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TITLE Lessons on Rights and Responsibilities.PUB DATE 92NOTE 205p.PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use Teaching Guides (For
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EDRS PRICE MF01/PC09 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Adult Literacy; *Curriculum Design; English (Second
Language); Instructional Materials; Lesson Plans;*Literacy Education; Tutors
IDENTIFIERS *Bill of Rights; Constitutional Amendments; *UnitedStates Constitution
ABSTRACTIn recognition of the needs of adults whose native
languages are other than English or who possess minimal literacyskills in English, the National Commission on the Bicentennial of theU.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights gave a grant to the LiteracyVolunteers of Washington County, Rhode Island for tutors to developlessons on the Bill of Rights specifically for adults with low levelsof basic literacy skills. This curriculum guide is the result ofthose efforts. In addition to the basic objectives of developing sucha curriculum, the ten particpating tutors shared the added objectiveof bringing their adult students to an understanding of how therights, protections, and responsibilities that come from theConstitution and the Bill of Rights affect their own life, the livesof others, and the life of the community of which they are a part.Each of the lessons is developed around each of the Amendments andinclude language development activities and reading, writing, anddiscussion activities. Appended materials include the following: thetime-line for colonial resistance against England, a list of states,a Bill of Responsibilities, a summary of Due Process, theConstitutional rights of juveniles under the due process clause ofthe 14th Amendment, and a bibliography. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouseon Literacy Education) (VWL)
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0o.
LessonsOn Rights and Responsibilitix,
PREPARED IN CELEBRATION OF THE BICENTENNIAL OF
THE BILL OF RIGHTS
:
BY TUTORS AND STUDENTS OF
LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA WASHINGTON COUNTY
RHODE ISLAND
FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE
U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS
U.e. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONDerc of Educatronai Rissamh and IMDAY01171,11flt
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER tERICI
tachns document has been reProduCed assaved from the person or orgarnzahon
ortginating 1.
0 Mmor changes have been made to ant:trovereproductIon Quality
Fo.nts of vest* a oporoon stated ;81 thrsdOCU -ment do not necesasolv represent othoratOERt poroOon or pohov
1991 1992 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEENORANTED BY
YVIL.11(
C-\-Nlar4
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."
Margaret Richards, Bicentennial Project Director
21PAImArmaromem,ilil0/0004IMAISilSAWSIIIIWINIasstimmiteTIP etivorylt
BICENTENNIAL PROJECT OF LITERACY VOLUNTEERS
WASHINGTON COUNTY, RHODE ISLAND
TUTOR -- STUDENT TEAMS
Katherine Appleyard Rose Vallana
William Bitter Lei Ning CaoIrene Best
Joyce Carpenter
Lisa Cugini
Eileen Curran
Joyce LeVasseur
Joseph McNulty
Molly Palmer
Anne Yi Young
Li Huang
Maria Lamerova
Richard Newton
Linnea Brochu
Yau Ping ChanMaria Rios
Amy ChauMaria Mederios
Thomas Smith
STEERING COMMITTEE
Dr. Richard BenoitMiriam BrennanMarilyn BrockmannDr. Andrew Carrano
Chief Mark ChamplinNancy 0. DodgeRev. James R. Glenn, III
Steven Hartford
Joyce LeVasseurDavid Panciera
Honorable Santo Turano
Mark UrsoRobert Utter
Literacy VolunteersLiteracy VolunteersEdison TutorialSuperintendent, Westerly
Public SchoolsWesterly Police DepartmentAttorney at LawDunn's Corners Community
ChurchVice Chairman, Westerly
Town CouncilLiteracy VolunteersDirector, Westerly Public
LibraryJudge, Municipal Court
WesterlyStation WERIEditor, The Westerly Sun
llqa 1_%.-FeracVoiuntee.rstsFWash k.Y1 9 4-17-Y\ Cour-17 ,
3e7tr,
Contents
OVERVIEW of LESSONS
FINDING RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES in HISTORY
Page
1
11
RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES HERE and NOW
Introduction 30
- First Amendment 37
Second Amendment 52
The Privacy Amendments
* Third Amendment
* Fourth Amendment
The Trial Amendments
61
64
81
Protections for Persons Accused of a Crime 82
Fifth Amendment 83
Sixth Amendment 96
Eighth Amendment 113
Civil Trials - Seventh Amendment 122
Ninth and Tenth Amendments 132
The Civil War Amendments
* Thirteenth Amendment 139
* Fourteenth Amendment
The Voting Rights Amendments
* Fifteenth Amendment 153
* Nineteenth Amendment 158
* Twenty-sixth Amendment 162
APPENDIX
145
Time-line for Colonial Resistance Against England
List of States
A Bill of Responsibilities
Summary of Due Process
Constitutional Rights of Juveniles - In re Gault
BIBLIOGRAPHY
4
172
173
175
176
180
184
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try,
OVERVIEW OF LESSONS ON RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
PrologueThe Bicentennial Celebration - 1987 through 1991 -
ended with observance of the Ratification of the Bill ofRights. This five year period saw many special andspectacular events throughout the nation. It also gaverise to an extraordinary educational effort which focusedattention on the key role of the U.S. Constitution andits Bill of Rights in our national experience, past,present, and future. The legacy of that effort, in theform of outstanding scholarly writings, texts, films, andtelevision programs, will enlighten teachers and studentsfor decades to come as together they ponder the ways inwhich this unique and enduring document has affected, andwill continue to affect, the progress of Americandemocracy and its people.
RightsOne major theme has been sounded over and over
through those educational materials. It is that Americansdefine themselves as a people committed to equal rightsunder the Constitution for each individual and to civicresponsibilities which balance those rights. This is thefundamental vision for all who live under a government ofthe people, by the people and for the people. Yet thereare many among us, unhappily, whose lack of readingskills and minimal knowledge of English bar them fromunderstanding and exercising the rights and protectionsthe Constitution and its Amendments afford, and bar themalso from learning about and fulfilling the basicresponsibilities which empower them for effectiveparticipation in their community's life.
For those who are especially concerned with teachingsuch adults this creates a very particular responsibilityand opportunity. We need to make a concentrated effort toprovide them with information about both theirconstitutional rights and their civic responsibilities,but to do that in ways that make rights andresponsibilities meaningful because they are relateddirectly to their personal experiences and their currentlife situation. With minimal language proficiencies and,in the case of foreigners, often with an enormouscultural chasm between homeland and their new Americancommunity, these adults have almost no access to the
1
6
abstract generalizations about rights andresponsibilities described by traditional texts. Even theoutstanding writings and programs produced during theBicentennial Celebration, thorough and imaginative asthey are, do not address the real need for personalrelevance which builds understanding in the mind andheart of person who can not read or understand English.
ObiectivesRecognizing the needs of these people, the National
Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitutionand the Bill of Rights, which funded many of theexcellent materials produced during the Bicentennial,gave a grant in 1991 to the Literacy Volunteers ofWashington County, Rhode Island, to enable its tutors todevelop lessons on the Bill of Rights specifically foradults with low levels of basic literacy skills. Thiscurriculum on RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES HERE AND NOW isthe result. Some of the volunteer tutors who contributedto the project worked one-on-one with native adults whosereading levels are below sixth grade. Several othertutors worked with immigrants for whom English is a newlanguage. For all these tutors the objectives were thesame as those shared by Literacy Volunteers of Americatutors everywhere: to help their adult student to improvetheir skill for
- reading, writing and comprehending thelanguage;speaking and understanding English as a newlanguage;
- learning to use printed and recorded materialso they can continue to learn independently.
For this Project, however, the ten participating tutorsshared an added special objective: to bring their adultstudent to an understanding of how the rights,protections and responsibilities that come from theConstitution and its Bill of Rights affect their ownlife, the lives of others, and the life of the communityof which they are a part.
Learning SituationSeveral circumstances which pertain to tutoring
adults in Literacy Programs have helped to determine theformat of the Lessons. First, the students themselves arealso volunteers. They study because they recognize theneed to improve their skills, but they don't have to andat times families or jobs take precedence. A secondcircumstance is the limitation of time because the
2
tutoring is generally done for only one or two hours aweek. That is not much time in which to absorbsubstantive information and to practice new skills, evenin a one-on-one situation. Between tutoring sessions manyadult learners are too preoccupied with dailyresponsibilities to think about what was discussed in thelast lesson, much less to do homework. Third, an adultstudent will often bring to a session a question orconcern unrelated to the tutor's planned lesson. In sucha situation the tutor is best advised to treat thequestion or concerns as the lesson for that day. Thatmeans study of rights and responsibilities may be put offand resumed later when the student is ready to focusagain on what may seem to him/her a less urgent topic.For all these reasons, each of the Lessons in thiscurriculum may stand alone, or be part of aninterruptible sequence which can be presented during anumber of separate meetings. Teaching under thosecircumstances is different from instructing school-agestudents in a course with a prescribed daily curriculum.
Adult learners in Literacy Programs are differentfrom students in school in other ways. Often their lifeexperiences have been severely limited because of theirfunctional illiteracy. Furthermore, many are olderpeople whose habits and coping skills have never includedreading or writing. These are obstacles to exploring anew topic, especially one that seems abstract and farremoved from their daily concerns.
Many Americans who come to literacy tutors for helpwith basic skills are citizens, but they have nevergrasped the fact that the Constitution and the Bill ofRights are fundamental to principles, priorities andpractjces in every aspect of American life. Most of themleft school at grades below which the Constitution andthe Bill of Rights are taught (usually in the 7th or 8thgrades). Or, even if they completed the 8th grade, theirreading level was too low for them to understand that theConstitution is meant for them. Furthermore, the usualschool textbook presentation about the Bill of Rightsseldom related the specific rights and protections topersonal experiences and everyday events. Therefore,they never saw that the evolution of individual rightsfrom the time of Magna Carta in 1215 to the present is adrama of small groups of people, or even a single person,doing battle against arbitrary or capricious government.
ObjectivesBecause, as school children they had not understood
that personal, human side of their American heritage ofrights and protections, as adults they need to be madeaware of those connections. More to the point, as adultswith jobs and families, they may one day find themselvesin situations where, if they are ignorant of theirrights, they put themselves and others who depend on themat risk. Furthermore, on the positive side, whateverthese adults learn about their legal rights, theirconstitutional protections, and their civicresponsibilities will enhance their confidence and theirpride because they will feel competent to exercise in ameaningful way rights and responsibilities that are aunique part of our common American heritage.
There are two groups of adult learners for whomthese Lessons may be especially useful. It is notuncommon that working with a literacy tutor will be astudent's first step toward taking a High SchoolEquivalency exam. It is a long, difficult road for aperson who begins with minimal language skills, but itdoes happen. And most definitely for such students theinformation about American History, the Constitution andthe Bill of Rights covered in these Lessons is soundpreparation for that exam.
For immigrants also they may be particularlyhelpful. Many will progress from learning English as anew language to preparation for the citizenship exam. Forthem knowledge about the Constitution and the Bill ofRights is a "must". For those who do not take thecitizenship exam, learning about rights andresponsibilities in an American community is still animportant coping skill. Further, t may introduce them toconcepts about government and citizenship which are quitedifferent from those of their homeland. As oneBicentennial Project tutor put it : "If they remain inthe USA, they will need to know their rights,protections, and responsibilities if they are to play aconfident and informed role in their communities. If, onthe other hand, they return to their homelands, and thoseare places where rights are limited or nonexistent, theywill carry with them knowledge of a system of governmentin which there is reasonable protection for individualsand to which individuals can give shape."(from Journal of Thomas Smith, tutor of students fromChina, Taiwan, Malaysia and Portugal)
4
StrategiesFor those two groups of students, therefore, the
Bill of Rights is full of special interest and relevance.For all adult learners, however, it is valuable also asa tool for language development. The Lessons that followoffer a wide range of resources, exercises and activitieswhich were created and tested by the tutors in thisBicentennial Project. Some strategies are old stand-bys:word lists, exercises on parts of speech, syntax,sentence structure, word games and brief readings. Othersare less tradional but proved to be effective for makingrights and responsibilities "come alive" as well asdeveloping language skills. Visuals - pictures that tella story, and "story maps" that show connections - areimportant strategies for initiating discussions which putrights and responsibilities into the context of real lifesituations. Talking about a picture leads to vocabularybuilding and to writing, as well as to shared andindependent reading. Verbalizing also stimulates thought-
'provoking connections between facts and abstractions orgeneralizations, and between one person's life and thewider community.
An even more effective strategy for stimulatingskill development and for showing rights andresponsibilities in action has been the series of visits
11to community sites described in the Lessons. Such sitesincluded the local newspaper, a radio station, theMunicipal Court, Police Station, Town Hall, and a churchwhere the minister had gathered a display of artifactsfrom other religious groups in the area. Interviewssupplemented site visits. For example, the tutors andstudents talked with a judge, with police, with anattorney, an editor of the newspaper, town and stateelected officials, and the Registrar of Voters. Visitsand interviews were preceded by work on relevantvocabulary, on questions that might be asked or issuesdiscussed, and on the applicable Amendments in the Billof Rights. Once at the site or the interview, tutors and
II students listened to people describe specific rights andresponsibilities involved in their jobs, asked theirquestions, and took advantage of the opportunity todiscuss with knowledgeable public officials issues thatconcerned them. For many, tutors as well as students,these were the first occasions they had had to learnfirst hand how constitutional requirements informed thejudgements and regulated the decisions about actions forpublic officials whose work is vital for the community.
51. 0
Follow-up activities led to writings in journals kept byboth tutors and students, to more discussions, and to newattention to local newspaper reports about events orpeople met during the visits or the interviews.
To use community visits and interviews effectivelyas a teaching strategy, it is recommended that a tutor,or group of tutors, go through a preliminary visit orinterview before taking students. The professional peopleat the site need some background on what kind of studentsthey will be talking with, what are their specialinterests, and what sort of presentation will bestaccomplish the goal of the visit. That, quite simply, isfor the students to see specific rights andresponsibilities practiced in a specific situation, butthe ways of accomplishing that may vary in details fromplace to place. Some public officials, knowing thevisitors are adults, may overwhelm them with sample formsor complicated hand-outs which are far beyond thevocabulary skills of the students. Others, with the bestof intentions, may give a lecture on what they do as ifthey were talking to a class of trainees. Neitherapproach will meet the needs of the students, and bothcan be avoided by having tutors go through a "trial run"before bringing students. At the least that can givetutors an opportunity to learn the information so theycan prepare their students. At best, it will be used asan opportunity to explain to the professionals what thestudents need to see and learn through the experience.The most beneficial results come when the public officialallows, even encourages, student questions, reactions,and discussion.
SkillsOther recommendations are offered by the Project
tutors to any who wish to use the Bill of Rights as avehicle for teaching adults. One suggests that the Billis an excellent example of the English language: it isbrief, correct in sentence structure and syntax, and richin matters that concern the student. In short, "it issuperior in language and in substance to the Dick andJane, Summer Vacation reading matter too often offered toadults with low reading levels."
The tutors also recommend some specific skills thatare helpful when studying the Bill of Rights. The abilityto use a home-language-to-English dictionary is neededfor foreign-speaking students, for instance, and for
6
Americans, a regular basic dictionary. It is also helpfulif a student is reasonably skillful with words andphrases commonly used at home and at work, as well assomewhat familiar with fundamental vocabulary relating togovernment and public affairs. Having some informationabout the functions of local, state and federalgovernment provides a good basis for understanding theactions of public officials. Fully as important, however,are a student's own experiences with government andpublic officials, and an awareness that relationships andactivities of people in the community are important tohim/her. An adult who is struggling to learn basicskills and information needs to have a strong sense thatwhat is gained from the efforts will bring significantbenefits to their daily life.
ResponsibilitiesSkills with words are helpful when a tutor and
student decide to study the clauses in the Bill ofRights, but other skills come into play when they exploreissues of responsibilities. The word "responsibilities"appears nowhere in the Constitution nor in any of theAmendments, but responsibilities are defined in otherways that make them equally binding on all of us. Someare written down as clearly as are the rights in theAmendments. It is written in the law that people must paytaxes, that parents must send their children to school,that an adult must answer a court subpoena or a call toserve on a jury, for examples. The responsibility tovote, however, is not one of those. No citizen isrequired by law to cast a ballot in an election, but ourdemocratic system is weakened if citizens fail to informthemselves on issues and candidates on the ballot andvote when the time comes.
It is a challenge to explain to a foreigner that acivic responsibility like voting is protected by law, butis not required. If the person comes from a country wherethe law required all adults to vote and it is enforced bypenalties, how loose the American concept of that publicresponsibility must seem! If a student comes from acountry where no meaningful vote is allowed, however,then how privileged Americans seem to be able to exercisethat right by choice, and how inexplicable it is thatmany of them fail to do their part in making democracywork.
Other responsibilities flow clearly from rights in
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the Amendments, and often have been defined by memorablephrases. The right to free speech, for example, clearlydoes not give anyone the right to "shout 'fire' in acrowded theater" when there is no fire. Less clear is theline between one person's right to privacy and the rightand responsibility of the press to tell the public whatit knows. Sometimes the line between rights andresponsibilities, or between two rights in conflict witheach other, is a matter of moral judgement, personaldecision, even political debate. For example, where doesrespect for the rights of others begin if a person feelsunequally treated? Where should tolerance for people whoare different begin when their values oppose mine? Whatabout my responsibility to be honest when the taxcollector makes a mistake? Do I have an obligation totake care of myself and my family and then give asgenerously as I can to help others, while public welfareallows some people "to live off the taxpayer?"
As the Project developed, such issues led toprovocative discussions among tutors and students andresulted in some of the best journal entries. Too oftenit is assumed that an adult who is a school drop-out, oris labelled "functionally illiterate", has neitherinterest nor competence for handling "complex","abstract" concepts. In the experience of the tutors whocreated these Lessons, however, that is not true. Givingstudents an opportunity to discuss such issues of rightsand responsibilities one-on-one with someone who listenedwas the starting point for exchanging information andexpressing ideas. For many American students, sadly,that was an experience few had had before working with aLiteracy Program tutor. For the foreign students, it waslike opening a wide window into what makes their newcommunity "tick", into a view rich with comparisons tohomeland experiences. For all the learners having theirstories and ideas listened to, talked about, even writtenfor someone else to read was an ongoing source forenjoyment and building confidence. In the end it seemedthat new perspectives on civic responsibilities were asimportant to the students in the Project as the knowledgeof their constitutional rights and the progress made intheir literacy skills.
ApproachesIt is important to realize that there are several
approaches to the study of rights and responsibilities.The obvious one is to begin by putting the Constitution
8
13
and the Bill of Rights into a traditional historicalcontext, then systematically addressing each of theAmendments in order over a minimum of twelve to sixteenweeks (assuming one or two hours of tutoring each week).This is the approach which is followed in the curriculum.The Lessons begin with the roots of our tradition ofrights in Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independenceand the Constitution. These are followed by separateLesscns on each of the first ten Amendments, the CivilWar Amendments, and end with the voting rightsAmendments. A more flexible approach, however, may workas well. This assumes that a tutor will use specificincidents in the media or in the student's experience andrelate these to rights or protections in the Amendments,or to responsibilities, as the occasion presents itself.
The Lessons may be used either way, and perhaps themost effective approach is a combination of the two.Studying one topic may be followed by exploration ofother matters of concern to the student. When somethingtriggers renewed interest in issues of rights andresponsibilities, tutor and student may pick up whicheverLesson is relevant. The focus, however, must remain onthe dual purpose of each Lesson: to build knowledge aboutrights and responsibilities, along with the confidencethat comes from exercising them with informed competence,and to build language skills.
We end this background material with a journal entrywritten by a young woman who came from Czechoslovakia inthe spring of 1991 and became one of the BicentennialProject students after only four months in America. Herwords say it all for us.
"My Rights and Responsibilities Here and Now"Maria Lamerova, ESL Student
I came into the United States of America fromCzechoslovakia. Every state has other laws, rights,rules. I didn't know my rights in this society.
My Tutor of the Bicentennial Project began to teachme about "Bill of Rights". I appreciate this Project,because it helps me recognize the freedom of life andhistory of this country.
Now, I know all people of U.S. can practicethe religion of their choice; all people can talk or
9
1 4
write about anything they want. Every accused person musthave a public trial in a court if the government saysthat he has broken a law. An accused person can have alawyer, an impartial jury. If he/she goes to court, anaccused person must receive a fair trial in courtaccording to the laws.
Now I know better the life in this town Westerly. Iknow where is the Town Hall, the court. Who are thepeople of Town Council, where is the registrar of vitaldeeds and the probates. I have the information aboutelections. I met a lot of interesting people.
In my opinion the Bicentennial Project has for mefour important things. I know :
- What is "Bill of Rights"Life in Town and community
- History of United States- Better learn English
The knowledge about "Bill of Rights" increases my safety.
10
15
FindingRights and Responsibilities
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FINDING RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN HISTORY
MAGNA CARTA - 1215 -- The Great Charter of England
Language Development Activities
- Begin by discussing the following basic words andconcepts, relating them to experiences of the student athome, on the job, in the community. Identifying wordfamilies will help students to understand and rememberkey words.
Power - Discuss the distinction between thepower of one person, the power of the bossin a workplace, power given by law to anofficial of the government, power to rulegiven by divine right.
abusing power - Discuss examples of this.
authority - authorize
charter
compact, or contract
declare, declaration
document
nobleman - In 1215, this meant a man born intothe English aristocaracy. A noblemanusually inherited a large estateincluding land, great wealth, and hisown soldiers.
represent - representative
responsibilities responsible, respond,responsive
right - means something to which a person hasa claim by law, by nature or bytradition
to respect - respectful
12
1 S
tyrant tyrannical
The words above are only a beginning. The studentand tutor should work together on identifying new wordsand building a vocabulary list as the Lessons progress.Building word "families", repetition and review should bepart of every session.
Shared reading about Magna Carta
In 1215 (and for a long time after) kings believedthat God gave them authority to rule their kingdom, sothey had the power to do as they pleased. They couldmake any laws they wished just by saying "the Kingdeclares it to be so." All their subjects had to obey theKing's laws or receive terrible punishments.
In 1215 a group of forty noblemen in Englandgathered to protest many things King John was doing tothem. They believed that when John became King they hada compact with him that they would obey him and that hehad to respect their property and give them fair trialsin his courts. According to that agreement each side hadrights and had responsibilities.
King John did not keep his side of the agreementhowever. For example, he sent his soldiers to take awayland and property of the noblemen and did not pay themfor it. He let his officials throw people into prisonwithout telling them why, and he would keep them therewithout any trial for as long as he wished, even if theyhad committed no crime.
When the noblemen met with King John in 1215, theybrought many armed men with them. Then he realized howmuch power they had, so he signed a new compact withthem. It was called "Magna Carta", or " The GreatCharter". In it the King promised to stop doing thosethings which they said were not fair, and to establishnew laws to protect their properties. The new compactstated the rights of the noblemen which the King had torespect. After he had signed Magna Carta, they agreed toobey him again.
This was the first time in English history that theking's power to rule as he wished was limited by lawsforced on him by the power of his subjects.
13 I9
In the years since 1215, whenever a new king orqueen has come to rule England, he or she has promised torespect the rights given to their subjects in MagnaCarta. Also judges in the English courts have used MagnaCarta to guide their decisions in cases which involveprivate property and the rights to a fair trial promisedfor people accused of a crime. In that way Magna Cartahas become part of English laws.
Later, in the 1600's, the English people had tostruggle against other kings to establish more rightswhich the king and his officials had to respect. Most ofthese were written into laws passed by Parliaments. AParliament is like the America Congress, withrepresentatives of voters meeting there to write lawswhich the king or queen and everyone else must obey. Manyof those laws about rights are now in our America Bill ofRights.
Suggestions for discussion:
What made King John realize he had to sign a newcompact with the noblemen ? Why did they seem so powerfulto him that he had to agree to limit his authority torule as he wished? Can you think of similar situationstoday - in the news, in your family, in the workplace?
- What rights of the noblemen did the king agree torespect in Magna Carta?
What responsibilities did King John agree to? Whatresponsibilities did the noblemen agree to ?
- Can you think of other countries in which the rightsof people are written into laws that their governmentmust obey? Can you think of countries where thegovernment has the power to do as it wishes, or where thelaws set no limits on what government officials can do topeople?
Writing activities
- Here are some phrases from Magna Carta which arestill used today. Can the student write them in his/herown words and tell what they mean ?
* "To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny ordelay right or justice."
* "No man shall be imprisoned ... except by thejudgement of his peers or by the law of the land."
* "Every man's house is his castle which none mayenter except by his leave, or by the lawful means."
On TV or in the newspaper has the student seenincidents which show rights of people that governmentofficials must respect? An account of a trial in anewspaper, for example, could be used as a topic forwriting about the right to a fair hearing.
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DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - 1776 - THE UNITED STATES OFAMERICA
Language Development Activities
- Review basic words and concepts listed on p.
- Review the main ideas in Magna Carta:* People may protest when they believe thegovernment does not treat them fairly.
* The government must obey the laws of theland, especially when its officials take awaya person's property, or life, or put a personin prison.
* Responsibilities go with rights.
- If suggested writing activities were done, a
review may include:
student's definition of each new word
* a discussion of specific rights for peopledescribed in the phrases from Magna Carta
- New wordscolonies - colonist, colonial, to colonizeDeclaration - to declare, declarativeIndependence - independent, depend, dependent
Shared reading
(Many excellent books on the period of the AmericanRevolution are available, and may be used with thissection. Especially biographies of George Washington,Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madisonare full of interest.
For adults with low reading skills, a Tutor maytape a short book. Then have the student listen to thetape as he/she follows the text.)
During the 1760's the English people who lived inthe American Colonies believed the King (George III) andthe Parliament in London were not respecting the rightswhich had been given to them by laws and by traditionswhich went back to Magna Carta. For examples:
16 22
* the government forced them to pay new taxes onitems like tea and sugar, but the colonists had norepresentatives in Parliament who could vote onthose taxes. When people did not pay the taxes,the King's officials took their land and all theirpossessions.
* The King gave permission to his officials tobreak into any person's home or store and take awaymoney, papers, possessions, or property wheneverthey suspected the person was not obeying theking's laws.
* The King moved his courts from the colonies backto England. Then anyone accused of crime, or notpaying the king's taxes, had to go across theAtlantic Ocean to London for a trial.
Finally, in 1776 many colonists were so angry aboutthese and other abuses of power by the King and hisofficials, a group of them decided to protest bydeclaring the colonies should be independent of England.They believed they could create their own nation, andwrite a plan for governing it without a King or aParliament like those in England.
They rejected the idea that the authority to rulewas given by God to a king. Instead, they said thatpeople who live in a nation have the right to createtheir own government. They believed when a majority ofthe citizens give their consent to a government, thatgives it the authority it needs to govern. They said thepurpose of government is to protect the rights of all thepeople. If a government does not protect them, then thecitizens have the right to change it. In 1776 those ideasabout authority and government were altogether new, andhad never been tried before anywhere in the world.
Thomas Jefferson and other leaders of the movementfor independence believed they had a responsibility toexplain the reasons why people in the colonies wanted todeclare their independence from England even if it meantgoing to war. They drew up a long list of ways the Kingof England had abused the rights of the colonists, andthen set out their new ideas about government, authorityand rights. Thomas Jefferson put all that together in theDeclaration of Independence, and it was accepted by amajority of the delegates in the Second Continental
17
2 3
Congress. Those delegates were chosen in each of the 13colonies, and together they voted on July 4, 1776, "TheseUnited Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free andIndependent States."
The Preamble (opening sentences) of the Declarationset out the new ideas about what the rights of all peopleare:
"all men are created equal, and ... are endowed(given) by their Creator with certain inalienableRights (rights which no power on earth can takeaway), and among these are Life, Liberty andProperty." (Jefferson later changed "property" to"pursuit of happiness".)
Jefferson and the others who wrote the Declaration wenton to say, "to secure these Rights, governments areinstituted (put in place) by Men, deriving their justpowers from the consent of the governed."
They wrote down a long list of ways the King ofEngland had abused the rights of the colonists, and saidthese proved the King had failed to protect the rights ofthe people. Therefore, they said, the colonists had theright to change their government.
The Declaration of Independence led to a war withEngland which lasted from 1776 to 1781. When it endedwith the victory of the American Army under GeneralGeorge Washington at Yorktown in Virginia, the 13 Englishcolonies became 13 independent states.
Follow-up discussion
Review the rights stated in the Declaration. Do youthink they are important for people to have? Why? How doyou feel about your life, liberty and property? Shouldthe government have to follow careful rules written intolaw before taking any of those away from you?
What do you think "pursuit of happiness" means?
Are there other rights you would like to haveprotected from government officials by laws they had toobey?
ESL - what rights for people are protected by laws
18
2 4
in the homeland?
Do you think Jefferson was thinking about anyspecial responsibilities?
Homework suggested
Can the student put the main ideas in theDeclaration of Independence into his/her own words?
Ask student to write about Jefferson's idea that allpeople are created equal.
ESL is government and society in the homelandbased on that idea?
Has student ever felt like protesting something thatthe government is doing? Or what a government officialhas done to you or a friend? How would the student dothat?
Jefferson said people should be able to change theirgovernment if the majority believes it is not using itspowers to protect the rights of the people. How canAmericans do that?
ESL can people in the homeland make changes intheir government by peaceful, non-violent means?
19 25
RIGHTS FOR PEOPLE IN THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THEFIRST THIRTEEN STATES
This Section offers many parallels to what ishappening in the former USSR. Newspaper articles andcurrent magazines can be used to stimulate discussion,vocabulary-building, reading and writing. The firstthirteen states are on the list of states on p.173in theAppendix. They are set apart by a ****.
Language Development Activities
- Review new words added to the student's vocabu-lary and writing activities.
Review main ideas from the Reading ofDeclaration of Independence, and discuss connectionsmain ideas in Magna Carta.
New words:
Articles
Confederation
constitution constitutional, constitute
convention convene
denied to deny, denial
Shared Reading
As soon as independence from England wasdeclared in 1776, each colony declared itself to be anindependent state, no longer a part of England. Then thecitizens in each state did what the Declartation toldthem they had the right to do: they create0 their owngovernment. Those who could vote (the white men over 21years of age who owned land) chose representatives to aState Convention (meeting) to draw up a Plan of Govern-ment for their state. That document became their StateConstitution. Besides being a plan for governing theirstate, each Constitution included a list of the people'srights - a Bill of Rights - which the government of thatstate had to respect. Most of these were included in theBill of Rights added to the federal Constitution in 1791.See the following chart of Rights in the State Constitu-
tions which became part of the first ten Amendments.
At this point the tutor and student may want to"brainstorm" what it would be like to write a plan forgoverning a state:
*Develop a list of what government doesand/or should do. Then divide thefunctions into:
making lawshaving officials carry out, orenforce, the lawsdeciding whether laws have beenbroken, resolving disputes betweenpeople, deciding whether or not alaw is constitutional, and decidingwhether or not the government hasdeprived a person of a legal right.
* Discuss what rights or protections forpeople should be in A Bill of Rights.
- The new states found there were some things theycould not do by themselves, so they agreed to do themtogether by signing a compact called the Articles ofConfederation. Nothing was said about rights of thepeople in the Articles because everyone thought eachstate's Bill of Rights would protect them.
* The tutor and student could discusswhat things states do together, suchas fighting a war against a commonenemy, working out disputes aboutboundaries, or trading with each other.
This was a time of trial and error for the newstates. The state constitutions worked pretty well forthe people in each state. The joint government set up bythe Articles of Confederation, however, did not. Moreand more disputes and problems between the statesdeveloped, so several leaders decided to try again toform a better plan for a national government. They metin Philadelpia in the summer of 1787, and in four monthsthey succeeded in writing out a Constitution for theUnited States of America.
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from Bernard Schwartz, THE GREAT RIGHTS OF MANKIND:
A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN BILL OF RIGHTS, Oxford
University P,-ess, New York, 1977, 'DR 86
- 89. 31
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A CONSTITUTION FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Review the idea in the Declaration that governmentscould be organized by people to do what a person, or astate, could not do alone. The Americans believed thatthe authority to do that came from "the Creator", andthat the purpose of government was to protect - by laws,and by carrying out in an orderly way the functions ofgovernment the rights which "the Creator" gave tothe people.
Shared_readinq and discussing
When the leaders in several states decided they hadto change the Articles of Confederation, they callcd aconvention. Twelve of the thirteen states sent represen-tatives fifty-five men in all. They met in Philadelphi-,from May to September, 1787. Ceneral George Washingtonwas elected Chairman of the convention.
The Constitution is their plan for a federalgovernment. The Preamble gives their reasons for writinga new plan, and what they believed it would accomplish.(See story map on p. and discuss what the six purposesmean.)
There are seven Articles in the Constitution (If thetutor and student decide to examine each Article, thereare many books explaining them in simple language.)Important for our theme of rights and responsibilitiesare the following:
Article I, Sec. 8 This is a list of powers todo certain things which the states found they couldnot do by themselves, so they gave the nationalqovernment the authority to do them. (These arespecific and are interesting to discuss and to applyto what the student knows government does forhim/her.)
Each state kept all other powers, such as thoseneeded for the health and safety of the people inthat state. Those are the responsibilities of eachof the states.
Article IV This tells what the national, orfederal, government rust do for the states itsresponsibilities. It also tells what the states
243
must do for each other their responsibilities.
Article V. This sets out an orderly pr.-)cedurefor changing the Constitution, telling how it may be
amended, or changed.
Article VII This explains that the states hadto agree, or ratify, the Constitution. Like acontract, people had to agree to what was proposed.
By their agreement, they promised to live by theConstitution; they accepted the nationalgovernment that would be set up.
People in the new states were very fearful ofgiving too much power to any government. Theythought officials would abuse power and becometyrants (as hei sone kings of England) , or wouldrfuse to protect the people's rights to life,liberty and property, or would become corrupt (take
the taxpayers' money for themselves).
The men who wrote the new Constitution believedthey had some solutions to those fears.
* For one thing, they divided powers, responsi-bilities and functions among 3 separatebranches of the federal government:
the legislature to make laws (Article I)
the executive to appoint officials whowill put the laws intoeffect, and make surepeople do what the lawssay (Article II)
the judiciary the courts, to applylaws to specific cases,decide what a law means,resolve differencesbetween people, decidewhether laws have beenbroken and how to punishlaw breakers. (ArticleIII)
* They also divided powers, responsibili-ties and functions between the federal(national) government and the states.
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* However, they did not write a Bill ofRights because they believed each statealready protected its people from abusesof power by government in the state's Billof Rights.
When several of the states voted to ratify theConstitution, they said they would agree to it only if afederal Bill of Rights was added. So when the firstCongress elected under the new Constitution met in 1789,James Madison, Congressman from Virginia, presented adraft of a Bill of Rights. It was debated by the menin Congress, and when they had agreed on twelveAmendments, President Washington sent those to thestates to be ratified. The state legislatures agreed toten of them, and in 1791 these were added to the U.S.Constitution as the first ten Amendments. They tell whatare rights of people which officials of theU.S.government must respect, and what the officialsmust do to be fair. These are both the rights of peopleand the responsibilities of government officials.
Although the Constitution does not specifically tellwhat are the responsibilities of citizens, these wereunderstood to include obeying the laws, taking care ofone's property, helping out in one's community, payingtaxes, and voting if a person was qualified.
Writing Activities
The student may write about responsibilities at home,in the family, or on the job.
The student may write "a constitution" for people inhis/her household.
ESL - Is there a constitution in the homeland?
26
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STORY MAP - WHAT THE CONSTITUTION DOES
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from a Tutor's Journal
Refer to the Story Map
THE PREAMBLEU.S. Constitution
We the people of the United States, in order to forma more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestictranquility, provide for the common defense, promote thegeneral welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty toourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish thisConstitution for the United States of America.
Because the preamble contains solely abstractconcepts, this lesson will use a dictionary in thestudent's native language that has the English equiva-lents.
The tutor and the student, using the written-outPreamble and the mapping of the Preamble, define theabstract concepts by translating their words into his/herown language. These words are underlined above.
One of the problems I ran into with my student wasa difficulty approaching this document, because there wasno equivalent in her experience. This exercise, whichtook about one hour, established a fundamental under-standing of the purpose of the Constitution.
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AMENDMENT I
Congress shall make no law respectingan establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging thefreedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and topetition the government for redress of grievances.
AMENDMENT II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary tothe security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
AMENDMENT III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be 9.-ortered inany house without the consent of the Ou neX', nor in time
of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by .aw.
AMENDMENT IV
The right of people to be secure in their persons,houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not beviolated, and no warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supportM Iry Oath oraffirmation, and parlic-vlarly
describing the place to be seart-hed and thepersons or things to be seized.
AMENDMENT V
No person shall be held to answer for a capii-41,or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presetil merit or
indictment of a Grand Jury, excert in citScsarising in the land or naval forces, or Sr.
when in actual service in time, 4)1... war orpublic danger; nor shall any person 4:5 ect.for the
same offense to be twice put in jeopa rdy oflife or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case
to be a witness against himself, nor bedeprived of life, liberty or property, without due process
of law; nor shall private property betaken for public use, without just compensation.
AMENDMENT VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the actuse &shall enjoythe right to a speedy and pubf-le
by an impartial jury ofthe State and diXtrict whereinthe crime shall have been committed,
which district shall have been previously ascertained bylaw, and to be informed of the nature
and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with thewitnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to havethe Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
TheBill ofRights
AMENDMENT VII
In Suits at common law, where the valuein controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right
ttf trial by jury sisal! be preserved,and no.fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise
re-examined in any Court of theUnited Stares, than according to the rules of
the common law.
2937
AMENDMENT VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, norexcessive,fines imposed, nor cruel and unutual
punishments inflicted.
AMENDMENT IX
The enumeration in the Constitution,of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.
AMENDMENT X
The powers not delegated to the United Statesby the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are reserved to the Statesrespectively, or to the people.
r's 111.1k, pi is A qri
Rights and ResponsibilitiesHere and Now
MY RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES HERE AND NOW
Introduction
A tutor and student may decide to study particularrights and responsibilities, rather than beginning thetopic with materials in the Historical Section. Thefollowing Section includes the first ten Amendments tothe U.S. Constitution, Amendments 13th and 14th, and thevoting Rights Amendments, which are the 15th, 19th, and26th.
StrategiesFor this study, it is recommended that a folder be
set up for each Amendment. The folder, or "book", willcontain resources and learning activities related to theAmendment. Work may include:
* exercises which develop or reinforce languageskills, such as vocabulary words, practicesentences, and definitions in the student's ownwords;
* examples of readings, visuals, or story maps whichdemonstrate the Amendment in action and any relatedresponsibilities;
* the student's written journal which may describethe right(s) guaranteed in the Amendment and tellpersonal experiences related to the right(s). Forexample, did the student ever experience situationsin which a particular right was not respected orprotected? Or how does the student feel whenhearing that a right has been denied to someoneelse? Or has a student experienced a time whenrights were protected?
* A written follow-up to the community site visitedby the tutor and student. This could consist of adescription of the place visited, and summary ofdiscussion about particular rights andresponsibilities applied there.
One tutor found this writing assignment wasbeyond the skills of her student, but he had a lotto say after each visit, so they taped his thoughtsand their discussion. Then she transcribed it andthey read it together, listening to his tape as hefollowed the words.
Also recommended is a vocabulary box with each newword and its definition listed on a separate card.
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39
This is helpful for vocabulary-building and it becomesthe student's own glossary. For ESL students a soundbox may be useful for pronunciation. Here new wordsare entered under "sound families". Both are effectivetools for developing language skills.
Concepts
If the study begins with the Amendments, here are somebasic words and phrases to know :
amendment protect - protectionsConstitution public officialsBill of Rights responsibilitiesguarantee representative democracylaws (federal,state,local) respectlimited by laws rights of all people
(civil rights)power or authority rights of people accused of
of government a crime
Some basic information to know would include :
The three levels of government : federal (ornational)
statelocal (town, city,
county)- The three branches of governments and what each onedoes :
* legislature - the representatives electedby the voters write and passthe laws.
* executive the elected and appointedofficials of the governmentwho are responsible formaking sure the laws arefollowed.
* judiciary the courts - apply the lawsto specific cases to settledisputes, or decide whether alaw has been broken, orwhether a law contradicts theConstitution.
This system of dividing the functions of governmentbetween three branches which check and balance each otheris very difficult for many foreign students tounderstand, especially when they come from countrieswhere there is no separation of powers. Following is a
recommendation from an experienced ESL tutor which mayenable a student to understand some reasons for theAmerican system.
The concept of a government in which the threeseparate branches can and do limit and also supporteach other is based on a firm conviction that givingone person (an official of the government) power, orauthority, over other people usually leads to abuse ofthat power - to "tyranny", as Jefferson put it. Actingon that conviction, the men who wrote the Constitutionspread the powers and functions of government betweenseveral different branches. Each one of them hasresponsibilities, and the powers to carry them outthat are limited to specific functions. All of themshare the responsibility for seeing that the otherbranches do not go beyond the limits assigned to eachby law. No one person or branch of government, the menwho wrote the Constitution believed, can be trustedwith power that is not checked by the other branches.
The tutor should spend effort and time on both theconcept of checks and balances and the convictionabout human fallibility behind it. Undoubtedly thestudent's experience will provide examples of "wrongs"done by government officials, as will the tutor's.Once a list of "wrongs" is established then the tutorand student can explore ways in the system which maylead to correction. Reaching that point, then thetutor should develop the student's understanding thatthe citizen's highest responsibility is to be analert, informed participant, actively involved withefforts to use the system set up by the Constitutionto defend rights for all people.
Basic information about American Constitutions wouldinclude :
- The Constitution of the United States and itsAmendments are our fundamental law. Each state has itsown Constitution with Amendments, but it applies onlyto the people in that state; and it may not contradictthe Constitution of the United States.- Each state also has its own Bill of Rights as partof its Constitution. A state may always give itspeople more rights, or protections, than the Bill ofRights in the U.S. Constitution. It can never givefewer, however, nor can any state weaken or deny by
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41
its laws the rights and protections which areguaranteed to people by the U.S. Constitution.
(An example of giving more rights: there is noright to a free public education in the U.S.Constitution, but many states have included that intheir state Bill of Rights.)
