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“The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources–because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson

The United States of America is a nation of immigrants. From its colonial origins to the present day there has been a steady stream of would-be Americans; however, the laws pertaining to immigrants have changed and evolved over time.

Learn more here!

Happy Tax Day! The celebratory tone might be a bit out of place, but from a constitutional perspective tax day, and the 16th Amendment which created it, are fascinating examples of politics in action.

The 16th Amendment, which authorized the Federal Government to levy an income tax, was passed on February 3rd, 1913. Prior to the 16th Amendment, the Federal Government was funded almost exclusively through tariff and excise taxes. Direct taxes, stipulated by Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, had to be apportioned among the states by population, which prevented a singular federal income tax.

In the Supreme Court case, Pollock v. Farmers’ Land & Trust Co. (1894), the Supreme Court held that certain taxes on property passed at the end of the Civil War were indeed unconstitutional. This helped fuel the drive for an official constitutional amendement to permit the federal government to establish an income tax. Different groups were interested in an income tax for different reasons. Some feared that the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals was dangerous to a democracy, while Republicans were eyeing the growing navies of other powers like Britain and Japan and calling for a stronger response. That call was answered when President Taft proposed the 16th Amendment, which upon ratification nullified the Pollock ruling.

It originally called for March 15th to be tax day, but in 1955 the date was moved forward a month to April 15th, to give the IRS more time to process the income tax returns, and, at the time, to let the federal government hold on to your money a little bit longer!

More Resources:

Infographic on the History of Tax Day

Additional Amendments to the Constitution

Pollock v. Farmer’s Land & Trust Co. (1894) – Oyez Project

Love the Bill of Rights Institutes’ resources and workshops? Want to help other teachers expand their knowledge of the Constitution and Founding documents? Join the Institute team today! We are looking for an entrepreneurial, creative, and driven educator who can help us plan and implement new teacher-related programs. Interested? Find out more and apply today!

If there’s one gadget nearly impossible to live without in the 21st century, it’s the cellphone. Most of us keep one on us at all times, and a recent survey showed that, for a majority of 18-34 year olds, the hardest possession to live without would be the smartphone. But is it really YOUR smartphone?

A recent decision by the Librarian of Congress, under authority granted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), made it illegal to unlock your smartphone, aka use the hardware and software in ways not approved by cellphone carriers. Critics contend  this undermines traditional notions of property rights, namely the right to use your property as you see fit, and over 100,000 people have signed a petition on the White House website advocating overturning this policy. Meanwhile, supporters maintain that the restriction is necessary to combat digital piracy, and many major industry groups argue that it is an appropriate legal guarantee of their own property rights.

Property rights have always been a tricky subject, but as property increasingly becomes virtual it is getting even harder to define “what’s mine and what’s yours.”  In this week’s eLesson we’ll explore property rights in the context of smartphones, and evaluate where we should be setting the line.

Learn more here.

In the wake of recent tragic shootings, there has been a significant revival of the debate over the Second Amendment and gun control. The debate, in broad generalities, is split between two sides. On one side are gun control advocates who believe that stricter regulation of guns would reduce violence. On the other side are gun rights advocates, who believe that the right to own a gun is fundamental and that more restrictions on gun ownership do not decrease violence. This divide is animated by different interpretations of the Constitution: specifically the Second Amendment, its meaning, and it’s applicability in 21st century America. In this eLesson your students will explore some of the constitutional issues and policy proposals that make up the gun control/gun rights debate.

