Constitutional Limitations on the Criminal Law

The Founding Fathers

• The founding fathers were suspicious of government power.
• The were also devoted to protecting the rights of individuals to conduct their lives without government interference.
• They also understood that freedom dependent on good public order—which required control.
• With these things in mind, the constitution was created to balance individual rights with public order.

The Nature of Our Government

• We live in a constitutional democracy, not a pure democracy.
• In a pure democracy, the majority can have what it wants.
• In a constitutional democracy, the majority cant make a crime of actions protected by the constitution.
• Thus the single most important limit on the "tyranny of the majority" is the constitution.

The Rule of Law

• Deeply embedded in our constitutional system is the principle that the government can punish people only if there is an exact law that defines and prescribes the punishment for criminal behavior.
• This principle is called the rule of law, also known as the principle of legality.
• All laws are based on the rule of law.
• Despite the greatness of this principle, challenging the constitutionality of laws is not easy.
• A reason for this is another principle: the will of the people should prevail in a democracy.
• Since laws are made by democratic process, the courts are reluctant to overturn statutes that reflect the "popular will."
• When the constitutionality of a law is at issue, the government does not have to prove that a law is constitutional.
• It is up to the challenger to prove that the law is not constitutional.
• Put in technical terms, there is a strong presumption in favor of the constitutionality of a law, and challengers carry the burden of proof that the law is unconstitutional.

Ex Post Facto Laws

• Ex post facto laws are laws that make an act criminal after the act has occurred.
• This ancient prohibition has two major purposes:
• To give fair warning to private individuals
• To prevent arbitrary action by government
• The Supreme Court has also invalidated laws that aggravate the degree of, increased the punishment for, and alter the amount of evidence needed to prove a crime after it was committed.
• Ex Post Facto laws that benefit a defendant are not part of this prohibition.
• If the legislature, for example, decided to reduce sentences for possession of crack cocaine, those already serving sentences could have them reduced.

Void-for-Vagueness

• Like ex post facto laws, vaguely defined laws fail to warn people and permit arbitrary (without reason or standards) action by the government.
• The SC has determined that vague laws violate the due process clause of the Constitution.
• The rule that vague laws violate due process is called the void-for-vagueness doctrine.
• The reasoning is as follows:
• Criminal punishments involve the loss of life, liberty, or property.
• The constitution (5^th &14^th) prohibits this without "due process of law."
• Failure to adequately warn and allowing authorities to arbitrarily define crimes denies life, liberty, and property without due process of law.

Components of A Decision

• There is some variation between how cases look in print depending on the publisher.
• There are some elements of almost universal utility.

The Caption

• The caption (also called the name or style) of a case gives the names of the parties involved in the case.
• The most common form is X v. Y.
• The first party listed is usually the party bringing the suit to court—the plaintiff.
• In criminal matters, this will usually be the state.
• The second party listed is usually the defendant.

Caption Flip-Flop

• If the case is an appeal, then the first name with be the appellant or petitioner and the second is the appellee or respondent.
• This means that when a trial court decision is appealed in a criminal case, the names will be reversed: State v. Smith becomes Smith v. State on appeal.

Cases With Only One Party

• In matters concerning juveniles (and estates in civil law) the phrase In re is often used followed by the name of the party the case concerns.
• Short for "in regard to" or concerning.
• Example: In re Adoption of Baby Boy

Docket Number

• The docket number (sometimes called a record number) is assigned by the court clerk to the case when it is filed initially for the court’s consideration.
• It is the number the court uses to keep track of documents related to the case.
• This is useful in legal research for following a case before it is decided.
• Slip opinions are usually cited by docket number.

Citation

• Published opinions are cited by the reporter volume in which they appear and the page number on which the caption appears.
• The citation does not always appear, but can be readily determined by reference to the bound volume.
• Citations should include the year of the decision.
• E.g., 450 U.S. 200 (1980).
• Supreme court reporters published by private companies always cite the competition and the official citation.

Syllabus

• A summary of the case’s facts and holdings.
• In some jurisdictions, the syllabus is prepared by the court.
• Note that a court may dispose of several issues in one case.

Headnotes

• Material that describes the various points decided by the court.
• Headnotes are not a part of the holding—only the opinion itself is binding.
• If the headnotes conflict with the opinion, then the opinion prevails—use these only as finding aids.
• Most headnotes are prepared by legal experts working for the publishers.
• They are designed to help researchers locate relevant legal material.

Attorneys

Opinion

• The name of the judge actually writing the opinion appears at the beginning.
• Appeals courts will usually have more than one judge hearing a case.
• If the judges cannot agree on a decision, more than one opinion may result.
• The official opinion of the court is the one agreed on by a majority of judges, and appears first.
• If a judge is not expressly listed in a concurring or dissenting opinion, it is implied that the judge agreed with the opinion of the court.

Supreme Court Cases

• The Supreme Court is the court of last resort in any federal case and has final authority in federal issues raised in state courts.
• The first reports were compiled by individuals and were known as nominative reporters.
• These first ninety volumes of U.S. Reports are still cited by the name of the individual reporter

U.S. Reports

• The official reporter for the Supreme Court of the United States is the United States Reports.
• Cited as U.S.
• This official reporter includes a syllabus—preliminary paragraphs that summarize the case and presenting the holding of the court.
• These official reports are notoriously slow, taking around three years to appear in a bound volume.