Community site visits
Visits by students and tutors to sites in thecommunity where specific rights can be seen in actionhave a significant role in developing an understandingabout the importance of the Bill of Rights for dailylife. For example, seeing how a newspaper editorpractices freedom of the press yet balances that freedomwith responsibility for publishing accurate informationwill bring abstract concepts in the 1st Amendment down tothe home town level. Likewise, observing trials, talkingwith a judge, or visiting the Police Department will makestudents and tutors alike recognize the complexities andthe benefits of applying protections in the 4th, 5th, 6thand 8th Amendments for people suspected of illegalactivities. Adult students who are basic readers orimmigrants can grasp the practical applications of theBill of Rights through such first-hand experiences. Theimportance of careful preparation, however, and ofthoughtful follow-up can hardly be over-emphasized. Theseare the tutor's job. Here are some suggestions which mayhelp.
Making arrangements* Visits and interviews may be planned for just onetutor-student team or for a group. Generally,however, having several students and tutors takepart together makes for more lively discussion, andalso makes the students feel more secure.* A tutor should visit the site first and interviewthe staff person who will talk with the student(s).At this time the tutor can tell the staff person atwhat level the student(s) read or understandEnglish. The tutor should also explain the specificpurposes of the visit, such as which of theAmendments is being studied, so there is a clearfocus for the visit when the tutor and students(s)are there together. If handouts will be given atthe time of the student visit, copies of theseshould be obtained. They are an important part ofpreparation for the students(s).* Written confirmation of the arrangements is
33
advisable, reviewing the date, time, place to meetat the site, names, etc.* See under each Amendment suggestions for relevantsites and people in a community to interview.
- Preparation for student(s)-During lessons beforethe visit:* Be sure the date, time and place of the sitevisit are clear.* Arrange transportation if needed or agree on aplace to meet so tutor and student(s) may gotogether.* Exchange phone numbers in case of a last-minutechange of plans.* Explain what will be seen at the site, and whowill talk with you.* Remind the student what right(s) are beingexercised at the site, review the appropriateAmendments, and discuss related responsibilities.* Have the student think about and practice withthe tutor at least one question to ask the staffperson to be interviewed at the site.
- At the site with the student(s)* Introduce each person by name, or have name tags.* If a group includes ESL students, advise thepresenters at the site to speak slowly and to checkfrom time to time to determine whether theinformation is being understood. If the speakertalks too rapidly or the vocabulary is toocomplicated, the tutor may interrupt and go overthe material slowly and simply.* Be sure to allow plenty of opportunity fordiscussion, and for the student(s) to ask theirprepared questions.
- Follow-up activities* Have the student write a description of the sitevisited, especially telling what right(s) andresponsibilities he/she learned about. Rememberif this is beyond the writing skills of a student,tape record a discussion about the visit betweentutor and student. The tutor can transcribe thatand use it for subsequent reading lessons.
34 4 3
* As clippings, articles and student writings onthe rights and responsibilities related to eachAmendment are gathered by the student and tutor,these may be filed in the appropriate folder. Thatwill be a file to show the student's progress withlanguage development. It will also be an on-goingsource of additional information relating to eachAmendment which will reinforce what was learned.
See following Story Map/Flow.Chart of a Community Site Visit.
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44
STORY MAP -- COMMUNITY SITE VISITS
PREPARATION
DiscussTopic
Materials
ArrangeLme, Trave
etc.
FOLLOWUPACTIVITIES
Discuss
WrittenSummary(Journal)
StudentResponse
36 45
The First Amendment
46
TheFIRST
AMENDMENTguarantees:
freedomof
religion
freedomto assemble
37 4 7
\freedomto petitionthe governmentfor redress
ofgrievances
freedomof speech
thepress
THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercisethereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of thepress, or the right of the people peaceably to assembleand to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Language Development Activities
Tutor and student will read through the Amendmenttogether underlining unfamiliar words and words used inan unusual way. For example, the word "shall" in thiscontext is used as a command. Also, the word "exercise"in the context of rights should be discussed.
Using a dictionary and discussion, have the studentwork out a definition for each word, adding it to thestudent's vocabulary box. Each new word may also bediscussed in the context of its "word family," forexample: respecting, respect, respectful, respective.
ESL students may need help with pronunciation. Theycan be encouraged to add new words to their sound box aswell as to their vocabulary box.
Using a story map or visuals, separate the rightsgiven in the Amendment. Then ask the student to tell inhis/her own words what each one means. Can the studentgive examples? These will stimulate discussion, espe-cially if the tutor can show some examples from thenewspaper or articles.
Discussion/Writing activities
Encourage the student to write several sentencesabout each of the rights.
Which of the First Amendment rights is allowed inthe student's own family? on the job? If some are notallowed, who made the rule prohibiting them? Who enforcesit? What is the reason for the rule?
For ESL students - which of the rights is allowed inthe homeland? Or which is prohibited? Who made the lawsgiving or denying these rights? Who enforces them?
What responsibilities do people have when they
38
4 8
exercise each of the First Amendment rights? JusticeOliver Wendell Holmes said, "words are weapons. Speechhas to be responsible." For example, should a personshout "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire?or give away military secretF?
Shared Reading
- The words in the First Amendment state generalrights. Laws must be made to apply the rights to specificsituations. Then, if people in those situations believea law stops them from exercising a right promised to themin the Amendment, they may take their case to the U.S.Supreme Court. The nine Justices there must decidewhether the law protects that right or denies it. It isnot easy to decide these cases because often the right ofone group or person must be balanced against the right(s)of other groups or people.
- Everyone has to understand that the Bill of Rightsapplies only to the acts of public officials (thegovernment). It does not apply to what private organiza-tions or people do. Those who wrote the U.S. Constitutionand the Bill of Rights believed the first responsibilityof government was to protect the rights of people tolife, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.They were afraid that the Constitution had given so muchpower to the federal government, its officials would betempted to misuse it and abuse the rights of the people.Therefore, the first ten Amendments stated what specificrights and protection people had under the Constitution.The 1st Amendment protects the right of people to speakfreely, to have their own beliefs, to gather together,and to tell the government when they want change.
You Be a Judge
Suppose you are a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Howwould you decide these cases involving First Amendmentrights and responsibilities?
1. The Elders of a Church decide they do not want the youngpeople of their Church to go to public schools after the8th grade, when they are 13 or 14 years old. They saythey do not want them to be exposed to drugs in the highschool, and other things they believe are bad forteenagers. Also, they promise they will train their youngpeople at home to become good farmers, to follow the
teachings of their Church, and to be responsible citi-zens.
The state has a law which says all children mustattend school (either public or private) until they are16 years old. The state says it has the power to enforcethis law because it is responsible for the generalwelfare of its people, and educating teenagers in schoolswill train them to be good citizens.
The Church Elders say that law denies their freedomof religion.
(Case of Yoder v. Wisconsin)
2. The police go into a newspaper office, arrest the editor,and take away the keys to the newspaper presses. They saythe editor printed articles in the paper which criticizedin very strong words the governor and other publicofficials. As a result, many people were upset and wouldno longer trust or obey the governor and his officials.
The editor says the facts he printed about thegovernor in the newspaper are true. He argues thatalthough the officials did not like what he wrote andwere having a hard time calming people down, they shouldnot have closed down the newspaper. That denied his rightto print what he believed.
(Trial of John Peter Zenger)
3. How do you feel about letting a person burn the Americanflag?
A student set a flag on fire on the steps of acourthouse. He said he was doing that to show hisopposition to the government's decision to go to war, andhe was protected by his rights to free speech (or freedomto express his ideas).
The State of Texas had a law which made it a crimeto destroy an American flag. Many people believed thepolice should have arrested the man for disrespect towardour national flag. Besides, they said they, too, have aright to their opinion which ought to be protected by thegovernment. (case of Texas v. Johnson)
Suggestions for homework
- Homework may be written, taped, or thought about fordiscussion at the next tutoring session.
40
50
Write sentences using each of the new words.Are people who practice no religion protected by the1st Amendment? What do you think?What you think about burning the flag? Is this whatfree speech means?
- Think about some limits on our freedom to exercisereligious beliefs. Does that mean the government shouldnever interfere ? For example, one religious grouppreaches that God gives some people special power tohandle poisonous snakes and that handling the snakes istheir religious duty. Should the government pass a lawto stop them to protect their health and safety?ESL - Write about any of the freedoms in the FirstAmendment that are allowed in your country.
Community-based Activity
- The success of this experience depends on carefulplanning and preparation, but it is worth the effort tohelp the student understand the community better and seeits public agencies in a positive way. See pages forsuggestions about making arrangements, preparing studentsand follow-up activities. A story map of the process isincluded.
- Suggested sites to visit to show 1st Amendmentrights are:
* newspaper, TV or radio station
ment:
* places of worship. Invite the minister,priest or rabbi to explain beliefs, symbols,worship service and holy books, and todiscuss other religious groups or churchesin the community.
* public library
* town council. Arrange for a visit at a timewhen citizen petitions will be presented.Find out about the process for presentingthem and acting on them so these rules maybe explained to the student.
Suggested follow-up activities on the 1st Amend-
* have the student write a description of thesite visited, especially telling whatright (s) and responsibilities he/she learned
41
5 1
about.
* In the student journal write about thistopic: if you sent a petition to the towncouncil to ask for some improvement in thecommunity, what would you say?
* Write a "Letter to the Editor" of the localnewspaper. Tell about something you like inthe community, or something that should bechanged.
* ESL students may write about, or discuss,free speech, free press, freedom to exercisereligious beliefs, and the right to petitionthe government in their homeland, comparingthese with those rights in the UnitedStates.
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES
* A topic for writing or discussing: TheConstitution has guaranteed freedoms, orrights, in the 1st amendment. What areresponsibilities which balance those?
* Using the following words, write about theresponsibilities which match each freedomprotected by the 1st Amendment:
tolerance for differencesrespectinformedbeliefopinionpetition
SAMPLES of STUDENT WRITING
Czechoslovakia before the reform
The Czechoslovakia was before socialist state. Thissystem was for people of society wrong, because theeconomy and the standard of life increase slowly.
Head of state was communist party - it was socialistgovernment. The constitution prohibited :
- freedom of religion. Everyone who was a member of thecommunist party could not admit to a religion.- freedom of speech. The people could not speak theirown opinion.They couldn't travel in capitalist statesbecause would compare a better system with their system.- freedom of the press. The government censored the pressbecause it could show another way different from that ofthe communist party.- freedom of assembly. The people could not have ameeting for their rights, because the government knew,that the power would come from the people.
How did the absence of that freedom, affect you in yourdaily experience at school, at home, at work?
When everyone speaks freely and expresses his ideas,and works freely, think this is appropriate. If there wasnot freedom of speech, my life would have been unbear-able, because I could not live according to conscience.My work was not interesting because the state regulatedthe all rule and the salary of every person, who workedat all companies. I worked in economic department of anagriculture company. I planed budget for material,machine, upkeep and working buildings.I took care upkeepbuildings and services for employees (board, car-drivers,charwomen).
free.Everyone can live happy only in a society that is
43
53
freedoms in China
freedom of speech (in 1966-1976)
In China i would not say true things like :
China is not rich,the government is not good.
(It is better now. but when the students at TienamenSquare assembled in 1989 the government arrested some ofstudents)
freedom of pressI would not be able to buy a paper or a magazine
that the government did not print. We would only buythese in a bookstore.
freedom of religionPeople can not go to a church. All of the places of
religion were closed.
right to assemblethe newspaper told the people that they could not
get together in Big groups it was like a law.In American we have the freedom to do all this things.
In China the people want freedom of speech, freedom ofspeech is important for us.
Freedom of speech is most important because is thepeople expressing ones thoughts by speech and noteveryone has the same thoughts. We can learn from otherpeople speaking and they can learn from us.
44 5 4
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FROM A TUTOR'S JOURNAL
Discussion on the 1st Amendment separation of churchand state. The incident referred to is a case in thisstate which is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Apublic school student has brought suit against the schoolboard and the principal of her school for inviting alocal Rabbi to give the invocation at the graduationceremony.
October 21, 1991
Visited the Dunn's Corner Church with Richard.Rev.James Glenn posed an incident where one graduatingstudent did not wish to hear an invocation (prayer) ather graduation ceremonies. Should the other 200 studentsbe deprived of an invocation because of that one person'srights? What about their rights? While we did not come upwith a solution, we discussed the rights of the minoritywhich is exactly what the Bill of Rights is supposed toprotect.
October 25,In a telephone discussion with Richard today, he has
a solution. Let the one girl be given her diploma first.She then has a choice: Let her leave the hall while theinvocation is given. She may then return to the hall towatch her classmates receive their diplomas. She wouldstill be present to join in subsequent festivities. Or,she could choose to leave after receiving her diploma. Wetalked about this solution on the phone. While it has itsdisadvantages. We decided it would be a win/win situationwhich is always the best of solutions. Situations whereeveryone loses are undesirable. Compromise is always thebest choice because everyone wins a little something.
FROM A TUTOR'S JOURNAL
Community site visit for seeing 1st Amendment rights in action* freedom to speak
* freedom to assemble
* freedom to petition the government
13. August 1991 - Town Council Meeting
Maria and I arrived in the Meeting Room at 6:45 pm.We chose seats near the front. It was a fine opportunityto describe the process and to answer Maria's questionssince we were early. We reviewed the agenda. Maria usedher dictionary throughout. The invocation and the Pledgeof Allegiance impressed her. The citizens' commentsregarding the Pond View Rd problem were of considerableinterest. The freedom of speech and right to assemble areso well demonstrated in this situation! Town governmentis an appropriate presentation for the Bill of Rightsproject to observe since it is unrehearsed, spontaneousand entertaining.
48 58
TUTOR JOURNAL - LESSON ON THE 1st AMENDMENT RIGHT TO PETITION
The material used was for Basic Reading and Comprehension.
The lesson began by my reading the title and first paragraph of thearticle. Ning followed the words as I read. We used the dictionaryfor words that Ning did not understand. He then wrote the words onpaper, along with a simple definition in his own words.
We then went through the paragraph for pronunciation. Ning repeatedthe words he did not know until he was able to say them freely. The wordswe discussed are underlined.
Next we discussed what the reporter was explaining in the article, andwhat it told us about government in this town. We also discussed howimportant is the right to petition and to have a referendum for citizenswho want to suggest changes in town government. Ning said that wouldnever happen in China.
We talked about how to register to vote and what are the rights andresponsibilities of voters in the United States.