Student Handout (PDF)

Articles 

Obama takes gun control push to law enforcement, American people
Date: 2/04/13
Source: Washington Post

From State to State, Varied Responses to the Issue of Gun Violence
Date: 2/03/13
Source: NY Times

Gun Control Divides County Sheriffs
Date: 2/04/13
Source: NPR

Debate Over Gun Control Is One-Sided in Idaho
Date: 2/04/13
Source: NY Times

Questions

1. What right does the Second Amendment protect?
2. Some commentators have suggested heavily taxing / regulating bullets to limit gun violence – do you think that would be constitutional?
3. Limiting the availability of high-capacity magazines and restricting semi-automatic weapons has been forwarded as a means to prevent mass shootings. From a constitutional standpoint, is there a line that separates the type of weaponry that may be owned by government officials and law enforcement but not by the public?
4. Some regulations have been criticized as criminalizing the behavior of millions of law-abiding Americans because of the criminal acts of others. Should laws be based on harm/intended harm, or does the potential to do harm come into play?
5. Different states have very different conceptions of the scope and limitations of the second amendment; how much authority should local and state governments have to regulate firearms? How, if at all, does this relate to the Constitutional principle of Federalism?
6. Some studies have shown a correlation between handgun bans and a decrease in the suicide rate – is it appropriate to base limitations of the Second Amendment on the prevention of self-inflicted harm?
7. Almost all individual rights are subject to “reasonable” restrictions. For example, there is no individual right to shout “fire!” in a crowded theater if there is no fire. Your right to speak does not include the right to force others to listen. What are reasonable restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms?

The official start of President Obama’s second term is fast approaching. Learn more about the history and meaning of Inauguration Day with this lesson packed with engaging and informative resources! Test your knowledge of the countdown to Inauguration Day, analyze the Oath of Office, identify inaugural speeches from American history, and think critically about constitutional processes.

Student Handout (PDF)

The 2012 – 2013 Supreme Court term is in full swing, and there are are many cases that deal with important questions of constitutional law on the docket. Use the following resources and discussion questions to analyze and discuss the issues with your students.

Explore these and other current issues in this week’s eLesson, and learn more about constitutional safeguards at the Due Process Central section of our website.

Do you think that the Supreme Court is taking politically relevant cases? Are there any issues you wish the Supreme Court would focus on?

The steady march of science and technology has a way of bringing settled law into new areas, challenging what was once convention. An upcoming court case involves just such a predicament – whether or not the government can search your laptop or cell phone without a warrant at border crossings. While it’s long been accepted that the government can search people entering the country, does that also imply to email or text messages? Another case is the use of ‘full body scanners’ by the TSA, which use a type of sensor to create an image of a person, arguably searching them.

Explore these and other current issues related to the Fourth Amendment in this week’s eLesson, and learn more about constitutional safeguards at the Due Process Central section of our website.

Do you think that changing technology requires new laws? Or does it simply require the application of existing ones?

In discussions of the First Amendment and the limits of free speech, it is common to hear references to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous quote from Schenck v. U.S. 1919 – “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.” It is a well-crafted line that certainly has a measure of truth to it, as for practical purposes even our most treasured freedoms can have justifiable constraints placed upon them. However the Schenck case is far from a model of First Amendment jurisprudence; in later decades it would be criticized as a decision that undermined individual liberty. So to understand the phrase and its meaning we’d do well to understand Schenck v. U.S.

During World War I there were widespread fears that German and Communist sympathizers would undermine the war effort, threatening U.S. interests and security. This fear frequently led to the persecution of minorities and non-mainstream political groups. In 1917, shortly after the entry of the U.S. into WWI, Congress passed the Espionage Act, which prohibited attempts to interfere with or undermine U.S. military operations or recruitment. Socialists, who frequently expressed their opposition to the draft, were identified as potential subversive elements.

Charles Schenck served as Secretary for the Socialist Party of America. In that role he was responsible for mailings to prospective draftees that advocated dissent and political opposition to the draft. (See one of his leaflets in our document-based lesson on the case).  He was arrested and prosecuted under the Espionage Act, a conviction he challenged on free speech grounds. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, where a unanimous verdict upheld his conviction. In the decision Holmes put forward the “clear and present danger” test, saying that Schenck’s critique of the military’s draft constituted a clear danger to U.S. military recruitment efforts. It is here where Holmes added his rhetorical flourish , suggesting Schenck’s actions were as indefensible as falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater

Schenck was imprisoned for ten years as a result of his activism. At the conclusion of the war President Woodrow Wilson pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 200 people imprisoned on Espionage Act charges. In future cases, the Supreme Court, Holmes, led by Justice Louis Brandeis, overturned some of the precedent set in Schenck. It wasn’t until Bradenburg v. Ohio 1969 that the modern conception of limits on the First Amendment, namely the ‘imminent danger’ test, was articulated. The clear difference between these two tests is the bright line principle; speech must be directly responsible for inciting immediate violence for it to be criminalized.

