American Government: Supreme Court, Due Process of Law, and Roe V Wade - Assignment Example

American Government Lesson 22 Do you support or oppose the lifetime terms of Supreme Court justices? I oppose lifetime terms for Supreme Court justices. The rationale behind the lifetime terms for Supreme Court justices is to ensure impartiality in their functioning of upholding justice in the land. Nominated by the executive and confirmed by the senate with life time tenure form the basis for impartiality in the functioning of the justices, as it bestows insulation from political interference. (1) Evaluation of the working of this system to ensure politically impartiality of the Supreme Court justices belies this claim. Given the partisan politics that exists in appointment of the Supreme Court justices, their appointment is more in line with their political affiliations than in terms of their judicial expertise. The lifetime term tenure enables the justices to give up their tenure at more politically suitable moments to enable continuity of the political influence on the judiciary. The justices can choose to retire at a more optimum time when the executive and the senate are firmly in control of the preferred political party. (1) Another problem is that life term tenures make for very long tenures of the justices. The tendency to pick young justices suitable to political partisanship has resulted in the average tenure of the Supreme Court justices rising to 25.5 years in the period from 1971 to 2000, while it was15 years in the period from 1789 to 1970. Having a fixed tenure of fifteen years provides for enough stability and impartiality of the judiciary in place of an indefinite extended lifetime term for justices of the Supreme Court. (1). Lesson 23 Explain your support of or opposition to capital punishment Capital punishment acts as a deterrent of violent crimes in society. Yet I oppose it, as this deterrent is seldom applied uniformly across all sections of society. An evaluation of the use of capital punishment shows that it is used most against the neglected segments and with racial prejudice. Resorting to crimes even violent ones may be more predominant in the weaker segments of society, because of their poor socio-economic status and targeting these causes may offer a better solution in the prevention of violent crimes. Should we choose to ignore this aspect, then for capital punishment to be really effective as a preventive measure it should be used without discrimination, but it is seldom so. (2) Going back to 1972 when the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, it laid this finding on the basis of capital-punishment laws being such that its use led to unfettered discretion on the decision in its use and the result was its disproportionate use against the poor, the African-Americans, and members of unpopular groups. Though four years later the capital penalty statutes were revised to reduce its unfettered use, class and race remain the factors that determine the use of capital punishment. (2). An example of this continued bias in the use of capital punishment is seen from data during the period 1995 to 2000 which shows that though there were relatively equal racial proportions in the homicide perpetrators, 72% of those approved for capital punishment were from the African-American community. It is this manner in which the poor and the racially discriminated against are disproportionately condemned to capital punishment that makes me morally oppose it. (2). Lesson 23 What is due process of law? The origins of due process of law can be traced back to the Magna Carta in 1215, wherein the power of King John was restricted over the citizens of the country and the power of the King was guided by the fundamental principals of fairness and justice in what was called the law of the land. Over time this phrase of law of the land got changed to due process of law. Due process of law is one of guiding principles of by virtue of the protection to life, liberty, and property enshrined in the Fifth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. Refinements by the American jurisprudence of the due process of law have brought about a set of procedural rights for every individual, which the person is entitled to in case of being accused of a crime by the government. The concepts of notice and hearing have become the essential procedural requirements of the due process of law in the case of any individual accused of a crime. Under these concepts, any accused has the right to be advised of the type of offense that the accused is being charged for. This means that the government is prohibited from just arresting an individual based on a suspicion of being a criminal and prosecuting the individual without informing the person of the charges of prosecution. The due of process of law requires the government to inform the individual of the specific charges to enable the accused to prepare a defense against these charges. Due process of law has assumed importance in the light of possible transgressions by the government in the case of those individuals it suspects of terrorist acts or assisting terrorism. (3). Lesson 25 Is there a constitutional right to privacy? Explain. The constitutional right to privacy is a controversial issue. The Constitution of the United States of America does not expressly provide for any express right to privacy. Yet, several Amendments of the Constitution provide for protecting different aspects of privacy, suggesting possible concern by the framers of the Constitution for privacy rights. Of particular interest on this issue is the Ninth Amendment, which is frequently used as the cornerstone for the protection of privacy in many ways that the first eight Amendments of the Constitution do not. Yet another Amendment that has become the basis for a broader claim to right to privacy is the Fourteenth Amendment. The right to privacy with regard to child rearing, procreation, marriage, termination of medical treatment has come from the reading of the Fourteenth Amendment from such a perspective of the Supreme Court. Such a perspective has remained controversial from an evaluation of Supreme Court decisions. Prior to 1920 the general impression has been for the Supreme Court to take a dim view of a broad right to privacy. However, subsequently for more than five decades the Supreme had shown an inclination to use the Fourteenth Amendment to support privacy rights as can be seen from the Supreme Court’s unanimous upholding in 1969 of the right of privacy permitting an individual to view pornography at their own homes and the Roe v Wade case in 1972, where it extended the right to abort to women as an expansion of the privacy right. Subsequently, however, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to grant any further expansions to the privacy right, and when it has done so has put limitations on it. (4). Lesson 26 What did the Supreme Court determine in Roe v. Wade? The Roe V. Wade case was a challenge of the Laws of the State of Texas that prohibited the right of women to abortion at any stage of pregnancy. In the determination of the Supreme Court, which upheld the right of a woman to abortion in consultation during the first trimester of pregnancy, the Ninth amendment played a prominent part. The Supreme Court determined that the Ninth Amendment protected an individual’s right to privacy and the abortion laws of the State of Texas that prohibited abortion at any stage of pregnancy violated this right of privacy protected by the Ninth Amendment. The Supreme Court determined that prior to the end of the first trimester pregnant women in consultation with the attending physician had the right to take the decision for abortion and State laws could not interfere with this privacy right. However, from the second trimester onwards with the dimensions of fetal rights and the health of the mother becoming important the State had the right to apply regulations on abortions based on the perspective of the State to protect the fetus and the mother. Such a determination of the Supreme Court caused abortion invalidated state laws that restricted the privacy right of women to abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (5). Works Cited 1. Amar, Reed Akhil & Amar, David Vikram. “SHOULD U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICES BE TERM-LIMITED?: A Dialogue”. 2002. FindLaw. 11 Sep. 2008. . 2. Swarns, Christina. “The Uneven Scales of Capital Justice”. The American Prospect 15.7 (2004): A14. 3. Hornberger, G. Jacob. “Due Process of Law”. 2005. LewRockwell.com. 11 Sep. 2008. . 4. “The Right of Privacy. The issue: Does the Constitution protect the right of privacy? If, so what aspects of privacy receive protection”. exploring Constitutional Conflicts. 11 Sep. 2008. . 5. “Roe v. Wade”. 11 Sep. 2008. . Read More