Mayoralquestionmovingforward
Hy GREX; tHARNAJ4Sun Staff Writer
WESTERLY A citizen's
((E
Idyou_sommilWe has beguniNxiside' chan esinttiLTo.,
w , nu- , i roOEM: a maxn1 form of towngovenimenC
Three members of the Advis-
...
sigy Cbandtgr Bevision Comm-jgo said Tuesday tiwy iFEETToApo; on the mayoral firm in-61-. to meet the deadline for aspecial ngerouhun on whetherthe rOwn thotild change Hsgovernment
According to CommissionCbairrnan Robert L. Turco, theTown Council plans to call for aspring referendum as the resultof a Relition.signed by some 400
.. reigdents.
is
49
The petitioners want voters toanswex-- e gthie-sh-oli7grUairlo etown institute a mayoralgovernment?"
The council had hoped to attachthe question to the March 10 pres-idential primary ballot, however,the Secretary of State's office hasSaid that would be impossible.
Turco said councilors haveinformed him they now hope Socondu the referendum in June.
ince there a referen-dum," said Commission Secret-ary Eugene McKenna, "Itbehooves us to say, if there willbe a mayor form of government,this is what you should do."
But commissioners Mary JaneDiMaio and William J. Wholeandisagreed, saying the commis-sion should explore other optionsas well.
Wholean said there appears tobe no serious problem withcurrent council/manager form ogovernment and the comnussriiiiishould not encourage one formover another. He said thecommission might also considera government that includes aN mayor and a manager.
.
59
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a. An organization of people that rulea country
b. Freedom to choose or do
c. Liberty
d. A written plan of government5. Independence e. Rules that are legal6. Constitution f. Duty to others7. Government g. A system of faith in God8. Laws h. A group of people with the same interests9. Religion i. Belongs to you - due you10. Press j. Jobs you need to do11. Assembly k. A group of people living in a new land12. Community 1. Freely willing to help13. Duties m. The newspaper, any printed news14. Volunteer n. Do as you are told to do15. History o. Getting together to talk16. Resist p. Story of the past17. Colonists q. Practice, or use18. Grievances r. Stop or prevent19. Obey s. An addition or change for the better20. Exercise t. Not fair, wrong21. Injustice U. Complaints
50 6
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The Second Amendment
SECOND AMENDMENT
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to thesecurity of a free state, the right of the people to keepand bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Language Development Activities
- Read through the Amendment underlining new words.Through dictionary and discussion have the student workout a definition of each one in his/her own words. Add tothe vocabulary box.
* Review use of "shall" as a command.
- Read through the Amendment for pronunciation, repeat-ing unfamiliar sounds and mispronounced syllables. Thesemay be added to the sound box.- Ask the student to use the new words in two or threesentences, either spoken or written as homework.- Extend vocabulary through related words:
* bear - to bear, bornbare, barely
* infringe - infringement, fringeprefix "in" - insecure, intolerant,inexpensive
* keep - keeper, keeping, kept* militia - military
"citizen-soldier" as opposed to profes-sional soldier
* necessary - necessity, need, unnecessary, unneces-sarily
* regulated - to regulate, regulation, regular,deregulate, irregular
* security - to secure, to make secure, securedto defend, defense, defendedto protect, protection, protected
* What is meant by "arms" here? Give some examples.
Shared Readina(Looking at a map of the United States will help
with understanding this section)The 2nd Amendment was added to the Bill of Rights
for national defense. In 1791 the United States was abrand new nation. The 13 states were stretched along thecoast of the Atlantic Ocean from Maine (which was thenpart of Massachusetts) to the border between Georgia andFlorida - about 1400 miles. To the west several of the
states claimed land as far as the Mississippi River, butthose borders were not clear. In fact, in some placesmore than one state claimed the same land, and the earlysettlers fought with each other over it as well as withthe Indians who also claimed it.
The territories surrounding the 13 states wereclaimed by the most powerful nations of Europe. TheSpanish were established in Florida and in the territoryalong the Gulf of Mexico as far as the Mississippi River(where New Orleans is today). Spain also claimed all theland between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, ahuge territory called Spanish Louisiana. Tne Frenchclaimed parts of those western territories to.J, and alsoparts of Canada to the north of the United States (QuebecProvince today). But by far the most threatening to thenew United States was its old enemy England.
All three European nations had large, permanentarmies made up of full time professional soldiers. Thosemen were well prepared for certain kinds of fighting.Also, they were well armed by their king, trained tofollow his orders exactly and paid to fight for himanywhere he sent them. And each of the European rulerswanted to own as much as he could win of the vastterritory in what was called "The New World."
The English army had very nearly defeated theAmerican army under General George Washington. TheAmerican army had very few professional soldiers.Instead, because the new states had very little money,the Americans put together an army of citizen-soldiers tofight for their independence from England. These men hadvery little training for fighting together as an army,but they all had their own guns and plenty of practiceusing them. Most of them had depended on hunting for foodfor their families since they were big to enough carry agun, and many had fought against the Indians for years.They were excellent marksmen and they were used to a hardlife in the woods and on their farms. Also, they werefighting to be rid of the hated English laws and theBritish soldiers who enforced them. It took the Americans6 years (1775 - 1781), but the English army was finallyout-fought by the citizen-soldiers and forced to surren-der.
After the Americans defeated the British, theConstitution gave the national government of the United
53 64
States responsibility for the defense of the new country(see Preamble to the Constitution). This is the jointresponsibility of the President, who is called the"Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the UnitedStates," and the Congress which votes the money for thearmed forces and writes the laws to regulate them.
When the Constitution was written, nearly everyAmerican believed a permanent, full time army was adangerous thing for a country to have. It could tooeasily be used by people with power to abuse the rightsof the citizens, as the King of England had done.Besides, full time, professional soldiers were expensive,and the new nation had very little money.
A citizens' army was the answer, and it had alreadyworked against the most powerful army of Europe. Thepurpose of the 2nd Amendment was to make sure citizenswould be armed and ready to come to the defense of thenew nation whenever they were needed. Congress followedup the Amendment with the Militia Act of 1792. Accordingto that law, "Every free able-bodied white male citizen"was required to "enroll in the militia for training angsactive service in case of need." Furthermore, when htreported for service or training, each man was requiredto bring a rifle or a musket and ammunition. Training formilitia duty was done in each local village or town. Ittook only a few hours every month of a man's time. Themilitia men worked most of their time as farmers, shop-keepers or craftsmen.
All 13 states had these militia - or organizedgroups of armed citizens - and each state had its ownrules for training and using them. The militiamen weremeant to protect the borders of their own state in theevent of an attack. They could also be used to fight offraids by hostile Indian tribes, and even to restore orderamong Americans if they began to fight each other.
In addition, they could be called to the service ofthe United States by the President in order to help withthe defense of the nation. For example, President JamesMonroe called out the state militias in 1812 when theBritish army attacked from Canada and marched intoWashington, D.C., from Chesapeake Bay. And PresidentLincoln called the militias of the northern states intonational service during the Civil War.
There are still state militia companies. But now theorganization of citizens who train part-time to help withnational defense is the National Guard. Since it is "awell-regulated militia," there are no problems withapplying the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms tothose men and women. Our problems today come from usingthis 2nd Amendment right to allow any person to carry agun, even when the reason has nothing to do with nationaldefense. This raises a number of important questionsAmericans are debating now.
What Do You Think?
Re-read the Amendment for understanding and discus-sion. Ask the student to put into his/her own words firstwhat it meant in 1791, and then what he/she thinks itought to say for today.
ESL - Are ordinary people allowed to have guns inthe student's homeland? What are some of the guncontrol laws in the homeland?
How many kinds of weapons besides guns can you thinkof?
How have guns changed since 1791? And weapons fornational defense?
What do you think "well-regulated" means in thisAmendment? Does this suggest that Congress shouldregulate guns as well as the militia - all guns, not justthose used by the militia?
Set up a debate between tutor and student, or work with an-other tutor-student team on the following activity:
* One side will write out all the reasons in favor ofstrict gun control laws. The other side will write outall the reasons in favor of "the right to bear arms."
* Next, each side will have a turn to explain his/herreasons while the opposing side listens.
* In the following round the two speakers will have aturn first to repeat each point made by the opposingspeaker, and then to respond to each one.
* After both sides have spoken, the participants mayvote on which points were the most persuasive and werepresented most effectively.
* Each participant is encouraged to take notes whilethe opposing side is speaking.
55 66
Olo V.R.-e. c') ci, \ovxf 4S S\ 1 rn S ?
- What reasons besides national defense would make aperson feel that having a gun is necessary. Look at chart"Who Keeps & Bears Arms." Would you add others?
- Is there a difference between use of a gun forpublic purposes and private ones? Can the student use agun? Does he/she own one? Why? Why not?
- Write out a gun control law for 1991.
Community Site Visit: suggested sites- local unit of the National Guard or State
Militia
5667
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES
Consider the responsibilities of having a gun.
If you own one, how do you keep it safe? What doyou use it for?
. If you have children in your house, do you need totake special precautions?
. Where do you keep ammunition?
. . How do you protect against accidents with yourgun?
- Each state, even each town, has its own gun controlregulations. Find out in your local police department,town hall, or library what the laws are where you live.Each citizen has the responsibility to know what thoseare and to obey them.
- Think about the phrase "Guns don't kill people.People kill people." Does it suggest other responsibili-ties beyond those of actually owning a gun?
. How safe do you feel, knowing that many people ownguns?
6857
SAMPLES OF STUDENT WRITING
Do own a gun or don't?
In the United States of America everyone has theright to own a gun. The people can own the guns, becausethey feel that guns protect their security. This is rightguaranteed by the second amendment of the U.S. Constitu-tion.
In Czechoslovakia people don't own guns. Ownershipthe guns is violation of the constitution of Czechoslova-kia. The guns are allocated only to the army and thepolice. These groups protect the security of all thepeople.
I think, that the law about the ownership of guns inCzechoslovakia is better, because some people use gunswrongfully. The freedom to own guns as provided by theU.S. Constitution can increase criminal.
My security was protected, because I knew, thatother people didn't own guns. This idea Terls my security.
In China no guns only the forces have them. no onehas guns in their house. sometimes groups of men fighteach other but they use clubs and long knives. I don'tknow any one that has a gun. My family never owned one.
Write 3 sentences about the use of guns in China1. The people can own guns but there is no store that
sells them.
2. only the Armed Forces own guns in China.3. A militia would not own guns. They have knives and
clubs only.
Write 3 sentences: why not own guns1. guns is too dangerous2. if the children getting the gun they don't know the
gun is dangerous. It can kill the people.3. Some one else finding the gun might use it on you.
58 69
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1st & 2nd Amendments - Matching Activity
matches
I. rifle I.
2. guilty
3. militia
4. defend
5. arrest
6. innocent
7. gun
8. criminal
9. steal
10. infringe
11. sentence
12. arms
13. federal
14. rob
15. crime
16. to amend
17. court
18. bear arms
19. recess
20. judge
a.a. to protect the people
b. the place where guilt or innocence is decided
c. to catch someone who has committed a crime
d. You did not do it!
e. to decide right or wrong, guilt or innocence
f. a group of local people who own guns andare trained to protect the people
g. Your fault. You did it !
h. to stop for a rest
i. a gun with a long barrel
j. a weapon that shoots to kill
k. different kinds of weapons
1. a person who has broken the laws
m. the punishment for a crime
n. to carry any kind of weapon
o. to take something that does not belong to you
p. to disturb the rights of others
q. national - not state or local
r. to steal
s. to fix or change for the better
t. an act which is against the law - a wrong
60
'71
The Privacy Amendments
72
THE THIRD AMENDMENT
No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered inany house, without the consent of the owner, nor in timeof war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Language Development Activities
Read through the Amendment underlining unfamiliarwords. Using a dictionary and discussion, have thestudent work out a definition of each new word. These maybe added to the vocabulary box and to the sound box forpronunciation
Use each newwritten or spoken.
word in 2 or 3 sentences, either
Extend vocabulary with related words:* consent - consenting, consensus
prefix "con" - congregate, conflict,core syllable "sent" - dissent,
assent, descent, ascent* manner - Synonym in this context is "in a way,"
"by a method," "according to rules in thelaw."
* prescribed - to prescribe, prescriptionprefix "pre" means "before" -pre-school,pre-pay, preparescribe - a writer, a public clerk.
* property - Discuss the differences between privateproperty and public property. Ask thestudent to give some examples of each.
* quartered - quarter, to quarter, quart. Synonymis "to billet."
Shared Reading and Discussion
The protection given to private homes in thisAmendment does not apply directly today. Americansoldiers now live in army barracks or naval quarters.Those are government property, and the government paysthe expenses of housing and feeding all the armed forceswherever they are.
That was not true before 1776. During the time theAmerican colonies belonged to England, any homeownercould be ordered by the King's army officers to providebeds and food for the British soldiers. How would you
61
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feel about that, especially in the winter, if your housewas already filled up with your wife and children, andyou had just enough food to feed your family?
As the king sent more and more soldiers to thecolonies to put down the agitation against unpopular lawssuch as the Stamp Act, the colonists became more and moreangry. According to the Quartering Act of 1765, it wasunlawful for any homeowner to refuse to have soldiersquartered in his home. If he did, he was put in jail, andthe soldiers moved into his house anyway. Furthermore,the hated soldiers never paid anything for their beds orthe food they ate.
The men who wrote the Bill of Rights in 1789 knewfrom first-hand experience how unfair that was. The 3rdAmendment was a guarantee to homeowners that the UnitedStates government would not use their private property asquarters for soldiers in times of peace. In the emergencyof a war, it could be done, but only if there was aspecial act of Congress, and the government paid theexpenses.
- Indirectly, the 3rd Amendment is an importantguarantee for the right to privacy today. The Bill ofRights does not use the word "privacy"; but the 3rd andthe 4th Amendments taken together say no governmentofficial may come into our homes, or demand to take ourproperty unless there is a specific law or a court orderwhich permits it. These apply now the ancient Englishprinciple that "a man's home is his castle, and noofficial, however powerful he may be, can enter it exceptby the owner's consent or by the law of the land." Thatwas first written down at the time of Magna Carta in1215, and it protects the privacy of our homes to thisday.
- This Amendment is the only one that has never beentested in a court case. However, it gives a protection tous which many governments, even now, do not give to theirpeople.
62
Discussion and Writing Activities
Re-read the Amendment. Ask the student to describein his/her own words
* what it meant in 1765 - 1789* what it means today.