Do you think that under an imminent danger test Schenck would have been convicted?

What could be more frightening than violations of our constitutional rights? But is everything that appears to be a violation actually one? Join us as we explore some current constitutional issues. We hope you enjoy our Bill of Frights!

When accused of a crime, every citizen possesses the right to a fair trial–some details of what a fair trial encompasses are laid out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But some worry that mandatory minimum-sentencing guidelines are shifting the scales of justice and placing too much power in the hands of prosecutors, thus making it challenging for citizens to receive a fair trial.

The past few decades have seen a steady decrease in the number of felony cases brought to trial. In the 1970s, the ratio of felony cases that made it to trial was about one in 12. Today, some estimates put the number at fewer than one in 40. Observers of the criminal justice system partly attribute this shift to sentencing laws prosecutors leverage when negotiating with individuals accused of a crime.

There are practical reasons that explain the criminal justice systems increase use of plea bargains including a near three-fold increase in felony case loads. With courts around the country clogged up with cases, is it reasonable to expect every single case will find its way to trial?  In addition, the idea that a plea bargain–a voluntary agreement (or rather contract) between the accused and a prosecutor–could be construed as potentially subverting or undermining the right to a fair trial is itself problematic. If the accused desires to have a trail, then a trial of some form will commence.

Still, some contend that the “choice” aspect of plea bargains is not as robust as it may appear. In an interview with PBS’s Frontline, Yale law professor John Langbein said, “the problem with choice arguments is that they neglect the main dynamic of plea bargaining which is the pressure that the prosecutor puts on you to do it his way. Plea bargain works by threat. What the prosecutor says to a criminal defendant in plea bargaining is, ‘Surrender your right to jury trial, or if you go to trial and are convicted of an offense, we will see to it that you are punished twice. Once for the offense, and once for having had the temerity to exercise your right to jury trial.’ That is a coercive system.”

In 2004, Judge William Young, a federal magistrate in Boston, lambasted the criminal justice system in a 177-page decision in which he said, “the focus of our entire criminal justice system has shifted away from trials and juries and adjudication to a massive system of sentence bargaining that is heavily rigged against the accused.”

Despite these complaints, some experts point to the notion that the problems surrounding plea bargains are procedural in nature. In a 2003 article for Regulation Magazine, Timothy Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation wrote, “But there are sufficient justifications for plea bargaining. Its flaws are procedural, not constitutional, and it needs reform, not abolition.” And even though the Framers did not include plea bargains in the Constitution (only jury trials are mentioned), that, in of itself, does not prove the mechanism unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of plea bargains on several occasions. In Santobello v. New York (1971), the Court found that plea bargains are not only constitutional, but “an essential component of the administration of justice” and that “[so long as it is] properly administered, [plea bargaining] is to be encouraged.”

The most famous Supreme Court case on plea bargains is North Carolina v. Alford (1970). In that case, the Court found plea bargains to be constitutional regardless of whether the accused only plead guilty to avoid the possibility of a harsher sentence at trial. (In Alford, a defendant who claimed innocence pleaded to a sentence of life in order to avoid a mandatory death penalty sentence that would have resulted had he lost the trial.)

But critics of the plea bargaining method still see a problem with a system that makes going to trial seem so unreasonable the innocent people will plead out to crimes they didn’t commit.

What do you think? Does the combination of harsh sentencing laws and plea bargains undermine the accused right to a fair trial?