U.S. Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers’ Edition

• Published by the Lawyers Co-operative publishing company.
• Commonly referred to as "Lawyers’ Edition", it is cited as L.ed.
• After the one-hundredth volume, Lawyers’ Edition was split into a second volume.
• The second volume is cited L.Ed.2d
• The editors publish a summary of the case as well as their own headnotes.

West’s Supreme Court Reporter

• Like lawyers’ co-op, West prepares its own summary, called a synopsis, and headnotes for each case.
• West’s "key number" system links cases with all other cases on the same topic in the national reporter system.

Lower Federal Courts

• Below the SC in the federal system are the intermediate appellate courts and trial courts.
• Congress was given the power to create the lower federal courts by the constitution.
• There are now 13 US Courts of Appeal, consisting of the first through eleventh Circuits, the District of Columbia Circuit, and the federal circuit.
• Each court of Appeals hears cases from trial courts within its circuit, and its decisions are binding on those lower courts.

Federal Trial Courts

• The trial courts in the federal system are the United States District Courts.
• Arkansas is in the Eighth District.

Federal Reporter

• West began publishing Federal Reporter in 1880, which reports cases decisions for both circuit (appeal) and district (trial) courts.
• Cited as F. and sometimes Fed. in older works.
• Later on, it was decided that this system was too unwieldy, and the federal district courts came to be published in a set known as Federal Supplement, F.Supp.
• Only a very few of cases result in a written opinion.

Appeals

• State supreme courts are the final say unless there are federal issues involved, such as constitutional rights violations.
• Courts generally do not have the right to give advisory opinions—decisions must be made by the adversarial process.

US Supreme Court

• The US Supreme Court is the highest court in the federal system.
• The court is made up of one chief justice and eight associate justices.
• Justices are appointed by the president with the advise and consent of the senate.
• Justices may be removed only by impeachment
• The supreme court acts as a supervisory body over the entire federal system

Effects of Judicial Decisions

• In our system of justice, no one is guaranteed a perfect trail, only that it is substantially correct.
• A miscarriage of justice occurs only if, based on the entire record, the appellate court concludes that it is probable that a result more favorable to the defendant would have been reached in the absence of error.

Miscarriage of Justice

What doe Reversal Mean?

Equal Protection

• In addition to the due process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment, it also provides that "no state shall deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
• Equal protection doesn’t mean that the government has to treat everyone exactly alike—premeditated killers are treated more harshly than those who kill in the heat of passion.
• The key to unequal treatment is that there must be some "rational basis."

Arbitrary Classifications

• Those classifications based on race, gender, etc., are prohibited.
• The SC subjects all race based classifications to strict scrutiny; that is, they have to further a "compelling state interest."
• Practically speaking, strict scrutiny means that race-based classifications are never justified.
• Any statute that "invidiously classified similarly situated people on the basis of immutable characteristics with which they were born . . . Always violates the constitution."

Gender Classification

• Gender classification is not scrutinized as closely as is race.
• Gender classification must have a "fair and substantial relationship" to legitimate state ends.

Free Speech

• The 1^st Amendment prohibits congress from making any law that abridges free speech.
• This protection has been extended to include the spoken and written word, as well as expressive conduct.
• Distinctive clothing (black arm bands), sitting-in, and picketing are all protected forms of "speech."
• While the text of the amendment speaks directly to the US Congress, the courts have applied the 1^st to the states since the Gitlow v. New York decision in 1925—violation of the 1^st violates the due process clause of the 14^th.

Unprotected Speech

• There are five categories of speech that the Amendment does not protect.
• First, Obscenity is not protected.
• Obscenity is defined as material whose predominate appeal is nudity, sex, or excretion.

Profanity

Libel and Slander

• Libel is a defamation of a person in print, writing, pictures, or signs.
• Slander is a defamation of a person by the spoken word.

Fighting Words

Dangerous Words

• Expressions that create a clear and present danger of an evil that the legislature has the right to prohibit.
• Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is an example.

Void-for-Overbreadth

• This doctrine says that laws that prohibit unprotected speech and also spill over to prohibit protected speech are void.
• Efforts at policing the content of the internet under the auspices of making it safe for children have been struck down on this basis.

Right to Privacy

• The "right to privacy" is never stated explicitly in the Constitution.
• Nevertheless, the Court has determined that there is such a constitutional right that protects us from "all governmental invasions of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life."
• The logic of the right to privacy is based on clauses contained within 6 different amendments.
• This cluster of amendments sends a strong message that the people have the right to be left alone by the government.
• One of the most protected areas of life is within the family and home—laws prohibiting contraceptives have struck down.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

What is Cruel and Unusual?

• The Court has ruled that two kinds of punishments are cruel and unusual:
• Barbaric punishments
• Punishments that are disproportionate to the crime committed

Barbaric Punishments

• Punishments that are no longer acceptable in civilized society.
• Torture and mutilation obviously qualify.
• Merely being unusual is not constitutional—every form of punishment was novel at some point in history.
• In cases of the death penalty, a punishment is cruel if it causes pain beyond that which is necessary to effect the death or if the body is needlessly disfigured.

Proportionality

• The punishment must fit the crime.
• This does not mean that a state may not use very harsh punishments.
• The death penalty is pretty much limited to certain types of aggravated murder because of this doctrine.

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