- ESL students may write or describe where soldiers intheir homeland live when they are on duty. If homeownersare obliged to take them into their houses, must theyalso feed them? Who pays the expenses?
- What does the privacy of your home mean to you andyour family? Is the right "to be let alone" important?Why?
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES
If the right to be let alone is important to you,what might be your responsibility toward other people?
Are there times when the right to privacy can bemis-used? If you know for a fact that something wrong ishappening in a neighbor's house, what might be yourresponsibility?
63
persor
TheFOURTH
AMENDMENTrequires
probable causeand warrant
for search andseizure of
evidence from:
-arow0111.
per7t;\\
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64
76
THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
The right of the people to be secure in theirpersons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonablesearches and seizures, shall not be violated. And nowarrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by
oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched and the persons or things to be
seized.
Language Development Activities- Read through the Amendment underlining the unfamil-
iar words and the mispronounced words. Reread as neces-
sary to correct pronunciation and put words in the sound
box.Using a dictionary and discussion, work out a
definition for each unfamiliar word, and put these in the
the vocabulary box.Certain words have special legal meanings:
* effects means "personal belongings."* issue - means "be given," in this case by a
judge.* particularly means that the warrant will
give the particulars, or details, of theplace to be searched and the persons orthings to be seized.
* person - literally means "the body."* probable cause - means that the law enforce-ment officer has very good reasons, whichhe/she can explain to the judge, for believ-ing that a crime is being, or has been,committed, and that the evidence to prove it
is in a particular place.* warrant an official permit signed by a
judge. It is specific about the place to be
searched, what evidence will probably befound there, etc.(see sample warrant on p.75).
A warrant must be used within a certainnumber of days from the time it is issued. Ifit is not used by then, it is void.
- Extend vocabulary with related words:
* secure - security, to secure, safe, safe-keeping, to keep safe
* unreasonable reasonable, reason, to reason- Prefix "un" means "not."
6577
* violated to violate, violation* probable - probably, probability
Is this different from "possible," "possibil-ity?"
* affirmation - to affirm, firm, firmly,confirm
* particular - part, to part, particle, party,partisan, participate
- Use each new word in two or three sentences, havingstudent write them and then read them.
Shared Reading- As with the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights,the protections given in the 4th were put there becauseof what the American colonists had experienced in theyears before the War for Independence from England.According to English laws, the king could give hisofficials "General Warrants," or "Writs of Assistance"which allowed them to search anywhere for evidence ofwrong doing. There were no limits on where, or how, theycould search, or what they could seize from privateindividuals. The result was that the king's officersbroke into homes, shops and businesses whenever theywanted to and took any papers, belongings, or privateproperty they thought might prove illegal activity. Andin the process, they often broke up machinery andfurniture and took any tools, household goods or merchan-dise they pleased.
Furthermore, the General Warrants, or Writs, had notime limit. Once issued by the King to an official, theycould be used at any time, indefinitely. Some of themcontinued to be used for years, first by one official andthen by another.
The men who wrote the 4th Amendment were determinedto prevent such abuses by those charged with enforcingthe law. At first in America those were soldiers andlocal constables. By the early 1800s police forces beganto be organized, and now trained police officers every-where are responsible for protecting people from anyonewho breaks the law. They are in the front line in thebattle against wrong doers. We, as a people, have giventhem the authority, as well as the responsibility, to dotheir jobs. l'aey are hired by us, the taxpayers, toprotect us from criminals and to enforce the laws. They
66
have been trained to deal with rough, suspicious, greedy,often violent kinds of people. Also they are trained togather evidence that a law has been broken which may bepresented at the trial of a person accused of a crime.
The 4th Amendment puts the legal limits on what thelaw-enforcers can do. It sets up a legal balance betweenthe powers we have given to them to do what has to bedone to bring suspected criminal to trials collectevidence of law-breaking - and the wish of the greatmajority of citizens to have their privacy protected. Itsays to the law enforcers, "Yes, we know you must haveenough authority to get evidence when and where a crimeis suspected. But you must also have very good reasons toenter a home or private place of business and search aperson's belongings. Before you do that, you must explainyour reasons to a judge and get his signed permission tolook for the evidence. Furthermore, he can allow you tolook only in a particular place for the evidence youbelieve is there. Under any other circumstances, you maynot invade the privacy of any person."
One way of making sure c.he law-enforcers follow therules in the 4th Amendment is that a judge will refuse touse in court evidence taken without following each stepof the required procedure. A judge who is conducting atrial is the person who decides what evidence may, or maynot, be presented to a jury. If he is convinced it wastaken by a law-enforcer illegally, he will exclude it.Then a prosecutor will have to produce other evidence toprove the accused person committed the crime.
Even if a trial judge admitted evidence which aperson on trial claims was taken without regard for thesearch and seizure rules, the defendant may appeal averdict of "guilty" on grounds that his/her 4th Amendmentrights were violated. Then other judges will look verycarefully at exactly how the police obtained theirevidence. If any of the required steps was missed orignored, they may decide that particular evidence may notbe used. Then the government may hold a new trial, but itmust prove the person is guilty without using thatevidence.
- The courts have said that in certain situations thelaw-enforcers are not required to get a search warrantfrom a judge before seizing evidence. Here are someexamples.
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* If an officer hears screams for help coming froma home, he/she may enter immediately, even breakingdown the door if necessary.* If an officer stops a car for a traffic violationand smells marijuana or sees illegal drugs he/shemay search the whole car immediately.* If an officer sees someone who looks as though heis carrying a gun, he/she may stop the person andsearch his clothing and any belongings he has withhim to see if he does have a gun.* If an officer gets a report of a bomb scare in aparticular place, he/she may search that place andthe surrounding area.* If an officer arrests someone for a violentcrime, he/she may search him and whatever he mightbe carrying to see if he has a weapon.* If an officer sees evidence of crime in plainview, he/she may take it.* If an officer is in "hot pursuit" of someone whohas been seen committing a crime, the officer maychase the person into a house or other building.* If the owner of a house or a car agrees to let anofficer search it, no warrant is necessary.
- Illegal drugs have made the job of law-enforcers muchmore complicated. Can you think of reasons why this wouldbe so?
Drugs have also made the job of law-enforcement evenmore dangerous. Why is this so?
Certain words and phrases in the 4th Amendment havebeen used in new ways by the courts to help law-enforce-ment officers find people who use or sells drugs. Forexample, the 4th Amendment rules now allow tests of urinewhich show the level of illegal drugs in a person's body.Also the police are allowed to move quickly into a housewhere they suspect there are drugs and to seize the drugsimmediately, even before showing the warrant. Theseactions are certainly invasions of privacy. But manybelieve society has a right to protect law-abidingcitizens against drug-users. What do you think?
Discussion and Writing ActivitiesTalk about what to do if a law-enforcement officer
comes to your home.* Ask to see his/her credentials showing he/she isan authorized officer. Some officers dress in plainclothes, but they always carry official identifica-tion.
68
* Ask to see the search warrant, and read it care-fully. Seek help if there is a language barrier.* You have the right to deny access if you havequestions about either the credentials or thewarrant. In that case, seek advice from an attorneyas soon as possible, and tell the officer youintend to do so.* If the credentials and the warrant are in order,you should consent to the search.* Don't panic - The officer must do his job but ina reasonable way. And your right to a lawyer aswell as your 4th Amendment rights help you.
- Look back at the list of lawful searches which donot require a warrant. Discuss the reasons for each.Remember, the 4th Amendment does not forbid all searches,only unreasonable ones.- ESL students may discuss or write about rules forsearches and seizures in their homeland.
You Decide What To DoHere are some incidents which involve 4th Amendmentrights. What would you do?
- Your town has a Citizens Police Review Board. Itsjob is to receive complaints from people who believe thepolice have mis-used their powers and to recommend to thePolice Chief whether an officer involved in such anincident should be punished. For its decisions in casesof searches and seizures by police officers it uses the4th Amendment rules. You are one of the 5 members of theReview Board. What would you recommend in this case?
A man and his wife were driving slowly alongthe beach road on a warm summer evening. In an areacrowded with tourists they were E:topped by a policeofficer. He told them to pull over to the side ofthe road and get out of the car because he wantedto search it. They were middle-aged, law-abidingcitizens who were following the rules of the roadcarefully when they were stopped, so they couldthink of no reason for the officer's action.
Reluctantly, they agreed to the search. Theofficer looked in the glove compartment, under thefront and back seats and in the trunk. Then he toldthem to get back in the car and drive on. But theywere upset and asked why they had been stopped. The
69
Si
officer would not explain, nor would he tell themwhat he was looking for. The couple decided to makea complaint to the Citizens Review Board, sayingtheir 4th Amendment rights had been violated. Whatwould you recommend in this case to the PoliceChief?
In Cleveland, Ohio, the police suspected someillegal gambling equipment was hidden in the home of Mrs.Mapp. One morning they knocked on her door. When sheopened it, an officer waved a piece of paper saying itwas a search warrant while two other policemen pushed heraside. The officers did not let her read the paper, nordid they tell her what they were looking for. The threeof them looked through the whole house, turning outdrawers and pulling things out of closets. They found nogambling equipment at all, but they did find some obscenebooks and pictures which were also illegal in Ohio.
They brought that evidence into court, and she wastried for possessing the obscene materials. If you werethe judge at her trial, would you have allowed thatevidence to be used against Mrs. Mapp?(case of Mapp v. Ohio, 1961)
Out in Block Island Sound a person in a small motorboat was seen unloading a large wooden crate off a cabincruiser by two people passing by in a sailboat. They alsosaw him cover the crate with lobster pots and then headtowards the shore. It was nearly dark, but the people inthe sailboat were suspicious that the crate containedillegal drugs. They made a radio call to the Coast Guard,explained their suspicions and described the cabincruiser and the small motorboat. The Coast Guard agreedthe circumstances were suspicious and figured from thedirection of the motor-boat that it would land very soonin Stonington or Westerly. They notified the PoliceDepartments in both places. In Westerly Detective Trouverreceived the message.
Shortly after dark, a man who lived near thePawcatuck River in Westerly saw a man moor a small boatat a private dock and take a crate from under somelobster pots. He recognized the man was a neighbor whomhe knew was not lobsterman or a fisherman. He watched theman carry the crate into his house. It looked suspicious,so as soon as he reached his home, he called the WesterlyPolice Department. He explained what he had seen to
70
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Detective Trouver, adding that he had seen several oddlooking people at his neighbor's house lately. DetectiveTrouver confirmed the name and address of the man seenwith the crate.
On looking through the P.D. records, the Detectivefound that the man had a record of arrests for sellingmarijuana, and a record of arrests for carrying anunlicensed, automatic .22 caliber handgun. There hadbeen no convictions on the drug charges, but there was aconviction on the gun charge. Detective Trouver also re-read the message from the Coast Guard.
What do you think he should do?(A story map of this incident on thE following page)
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4th Amendment - Story Map
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72
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Community Site Visit
The Police Department was an ideal place to learnabout 4th Amendment rights in action.
- Making arrangements:* A call by a tutor to the public educa-tion (or public relations) officer ar-ranged for the date and time, and anofficer who would meet with the group.* The purposes of the visit were ex-plained.*The arrangements for touring the facili-ty were described by the officer to thetutor.
- Preparing for the visit :
* Information about date, time, place,and name of the officer were given inwriting to interested tutors and stud-ents.* Tutors and students reviewed the stepsrequired for lawful searches and sei-zures, and ways these are enforced.* They discussed issues and problemsraised by illegal drugs, and gatheredclippings and articles on the topic.* One or two questions to be asked atthe Police Department were developed byeach tutor and student.* Phone numbers were exchanged in caseof last-minute changes in plans.
- At the Police Department the group had a tour ofthe facility. Then the officer went through thesteps required for lawful searches. He describedsome vivid local incidents involving 4th Amendmentrights, and discussed the rules in the PoliceManual which enforce procedures for making searchesand taking evidence. He explained examples of whatis meant by "probable cause" and the documentationan officer must give to a judge to obtain a searchwarrant. The sample Search Warrant on p. gave thetutors and students a good follow-up lesson andvocabulary review.
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIESThink about what you should do if you find or
hear about - evidence of criminal activity. Wouldit make a difference to you if someone in your
, 73
family were involved?
- If a police officer asks to come into your house,what are your responsibilities?
- If an officer asks to look into your car, whatare your responsibilities?
- Consider your responsibilities if you believe apolice officer has violated someone's right to pri-vacy by disregarding the 4th Amendment rules. Wouldyou be willing to testify in court? Or tell what youbelieve Lo a Police Review Board? Would you be will-ing to serve on a Citizens Police Review Board if youwere asked to do so?
74
SAMPLEittearrh Barrant -1TH Anencr.ent
StateEx rel
City/Town County
vs RespondentTO: An Officer authorized by law to
execute the within warrant,
Complaint and affidavit having been made to rne under oath, and as I am satisfied that there is probable cause for the belieftherein set forth that grounds for issuing a search warrant exist, you are hereby commanded diligently to search the place or person hereindescribed for the property specified and to bring such property or articles, and to summon the owner, or keeper thereof, if any be namedin the complaint, if to be found by you, to appear before the District Court in the district where such property shall have been seized,namely the Division of the District Court of Rhode Island.
Place or person to be searched:
***********************************VoID***************************
Property or articles to be searched for:**********************************VOID***************************
Name of owner, or keeper, thereof if known to complainant:
Said warrant shall be served in the daytime may be served in the nighttime within seven (7) days fom the issu-ance hereof, AND IF NOT SERVED WITHIN SAID TIME TO BE RETURNED FORTHWITH TO A JUDGE SIT-TING IN THE ABOVE NAMED COURT.
Property seized by you hereunder shall be safely kept by you under the direction of the Court so long as may be nec-essary for the purpose of being used as evidence in any case. As soon as may be thereafter, if the same be subject to forfeiture,such further proceedings shall be had thereon for forfeiture as is prescribed by law.
Hereof fail not and MAKE TRUE RETURN PROMPTLY OF THIS WARRANT TO A JUDGE THERE SITTINGwith your doings thereon, accompanied by a written inventory of any property taken to a judge sitting in the above namedcourt.
