Constitutional Law Exam #2 STUDY GUIDE

Primary information Sources - present the raw data or the original information

Secondary information sources - present data or information based on the original information for legal research. (example: periodicals, Treatise/textbooks, encyclopedias, and dictionaries)

• Legal Periodicals
• 1)law school publications  
• 2)Bar Association publications 
• 3)Special subject and interest periodicals

Treatises/Texts - a comprehensive document on a legal subject

• Legal Encyclopedias - 3 types are  
• 1)General law 
• 2)local or state law 
• 3)Special SubjectLegal Dictionaries - define words in their legal sense.

law decided by precedent: law established on the basis of previous verdicts

Overturn the decision of a lower Court

return a case to the lower court for further action

concurring opinion: written by a justice who agrees with the holding, but who gives additional or different reasons for voting with the majority

Affirm: agree with a lower Court's decision

• brief:
• an outline of a legal case that contains the case name and citation, a
• summary of key facts, the legal issues involved, the court's decision,
• the reasons, for that decision and any separate opinions or dissents

• opinion:
• a written statement by the court explaining its decision in a given case.includes legal issues, points of law, a statement of facts, and any relevant precedent.

• An appellate court reviews whether the lower court applied the correct body of law to the facts that were adduced,
• and applied that law correctly.

• It does not re-hear the evidence. It
• receives from the trial court a transcript of the proceedings that took
• place at trial.

• The result of appellate review may be that the trial court's ruling(s) are affirmed, reversed, or that the matter is
• remanded (returned) to the trial court with instructions to reconsider
• the evidence pursuant to the law found by the appellate court to apply.

Ratified in 1865, it abolished slavery

1) Ratified in 1868, Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States

• 2) also forbids the states to deny their citizens due process of the law
• or equal protection of the law. -incorporated or made certain provisions
• of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.

1830 in the Senate

Robert Hayne of South Carolina - the union was merely a compact between sovereign states, and as such, may lawfully withdraw from the union

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts - asserted that the Constitution established an indivisible union with laws binding on the states, and states could not leave the union.

programs created spread equal opportunity throughout the diverse American population

• prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national
• origin in employment and education in public and private sectors at the
• federal, state and local levels

... later applied to woman's suffrage

(1856) ruled that a freed slave did not have the right to remain free in a territory where slavery as still legal.

(1896) showed the Court's desire to avoid civil rights issues, declaring discrimination to be outside the realm of the Courts.

the courts decided that "separate but equal" was illegal, and helped further the 1964 civil rights act.

gave the legal opinion:

During (inmates) term of service in the Penitentiary, he is in the state of penal servitude to the state. he has, as a consequence of his crime, not only forfeited his liberty, but all his personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords him. He is for the time being the slave of the State. he is Civiliter Mortuus; and his estate, if he has any, is administers like that of a dead man.

Supreme Court upheld the use of race as one of the factors in determining admissions.

is a behavior. (acting on a prejudice)

example of Discrimination: treating certain groups with preferentially... persons of equal stature may be treated unequally.

is an attitude or belief towards certain groups

harshly at some points and places in the Criminal justice system, but treated no differently at other points and places

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The Supreme Court struck Down part of the 1996 federal Communications Decency Act (CDA) as a Vague, overboard restriction on speech.

The Law Made a felony of displaying Obscene or "indecent" material on a telecommunications device, in this case the Internet, so that it might be available to minors.

in the process they addressed computers and technology, acknowledging that there are multifaceted means of disseminating information electronically, and much broader community norms had to be considered.

page 145, 152

the case involved Gilleo putting up an antiwar sign in the second-floor window of her home..

Ladue's city ordinance prohibits all signs, except for real estate signs, road and safety hazards, inspection signs, public transportation markers, and business signs in commercially zoned areas.

The Courts ruled in favor of Gilleo. cities may not prohibit residents from putting political or personal signs in their yards.

page 152

The Courts ruled that obscenity is not a constitutionally protected freedom of speech. 

pg 155 ... additional pg 146

Courts deleoped guidelines what legally constitues obscene material.

• to qualify as obscene, it must be shown that the work :
• 1)taken as a whole appeals to the prurient (lustful) interest in sex; 2) portrays sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; 3) taken as a whole, does not have a serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

to be applied from the perspective of the average person, using contemporary community standards. "the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest, that is, having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts"

pg 146, 155

The Supreme Court held that a law banning cross burning as a hate crime itself is unconstitutional because the law presumes hate is the purpose. without more evidence to prove a hate crime, cross burning is deemed a protected form of speech.

pg 151

addressed the idea that what the one thing means to one person, means something else to another

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