferson • “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. ” Justice Hugo Black • “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. ” Edward Everett

Limitations on Free Press • There are very few limitations. Why is that?

Libel

Prior Restraint • Government preventing something from being published because they feel it will cause harm. • Almost never allowed

petition the government • A right left over from England. In England the parliament wouldn’t give money for the king unless he answered complaint of the people. One of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence was that the king failed to hear petitions from the colonies.

2 nd Amendment • A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

District of Columbia v Heller • Argued March 18, 2008—Decided June 26, 2008 • In a 5 -4 decision, the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home

Mc. Donald v. City of Chicago (2010) • The Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to the states.