Issued at . in the county of
day of , A. D 19
this
Judge of the District CourtJustice of the Supreme/Superior Court
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF RETURN
-Warrant received on day of
MCC 003CA 14-741
at
, 19 ....... from
badge
75s
BEST COPY AVAILABLE
FROM A TUTOR'S JOURNAL
I read Rose the story of GloristinePerkins from "The Bill of Wrongs," HartfordCourant, (December 15, 1991) and she was verysympathetic to the mess in Mrs. Perkins' houseand her fright and the cruelty to her son.
I showed Rose what a search warrantlooked like, and she also learned after ourvisit to the Police Department that she hasthe right to require a police officer to showhis official identification.
Rose was concerned about policemen makingmistakes. She had been frightened recentlywhen she was walking near her home. It wasearly evening and a police cruiser pulled upbeside her. Officers looked at her, said,"You're not the one," and drove off withoutanother word. I explained they were guardingthe area, but Rose feels they should haveapologized, for frightening her.
76
SAOLE OF STUVENTS WRITINGS
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1. search
2. seizure
3. warrant
4. statute
5. proof
6. reasonable
7. suspicion
8. legal
9. illegal
10. private
11. privacy
12. violate
13. violation
14. probable
15. cause
matches
d,
f.
4th Amendment - Matching Activity
a. an order signed by a judge
b. reason
c. a law
d. to look for
e. a place just for you
f. the act of taking and keeping
g. according to law, lawful
h. good cause, justifiable
i. having reason to believe
j. not lawful
k. restricted for you, personal
1. evidence, something to show
m. likely to be true
n. the act of breaking the law
o. to break the law
Tell what each of the following means, and use in a sentence:
probable cause
search and seizure
reasonable suspicion
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The Trial Amendrents
Fifth,Sixth,Seventh,Eighth Amendments
Story map of American courts
Jury..here.
No jury here..
federalcourt
federallaw Levels of both
statecourtstate j
law
Triali.Appeal=Supreme
SUPREME COURT
Judges
No jury here.will decide
if a person's
constitutionalrights were denied.
APPEALS COURTS
..If these judges say aperson's rights
were not protected,they may order a TrialCourt
to have a new trial witha different iury.
Judges will decide whether the thejudges in the Trial Court applied
the law correctly.
TRIAL COURTS
/\
The jury will listen to facts from both sides.
In a criminal case they will decide guilty or not guilty.
Judges will make sure both sides are heard fairly.
After a verdict of "guilty", the judge will tell the personwhat the punishment will be according to the law.A person judged "guilty" has the right to appeal.
In a civil case the jury will decide what settlement is
due for damages done by one person to another.
BE-57
RIGHTS OF EVERYONE ACCUSED OF BREAKING A LAW
FIFTHAMENDMENT
The accused hasthe right to
remain silent,to a jury trial,& to be triedonly once for
a crime, the gov-ernment mustobeylaws for trial &sentence and itcannot take prop-erty without fair
repayment.
SIXTHAMENDMENT
The accused hasthe right to
a speedy & publictrial, an impar-
tial jury of peers,
be told of charges,
confrontwitnessescharging crime,obtain favorablewitnesses, & have
a lawyer.
EIGHTHAMENDMENT
Forbids unfairbail,unusual fines,cruel & unusualpunishment.
no one shall
be deprived of
life, libertyorproper ty without
due processof law
no one shallbe held for afelony crimewithout an
indictment froma Grand Jury
TheFIFTH
MINI:RENTguarantees:
priva-t7EN\property shallnot be takenfor public usewithout justcompensation/
no one shall \
be forced to\testify against)
\ themselves
/ no one shall \be tried twicefor the same
crime
THE FIFTH AMENDMENT
No person shall be held to answer for a capital orotherwise infamous crime unless on presentment orindictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising inthe land or naval forces, or in the militia, when inactual service in time of war or public danger; nor shallanv person be subject for the same offense to be twiceput in leopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelledin any criminal case to be a witness against himself, norbe deprived of life, liberty or property without dueprocess of law; nor shall private property be taken forpublic use without just compensation.
Language Development Activities
The 18th century language and syntax used in thisAmendment are difficult for modern readers to understand,but the rights guaranteed in the 5th Amendment canreadily be translated into contemporary words. Using thestory lap go through each part of the Amendment, under-lining unfamiliar words.
(Note that the military forces are exempted fromthese protections when at war or in times of publicdanger. Talk about why this is so.)
- Using a dictionary and discussion, have thestudent work out a definition of each new word, adding itto the vocabulary box.
- Putting a new word into the context of its wordfamily will build vocabulary and increase understanding.Examples :
* testify, testimony, tested, test* indictment, indict, core syllable "dict,"such as dictate, dictionary, predict, con-tradict, addict.
- Have the student practice using each new word insentences.
- ESL students may work on pronunciation, and addnew words to a sound bcx, dividing them by vowel sounds.
- Related vocabulary words to know:confess - confessioncharge - chargedevidenceforce - enforce the law, law enforcers,
policeguiltyinnocentlimit
84 9 7
protections - rights established in lawssuspect - suspectedtestimony of a witness - facts given
under oathto commit a crime - to break a lawwitness - a person who actually sees a
crime being committed.Discussion
- There are two kinds of laws:Civil laws deal with matters between people, such as
family, marriage, buying and selling, andprivate property.
Criminal laws tell people what they may not do becausetheir act will harm the community. Everycriminal law also tells people what the pun-ishment will be if the law is broken. Forexample, the punishment for stealing a sweaterfrom a store might be a fine of $100-$200, or10-15 days in jail; the punishment for sellingillegal drugs to children might be a fine of$20,000-$50,000 and 2 years in jail. Criminallaws are very clear about what will happen toa person who is found guilty of breaking alaw.
Ask the student to give examples of civil laws and ofcriminal laws and of rules in their family.Are there some they would call "civil" rules?Others they would call "criminal" rules? Andare punishments for breaking the "criminal"rules clear to everyone?
- There are also two kinds of crimes:* A misdemeanor is a minor crime, such asshoplifting. The punishment is a fine of lessthan $1,000 and/or a term in jail of less thanone year.*- A felony is a serious crime. The punishmentis a fine of more than $1,000 and/or a jailterm is more than one year.
Again, go thibugh the five rights guaranteed by the 5thAmendment. Ask the student to describe in his/her ownwords how each one would help a person who has beencharged with a crime. For example, how is an accusedperson protected by the guarantee that he/she cannot beforced by the police to give evidence against himself/-herself; or by the guarantee that he/she can be triedonly once for the same crime in which the police use thesame evidence?
1
1
1
1
- Discuss the "right to remain silent," a phrase oftenheard on T.V. or seen in a newspaper account of a trial.Which of the five rights in the 5th Amendment guaranteesthis? Why is it important for a person accused ofbreaking the law to have this protection?
- Discuss the phrase "due process of law." For easierunderstanding, this may be translated into "steps writteninto laws which the government must follow when officialscould take away any person's life, liberty or property."
* Look back at Part I -FINDING RIGHTS IN HISTORY-to see where the phrase "right to life, liberty andproperty" came from.
* Ask the student what happens in his/her familywhen a rule is broken.
Who made the rule to begin with?Who enforces the rule?Who decides whether a suspected person is reallythe one who broke the rule?How is it decided? Is there evidence? Are therewitnesses? Other proof?Who decides what the punishment will be?
* For reference purposes, a summary of the dueprocess steps required by the Constitution isincluded in the Appendix.
Homework follow-up(A tape recorder may be used instead of a written
exercise.)- Write 2 or 3 sentences using each new word.- Write about why the right to remain silent is impor-tant.- Write out the steps your family follows when someone issuspected of breaking a rule. This is your family's dueprocess.
Shared Reading- The men who wrote the 5th Amendment believed specialrights had to be guaranteed for people suspected ofbreaking a law. In England in the 1600's, people could bethrown into prison by the king's officials without beingtold why. Sometimes they were kept there for months andyears, without knowing what law the government claimedthey had broken, and without being given a trial. Somewere tortured in terrible ways to force them to confess
86 99
to a crime. Often the king's officials seized their land,
house and other property, leaving their families with nohome or money to live on. On occasion a judge would
decide a man had not committed any crime and would let
him out of prison. Then the king's officials might arresthim again, send him back to prison, and bring him before
a different judge to be tried.
- In America, the Bill of Rights does not allow govern-ment officials to do any of those things. The men whowrote the protections in the 5th Amendment knew allabout what happened in England where there were no clear
laws to limit what the king's officials did to people.
They realized that governments need many different powersto assure that people can live in safe, orderly communi-
ties. They also knew, however, that if governmentofficials have too much power, or authority with nolimits, some officials would abuse it. Therefore, in theConstitution they divided the powers of governmentbetween three branches; and they also divided powers andresponsibilities between the state governments and the
federal (or national) government. That is our system ofchecks and balances. They realized, furthermore, thatevery government still has more power, money, authorityand officials to do its jobs than any individual has, sothere must be special laws limiting what its officialsmay do to ordinary people. The basic ones are in The Bill
of Rights. Other laws have been passed by Congress andthe state legislatures which put more specific limits on
what government officials may do to people.
- The jury system is one way a citizen may have a part in
making sure that officials follow the laws and thateveryone who is suspected of a crime is treated fairly.
* Whenever a person is even suspected ofbreaking a law, he/she must be treated as thoughhe/she is innocent until the government proves thathe/she is guilty of breaking a law.
* The first step the government must take isto prove to a group of citizens who are appointedto be a grand jury that the government has good(believable) evidence and witnesses which show thesuspect probably committed the crime. If the grandjury decides the government has enough good evi-dence, it hands down an indictment. This is a
document which permits the government officials to
871 o0
go ahead with a trial of the suspect.
* At a trial, a petit jury (or a trial jury)will listen to the evidence and witnesses presentedby both the government lawyer and the defenselawyer. Six to twelve citizens are called to sit ona trial jury. The government's lawyer is called theprosecutor. He/she charges that a law has beenbroken by the accused person, and he/she must provethat to the jury. The accused person is the defen-dant. His/her lawyer must prove to the Jury thatthe accused did not do what the prosecutor charges.
* The jury, after it listens to all the factspresented by both sides, will decide whether theaccused is guilty as charged, or is not guilty. Togive a verdict of "guilty as charged," every memberof the Jury must be convinced that the defendantcommitted the crime "beyond a reasonable doubt," or"a doubt for which they can give a reason." Other-wise, if they have doubts after listening to bothsides, they will give a verdict of "not guilty."
* If a citizen is called to serve on either agrand jury or a trial jury, he/she should do so ifpossible. It is one of the most important duties ofAmerican citizens. Having them as jurors in thecourtroom to listen to evidence presented by bothsides and make decisions about guilt or innocenceis one basic way of assuring that trials willbe fair.
You Be a JudgeSuppose the government of your town wanted to take
part of your yard for a new road. What does the 5thAmendment tell the public officials they must do?
It has taken a long time for people to decide whatis necessary for a fair trial. Here is a case and the waya court decided it at different times in the past. Howfair do you think each trial was? How does each judgedecide whether Mo is guilty or not guilty and what hispunishment will be? How would you decide?
The case: A man and woman were married. The marriedwoman fell in love with another man. Thetwo of them ran away from Mo, the hus-band. Mo chased them and killed both ofthem.
1.0188
The first judge in the Tribe's Court was Ola,the oldest man in the Tribe. Some of themen in the Tribe caught Mo and broughthim before Ola saying he had killed twopeople. Ola had known Mo since he was ababy and was a cousin to Mo's father. Hedecided Mo should not be punished for
what he had done.
The second judge was appointed by the Emperorwho had conquered Mo's land. Mo wasbrought before him by the emperor's sol-diers. They told the judge that Mo hadkilled two people. The judge asked Mo totell what happened. Then he listened tothe other men of the village tell aboutMo and his wife and the other man. Thejudge didn't know much about the customsof the people in the village, but theEmperor had ordered him to be sure therewere no troublemakers there. That judgesentenced Mo to work on a slave shipuntil he died.
The third judge was appointed by the king ofMo's country. Mo was caught by his sol-diers and brought before the king withheavy chains on his wrists and his an-kles. They told the king he had killedhis runaway wife and the man, and alsoreminded the king that there were threeunsolved killings in Mc's village. Theking didn't give Mo a chance to say any-thing. He told the soldiers to take himback to prison and have the prison offi-cials torture him to find out whether heknew anything about the three unsolvedmurders. Mo didn't know anything aboutthem, but after hours of terrible tor-ture, he said he had done them so theprison officials would stop hurting him.After he confessed, the judge sentencedhim to be executed immediately.
The fourth judge was a clergyman. Mo wasbrought before him by people in the vil-lage. They told him Mo had killed twopeople. The judge told Mo that God would
decide his guilt or innocence. He made Mohold a hot stone in his hand. Then hewrapped Mo's hand in cloth. The judgetold Mo it would be taken off in threedays. If his hand showed no signs orscars of a burn, that would prove Godbelieved Mo was innocent. If his hand hada blister, that was God's sign that Mowas guilty, and he would be hung by theneck until he died.
The fifth judge was appointed by the governor of astate. Mo was arrested by the policebecause they suspected him of killingtwo people. They asked Mo questions atthe police station, but they told him hedid not have to answer until he had alawyer to help him. Mo was too poor topay for a lawyer, so the court appointeda lawyer to help him. At his trial a juryof twelve people listened to the prosecu-tor present the government's evidence andwitnesses against Mo. Then they listenedto Mo and his lawyer tell his side of thestory. A court reporter kept a record ofeverything that was said. The jury decid-ed that Mo had killed the two people in amoment of rage of anger at his wife. Thejudge took into consideration that whenhe killed her and the other man, Mo wasvery angry and hurt about what his wifehad done. The judge sentenced Mo to pris-on for the shortest possible time underthe law for murder, and said he could getout sooner for good behavior in prison.
(Activity adapted from Courts And Trials, LAW IN ACTIONSERIES, Reickes & Mahe, West Publishing Co., St.Paul, MN,1980)
1 n 390
Community Site Visit
A tour of a police station will allow tutors andstudents an opportunity to see 5th Amendment rights inaction. Most police stations have a Community Relationsofficer, or a Public Education Officer, or tutors maycontact the Police Chief directly. It is important toexplain the purpose of your visit, and, if possible, tomeet ahead of time with the Officer who will talk withyour group.
