Texas Government 2306 Review for Examination III

Texas Government 2306: Review for Examination III 1. Civil liberties a) rights that are primarily concerned with protecting individuals from the unrestricted power of government. b) basic rights and freedoms that are guaranteed; like the freedom of speech, religion, and privacy 2. The U.S. Bill of Rights a) The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. b) It spells out Americans' rights in relation to their government. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual—like freedom of speech, press, and religion. c) It was added to the Constitution to protect the people from the national government from having too much power. Adding the Bill of Rights helped change many people's minds to ratify the Constitution. d) 3. James Madison wrote the amendments Barron v. Baltimore a) Landmark case in which the Supreme Court argued that the Bill of Rights is not application to the states 4. Reconstruction Selective Incorporation a) Reconstruction: Time period in American history following the civil war b) Process by which different protections in the bill of rights were incorporated into the 14th amendment. Protection from state and national government. 5. Texas Bill of Rights (Which article of the Texas Constitution contains the state's bill of 6. Religion and the Texas Bill of Rights 7. Van Orden v. Perry rights? How does the Texas Bill of Rights differ from the U.S. Bill of Rights?) a) a United States Supreme Court case involving whether a display of the Ten Commandments on a monument given to the government at the Texas State Capitol in Austin violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment 8. Pure Speech – Speech that is written or spoken 9. Symbolic Speech a) Behaviors that are meant to convey a certain message. Unlike pure speech, symbolic speech is not written or spoken 10. Texas v. Johnson a) ruled that burning the American flag is a form of protected speech. 11. Defamation a) the action of damaging the good reputation of someone i. Libel – Defamation in written form ii. Slander – Defamation in spoken form 12. Castle Doctrine a) also known as a castle law or a defense of habitation law b) a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place (for example, a vehicle or home) as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one, in certain circumstances, to use force (up to and including deadly force) to defend oneself against an intruder, free from legal prosecution for the consequences of the force used. 13. Campus Carry in Texas 14. Writ of Habeas Corpus a) a court order demanding that a public official (such as a warden) deliver an imprisoned individual to the court and show a valid reason for that person's detention 15. Bill of Attainder a) an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them, often without a trial. b) As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. 16. Ex Post Facto Law a) A law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. b) In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed. 17. Due Process a) b) Provision in the 5th amendment the government to follow fair and regular procedures whenever it seeks to deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property. 18. Habeas Corpus(14?) a) a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful. 19. Searches and seizures clause a) b) 4th amendment: Right not to be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence found in connection to the crime. 20. Exclusionary Rule a) b) 4th amendment Rule created by the Supreme Court that contends that evidence obtained illegally cannot be used against individuals in criminal proceedings 21. Double Jeopardy clause a) Provision in the 5th amendment of the US Constitution b) bars the government from prosecuting an individual for the same crime twice. 22. Self-incrimination clause a) 5th Amendment provides the individual with a right not to incriminate themselves. 23. Abolitionists – a person who favors the abolition of a practice or institution, especially capital punishment or (formerly) slavery 24. Retentionists – one who advocates the retention of something (as territory or a policy) 25. Furman v. Georgia a) a criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court struck down all death penalty schemes in the United States in a 5–4 decision, with each member of the majority writing a separate opinion. 26. Gregg v. Georgia a) The case of Gregg v. Georgia was his appeal to the Supreme Court that his death sentence was cruel and unusual. The Gregg v. Georgia case is historically and legally significant because it upheld the legality of the death penalty. b) reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. 27. Atkins v. Virginia a) executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments, but states can define who has an intellectual disability. 28. Roper v. Simmons a) the Supreme Court of the United States held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18 29. Kennedy v. Louisiana a) the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child in cases where the victim did not die and death was not intended. 30. Baze v. Rees a) upheld the constitutionality of a particular method of lethal injection used for capital punishment. 31. The Right to Privacy a) The Supreme Court has maintained that, when read in conjunction, the 3rd and 4th amendments to the US Constitution afford the individual a “right to privacy.” 32. Griswold v. Connecticut a) The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." 33. Obscenity and the Texas Penal Code a) Miller v. California: Established three-prong test aimed at determining whether material is obscene. b) The Miller Test: Three pronged test developed by US Supreme Court to determine in material is obscene. c) The Texas Penal Code: i. the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex; ii. depicts or describes patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse, sodomy, and sexual bestiality; or patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, sadism, masochism, lewd exhibition of the genitals, the male or female genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal, covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state or a device designed and marketed as useful primarily for stimulation of the human genital organs iii. taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value. 34. Lawrence v. Texas a) Landmark case in which the Supreme Court ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional. 35. Roe v. Wade a) Landmark case in which the Supreme Court ruled that women have a constitutional right to terminate their pregnancies during the first trimester. 36. Planned Parenthood v. Casey a) Landmark case regarding abortion. b) In a plurality opinion, the Court upheld the constitutional right to have an abortion that was established in Roe v. Wade (1973), but altered the standard for analyzing restrictions on that right, crafting the "undue burden" standard for abortion restrictions. 37. The Women’s Right to Know Act a) abortions performed at or after the 16th week of pregnancy to be performed in a licensed hospital or ambulatory surgical center; requires that doctors must inform the woman of the name of the doctor who will perform the abortion, the medical risks associated with the procedure, the probable gestational age of the fetus and the medical risks of carrying a pregnancy to term. b) warn women of “the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion and the natural protective effect of a completed pregnancy in avoiding breast cancer.” c) requires the physician performing the abortion (or the physician’s agent) to inform the woman that: i. specified types of medical assistance benefits may be available to her; ii. the father is liable for child support; iii. public and private agencies provide pregnancy prevention counseling and referrals for obtaining birth control, including emergency contraceptives for victims of rape and incest; and iv. she has the right to view printed state materials, which are also accessible on the Internet, describing the fetus and listing agencies that offer abortion alternatives. 38. Texas House Bill 2 (HB2) a) a bill within the Eighty-third Texas Legislature, first introduced into the Texas Senate as Texas Senate Bill 5 (SB5) on June 11, 2013, related to abortion rights within the state. b) Among provisions include banning abortions 20 weeks post-fertilization, and mandating that doctors practicing abortions must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. 39. Texas Senate Bill 8 (“Fetal Burial Law”) 40. Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt a) Texas cannot place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services that create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion.