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Define Bail
An amount of money determined by a judge that the accused must pay to a court as security against a defendant's freedom before trial.
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Define Bill of attainder
An act of a legislature declaring a person (or group) guilty of some crime, and then punishing them without a trial. The Constitution denies government the ability to issue a bill of attainder.
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Define Bill of Rights
The first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which provide a list of individual rights, including free expression protections, religious freedoms, the right to bear arms, the rights of the accused and the rights of the convicted.
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Define Civil liberties
Those specific individual rights that cannot be denied to citizens by government that are guaranteed by the Constitution. Most of these rights are in the first eight amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.
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Define Double jeopardy
The Constitutional protection that those accused of a crime cannot be tried twice for the same crime.
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Define Establishment clause
The clause in the First Amendment which prohibits government from enacting any law respecting an establishment of religion. Separationist interpretations of this clause affirm that government should not support any religious activity. Accomodationists say that support for a religion is legal provided that all religions are equally supported.
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Define Ex post facto laws
A law that punishes someone for doing something in the past, at a time when the act was not illegal.. The Constitution denies government the ability to write laws ex post facto.
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Define Exclusionary rule
The legal rule requiring that all evidence illegally obtained by police in violation of the Bill of Rights must be excluded from admission in a court of law, where it might have assisted in convicting those who have committed crimes.
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Define Free exercise clause
The religious freedom clause in the First Amendment that denies government the ability to prohibit the free exercise of religion. Debate over the clause has largely focused on whether government laws can force adherents of a certain religion to engage in activities that are prohibited by their religious beliefs or prevent them from performing acts that are compelled by their religious beliefs.
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Define Good faith exception
An exception to the exclusionary rule that states if a search warrant is invalid through no fault of the police, evidence obtained under that warrant may still be admitted into court.
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Define Grand jury
A jury that meets to decide whether evidence is sufficient to justify a prosecutor's request that a case should go to trial. Grand juries do not decide on a defendant's guilt or innocence.
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Define Incorporation
The process by which the U.S. Supreme Court used the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to make applicable to the states most of the individual rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Incorporation provided that state and local governments, as well as the federal government, could not deny these rights to citizens.
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Define Katz test
The legal standard that requires the government to attain a warrant demonstrating probable cause for any search that violates a person''s actual and reasonable expectation of privacy.
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Define Lemon test
The legal test that determines if a government statute aiding public or private schools is an unconstitutional violation of the establishment clause. The statute is unconstitutional if: the statute has no secular purpose; second, its principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion; or the statute must foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.''
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Define Libel
Printing or disseminating false statements that harm someone.
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Define Miranda warning
The U.S. Supreme court's requirement that when an individual is arrested one must be read a statement that indicates that one has the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.
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Define Prior restraint
The government's requirement that a story be approved by government before it can be published.
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Define Sedition
The crime of advocating the overthrow of the existing system of government.
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Define SLAPS test
A standard that courts established to determine if material is obscene based in part on whether the material has serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. If it does, then the material is not obscene.
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Define Symbolic speech
Non-spoken forms of speech that might be protected by the First Amendment, such as flag-burning, wearing armbands at school to protest a war, or camping out in public parks to protest the plight of the homeless.
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Define Warrant
A document issued by a judge or magistrate to that allows law enforcement to search or seize items at a home, business or anywhere else that might be specified.
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