Most police stations provide tours of the facilityto school classes and police officers are accustomed toexplaining to lay people what procedures they follow whenmaking an arrest, charging people with committing acrime, etc. When talking with the officer guiding yourgroup, be sure he/she specifically connects thoseprocedures to the rights being studied. Remind thestudents that the procedures are written into laws andrules in a Police Manual. They are also part of eachpolice officer's training. If the officer with your groupbecomes too technical in his/her explanations, ask him todescribe a real-life situation and then go step-by-stepthrough what he would have to do.
Students should come prepared to ask at least onequestion during the tour. Be sure the Officer knows thisand gives plenty of opportunity for the questions anddiscussion.
During a visit the officer may give out copies offorms the police use when making an arrest or charging aperson. These are quite technical. If a student is reallyintarested, the forms may be studied for both newvocabulary and detailed information, but the generalpurpose of each form should be understood by everyone.This is a good time to explain to students that the 5thAmendment gives the right to remain silent and the 6thAmendment gives the right to have the help of a lawyerwhen the police question a person about a crime. Studentsshould know that no papers should be signed until alawyer, and if necessary an interpreter, is present tohelp them understand what they are signing.
- Before your visit* Explain the date, time and place where youwill meet. Check on the student's transporta-tion. Exchange phone numbers in case of lastminute changes in plans.* Review basic vocabulary words which will beused. Explain what you will see on the tour,especially what will relate to Amendmentsbeing studied.* Have the student work out one or two ques-tions to ask the officer at the site.
- Follow up the visit with:* student writing in his/her journal (ortaping) about information and impressionsgained from the visit* discussing answers to the student's ques-tions asked during the visit* discussion and reviewing exactly what pro-tections there are in procedures the policemust follow when they deal with a personsuspected of breaking the law. This is a goodchance to encourage a student to summarizethese rights in his/her own words.
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES- Think about serving on a jury if you are calledby the court to do this.
Think about reporting a crime you have seen tothe police. How would you feel about giving evi-dence in a trial?What responsibilities do the police have? Should
you help them to find evidence against someone sus-pected of a crime? How about if the suspectedperson is a member of your family?
92 1.95
SAMPLE OF STUDENT WRITING
5th: The right to due process oflaw, including protection againstself-incrimination
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93
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Review activity - 5th Amendment
Ask the student to match the words in Column A with the rightdefinition in Column B.
Column A1. civil law
2. criminal law
3. appeal
4. a felony
5. indictment
matchesc
Column Ba. to ask a higher court to review your case
e b. to let go, or give up a rights
6. waive
7. confess
8. just compensation
9. a suspect
10. grand jury
11. a misdemeanor
12. property
13. charges
14. due process
c. laws for public health and safety
d. a group of citizens who decide whether thegovernment has good evidence that a personcommitted a crime.
e. laws that tell what acts are forbidden
f. the legal steps a court must take against aperson accused of a crime.
g. a serious crime with a serious punishment ifthe person is guilty.
h. a document which orders the court to go aheadwith the trial of a person suspected of acrime.
i. to admit guilt
j. a fair price for property
k. acts the police say you have done which areagainst the law
1. a person the government thinks has committeda crime, but has not yet proven guilty.
m. a minor crime with minor punishment if theperson is found guilty.
n. what a person owns legally
Complete these sentences
Self-incrimination means a person can not be
against himself.
to be a
Once a jury has said a person is of the charges
against him, he may not be again for the same
The government may not take away a person's
without of law.
i or
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/Crime he orknow what \
she has been)charged with/
TheSIXTH
AMENDMENTguarantees toany personaccused of acrime theright to:
a speedypublic trialwhere thecrime wascommitted
the help ofv\,
a lawyerat every step;after being/
charged./
a trialbefore an )
impartialjury
presentwitnesses tospeak in hisor her favor
at thetrial
confrontaccusing
witnesses atthe trial
10q
THE SIXTH AMENDMENT
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shallenjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by animpartial jury of the State and district wherein thecrime shall have been committed; which district shallhave been previously ascertained by law, and to beinformed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to beconfronted with the witnesses against him; to havecompulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor,and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.
Language Development ActivitiesAs in the 5th Amendment, the 6th is written in 18th
century, legalistic language and syntax. The simplified,modernized sentences in the yellow story map will beeasier for students to read and understand.
Using the story map, have the student read each ofthe six rights guaranteed by the Amendment, underliningunfamiliar words. Then with a dictionary and discussion,have the student work out a definition of each new wordin his/her own words. The words and definitions may beadded to the vocabulary box, and for ESL, to the soundbox
Next the new words may be used in sentences writtenby the student with the help of the tutor. For this stepit may be helpful if the student imagines being accusedof a crime. What help or protections would he/she want tohave? Reviewing the trials of Mo in the 5th Amendmentunit would reinforce ideas about what ought to be done tomake a trial fair.
- Related vocabulary words and phrases to know:
* alleged - may have broken a law or may beguilty of a crime but that has not beenproven. In the American system of courts, aperson is innocent until proven guilty in atrial. Until a jury says the evidence provesthat a person is guilty beyond a reasonabledoubt, the police, attorneys, and everyoneshould say "the alleged criminal".* appeal a case to a higher court ask agroup of judges in another court whether thelaws were correctly used in the trial court.This is a good time to explain that American
97
110
courts are arranged like a pyramid. See p.81for a diagram. It applies to both State andfederal courts.* waive a right - voluntarily to give up oneof the rights guaranteed in an Amendment.
Shared reading and discussion
The men who wrote the Bill of Rights wanted to besure that people who are accused of breaking laws by thegovernment will be treated fairly. They should not behurt by the police, and they should be given a fairchance to explain their side of the story. These basicrules for fairness are stated in the 5th and 6thAmendments. Many cases decided by judges have made themeaning of the rights in the Amendments more specific.They have set down more rules which the police, juries,lawyers and judges must follow when a person is accusedof breaking a law. These are called "due process" rules.
Here are the steps the courts have said arenecessary for a fair trial.
Remember -* Every alleged criminal is innocent until a jurydecides he/she is guilty as charged.* If he/she is guilty, he/she may have his libertytaken away (prison), or his life (the deathpenalty), or his property (a fine)...BUT ONLY IFTHE DUE PROCESS RULES ARE FOLLOWED EXACTLY.
*Step 1 - The person is accused of committing acrime. At this step the person must be toldexactly what law(s) the government claimshe/she has broken. This is usually done by thepolice or by a government attorney (theprosecutor), at the time of arrest. This iscalled "the charge".
*Step 2 - Every accused person has the right to alawyer to help him/her to defend himself. Thecourts have said the government must pay for alawyer if a person is too poor to hire one.The accused person has this right startingwith Step 1.
*Step 3 - If the crime is serious (a felony), theprosecutor will have to prove to a grand juryhe/she has enough evidence about the crime to
98
bring the person accused of committing it to atrial. If the prosecutor can show there aregood reasons for having a trial, the grandjury will give an indictment. This documenttells the government to go ahead with thetrial.
If the crime is a misdemeanor, theprosecutor will show his evidence to a judge.The judge will then decide whether or not tohave the trial.
*Step 4 - The first step in a trial is thearraignment. At that time the judge will againtell the accused person what law(s) thegovernment charges he/she has broken. Thenthe person will tell the judge either thathe/she is "guilty as charged," or that he/shedid not do what he/she is accused of doing(pleads "not guilty").
If the person pleads "guilty", there willbe no trial, and the judge will set a date forsentencing him/her.
If the person pleads "not guilty", thejudge will set a date and place for a trial,and will make sure the person has a lawyer tohelp with his/her defense. The trial must beheld 30 to 60 days after the arraignment, andit will be open to the public. That meets therequirements for a "speedy and public trial"in the 6th Amendment.
*Step 5 - Before the trial date, the government'slawyer and the lawyer for the accused personwill gather all the facts about the incidentthey can discover. They will talk withwitnesses. Then each will plan how to use theevidence and witnesses to prove his or herside of the case.
*Step 6 - On the day of the trial, the accusedperson must be in court. He is again told bythe judge what law(s) the government chargeshe has broken. Alen the process of choosing ajury begins. The lawyers on both sides mayquestion the people called for jury duty anddecide which ones they want to have hear thecase. The judge will watch carefully to besure the jury members are people who can
listen to all the evidence on both sides withan open mind so they can cote to a fairdecision (an "impartial jury of their peers").
*Step 7 - The judge is an impartial referee at atrial. It is his responsibility to make sureall the rules for a fair trial are followed.He will begin by explaining to the jury whatlaws apply to this case. Then he will telleach lawyer when it is his turn to speak.
. First each lawyer will make an openingstatement to the jury. This will tellwhat they will try to prove by theevidence and the witnesses they willpresent in court.. Next, while the jury listens, thegovernment's lawyer will present hisevidence, and will go over with hiswitnesses what they say happened duringthe crime (examining the witnesses).. The lawyer for the accused person willthen question the government's witnessesto show the jury whether or not they aretelling the whole truth. (cross-examination of witnesses).. Next, the accused person's lawyer willpresent his facts to the jury and examinewitnesses who favor the accused person.. The government's lawyer then has histurn to question those witnesses to showthe jury whether they are telling thewhole truth. (cross-examination)
*Step 8 - After all the facts have been presented byboth sides, and all the witnesses heard, eachlawyer will sum up the evidence which supportshis side of the story. Each one will try veryhard to convince the jury that his or her sideof the story is what really happened.
*Step 9 - Next the judge will explain the law(s)which apply to this case and will tell thejury to reach a decision based only on whatthey have heard in the courtroom. The jurywill meet in a private room where they maydiscuss freely what both sides presented. Allof them must agree on the verdict.
.If they decide the evidence and the
locH3
witnesses convinced them beyond a reasonabledoubt that the accused person did break thelaw, they will say he/she is "guilty ascharged".
. If they agree that they havereasonable doubts about the evidence andwitnesses, and believe those were not enoughto convince them that the person broke the lawas charged, they will say he/she is "notguilty as charged"
*Step 10 - They will then go back to the courtroom.There they will announce their verdict inpublic to the accused person, the judge andthe lawyers.
*Step 11 - If the verdict is "not guilty", the personis free to go home. If the verdict is"guilty", a date will be set by the judge tosentence the person. The punishment must beaccording to the law(s) which the jury decidedhe/she broke. Then the person is taken toprison to wait for sentencing by the judge.
*Step 12 If a person is judged "guilty", he/she hasthe right to appeal the verdict to a highercourt. There the judges will look at whetherhe/she had a fair trial and whether the lawswere correctly followed.
Writing Activity
As tutor and student read the Steps above together,have the student make a separate card for each Step. Forwriting and review, ask the student to tell in his/herown words what happens at each Step. Use pictures if thishelps to understand the due process steps.
* At the next session, ask the student to put thecards in the correct order.
* Ask the student to tell or write what each Stepdoes to make a trial fair. What would happen if oneStep were left out?
* Match each Step to one of the rights in eitherthe 5th or the 6th Amendment.
114101
* Talk, or write, about the responsibilities ofeach of the people involved in a trial - the judge,
the jury, the lawyer for the government, thelawyer for the accused person, the witnesses, andthe accused person, and the Court reporter.
You Be A JudgeA young man named Ernesto Miranda was arrested in
1963. The police accused him of raping a young girl. Theyasked him a lot of questions at the police station. Hewas scared, so he answered them. After several hours hebecame so frightened and confused that he told them hehad raped the girl. The police wrote down what he hadsaid and told him to sign the paper. Ernesto could barelyread. No one there would tell him what was written orwhat he should do, so he wrote his name at the bottom of
the page.Did the police protect his rights in the 5th and 6th
Amendments?
At his trial the government's lawyer read to thejury the paper he had signed in the police station. Thelawyer said it was Ernesto's confession that he wasguilty of raping the girl. Ernesto's lawyer told how thepolice had questioned him and had persuaded him to signthe paper. But considering the signed confession, thejury agreed with the government's lawyer that he must beguilty. The judge sentenced him to 20 to 30 years inprison.
Were Ernesto's rights given to him at his trial?
Ernesto's lawyer appealed his case. He said some ofErnesto's rights in the 5th and 6th Amendments were notgiven to him by the police.
What rights were not given to him at the policestation?
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Ernesto's lawyer.The Justices said he had a right to a new trial, and thepolice could not use the confession he had signed asevidence for the new jury. The Justices also set newrules about what the police must tell each person as soonas they accuse him/her of a crime. These are called theMiranda Rights.
The police must say :
1. "You have the right to remain silent. Anythingyou say can be used against you in a court".
102
115
1
1
This means: You do not have to say anything. Youdo not have to answer questions the police askexcept to give them your name and address. If youdo say something, the police can use it as evidencein court.
2. "You have the right to speak to a lawyer, andto have the lawyer present when thepolice question you."
This means: You may ask for a lawyer and talk withhim/her about what is happening. You do not have toanswer any questions until a lawyer is present withyou.
3. "If you want to have lawyer and cannot affordone, a lawyer will be appointed foryou to help you without cost toyou."
This means: If you do not have the money to pay fora lawyer, the court will appoint one to help you.(Lawyers who are appointed in this way are calledPublic Defenders.)
4. The police officer will the ask, "Do youunderstand these rights as I have explainedthem to you?"
This means: Do you understand what your rights are?If the accused person does not understand, theofficer must explain them again. If the person doesnot understand English, he/she has the right to askfor an interpreter. All questioning must stopuntil the person has a lawyer present and aninterpreter if one is needed.
Community Site Visit
In addition to visiting the police station to see 5thand 6th Amendment rights in action, tutors and studentsare encouraged to visit a trial court. All trials ofadults are open to the public. Where is this guaranteed?Why is it important for fair trials?
- Preparation for a visit
* The help of a lawyer or a judge is necessary becausethey will know the court's schedule and what cases arebeing tried. Explain what the purpose of your visit is,especially what rights and steps in the court process
103 116
you hope to see in action.Remember - trial are often slow, with a lot oftalking which is not very easy for lay people tounderstand.
* Review the vocabulary your student has studied butexplain they may hear many other unfamiliar words.Those can be discussed later.
* Review the people you will see in the courtroom, andwhat each one does during the steps of a trial.
* Be sure the date, time and place are clear. Exchangephone numbers in case of last minute changes. Make sureof plans for transportation, and meeting togetherbefore going into a courtroom.
* Inviting a lawyer to accompany the group during thevisit will be very helpful.
- During the time in court
* No talking is allowed.
* