Civil Rights
The Constitution Protects the Civil Rights
of Americans The Constitution
does protect the civil rights of Americans.
Even though some laws are passed
that violate the civil rights of people in
the United States, the Supreme Court
corrects these errors. The cases
reviewed here ask if it is okay to compose and
mandate prayer in schools,
whether the death penalty is Constitutional, and how
much privacy is given to
the American people. In the following Supreme Court
cases, the reader will
find that the decisions made are Constitutional and
ensure that the civil
rights of Americans are protected. The First Amendment to
the Constitution
forbids the government form supporting religion. In the Supreme
Court
case, Engle v.. Vitale, a New York school system composed a prayer and
forced
children to pray in the mornings at school. This action by the school
system
clearly violates the "no establishment" clause of the First
Amendment,
which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of
religion..." The Supreme Court ruled six to one that it was
unconstitutional
for schools to compose and mandate prayer. The Engle decision
was a good
decision. Since the government now had no say in how school children
prayed,
the rights of minority religious groups were protected. This decision
ensures
that students in schools across the country will not have to go against
their
religion to please the government. Because this decision ensures the
people’s
right to worship in the way that they choose, American society as a
whole
benefits from this decision. The Eighth Amendment to the
Constitution
prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." In the case, Gregg v.
Georgia, the
Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was not
unconstitutional as long as
it was not arbitrarily applied. This case was
accurately read because the
writers of the Bill of Rights did not believe
that the death penalty constituted"cruel and unusual punishment." They believed
that "cruel and unusual
punishment" was punishment that inflicted excessive
pain on the convicted.
Since the death penalty is humane, it does not
constitute "cruel and unusual
punishment" and is therefore acceptable to use
as a form of punishment. The
Gregg decision was a good decision. The
death penalty is a fair and just
punishment for those that have committed
capital offenses. Although some might
argue that it is a revenge-based
punishment, it is only doing to the convicted
what he did to his victim,
although in a way much less painful. Because the
death penalty is humane,
causing almost no pain to the person being executed, it
is a fair and
allowable punishment for those that deserve it. The Ninth
Amendment to
the Constitution allows citizens more rights that those listed in
the
Constitution. It can be inferred that the writers of the Bill of Rights
meant
for privacy to be included in this amendment. In Connecticut, there was a
law
that forbid the use and distribution of information about
contraceptives.
This law was overruled by the Supreme Court in the case,
Griswold v.
Connecticut, when it ruled that the law violated
Constitutionally protected
privacy. The government only has the right to
censor information if it endangers
national security or if it is considered
obscene. Since the use and distribution
of information about contraceptives
does not fall under any of these categories,
it is not Constitutionally
correct for the government to violate people’s
privacy in the way that it did
in the Connecticut law. The Griswold decision was
a good decision. Because
people deserve and are Constitutionally given privacy,
it seems illogical
that a state would make a law like the one that was made in
Connecticut.
This type of action can be interpreted as a state not respecting a
person’s
right to privacy, which is not only unconstitutional, but wrong.
Because
the Supreme Court abolished the Connecticut law forbidding the use
and
distribution of information about contraceptives, the people of the
United
States can rest assured that their right to privacy is being
protected. In the
preceding Supreme Court cases, the Justices that heard the
cases upheld the
meanings of the Amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.
The decisions all
agreed with what the writers of the Bill of Rights thought
when they were
writing the Bill of Rights. Due to these decisions, the
meanings of the rights
given to Americans have grown clearer than they were
before, and will continue
to do so as long as they are being interpreted by
the Supreme Court, and other
courts in the American justice system.