Law, Justice and Society: Chapter Three

When starting this chapter I remember Jeremy asking us to see how well we all knew the first nine amendments. Sadly, I was actually only able to get about three or four of them correct. When going over all nine as a class, I began remembering more and more of them and their definitions. Before beginning this chapter I did know that First Amendment was defined as the freedom on (political) expression which included: speech, press, religion, and assembly. Also, the Second Amendment was right to bear arms and the Third Amendment is the right against quartering soldiers and right to privacy. It is when we got to the Fourth Amendment that I was enlightened by new information.
The Fourth Amendment is the right against unreasonable search and seizure; however, there are two clauses to this. They consist of the warrant clause and the reasonableness clause. It is a very good thing the government decided to make these changes to this amendment because the warrant clause protects individuals from being inspected without a warrant by law enforcement officers. If this change was not made to the amendment then it would be okay for any person of the law to enter your home or property just because they believed they should. I do know there are special instances where officers can enter a home without a warrant, but for the most part a warrant is required to search and seize anything. For example, if there happens to be a case about a drug dealer and an officer would like to enter the defendants’ home, they need to have a warrant to do so because if they do not, anything they find which can be used in court will no longer be allowed since it was unlawfully taken. The next clause made to the Fourth Amendment is the reasonableness clause. This means that any search which you may want to have done must be a reasonable one. An officer can not decide to search someone’s house just because he does not like the owners or he wants to pick on the people who reside in the pink house. There has to be a legitimate reason of why the individuals are breaking the law in any way and then you can search.
The Fifth Amendment is about due process. As defined by Jeremy, this is the process due to you. I love that this applies to EVERYONE! Right to self-incrimination, double jeopardy and lastly, right to grand jury are also all included under this amendment. For the Sixth Amendment you have the right to a speedy trail, attorney, counsel, trial by “impartial” jury, and public jury. This specific amendment has to do with the trial process. The Seventh Amendment is the right to a trial by jury for federal civil cases. The right to excessive bail and right against cruel and unusual punishment is the Eighth Amendment. I was really interested in this amendment because I was fascinated by how many ways there are to get a bail. There are five different types of pre-trail release. They consist of ROR, cash bond, property bond, bail bonds person, and signature bond. Lastly there is the Ninth Amendment. This amendment states that the Bill of Rights are not the only rights that citizens have. If you would like more detailed descriptions of the Constitutional Bill of Rights you can visit http://www.constitution.org/billofr_.htm.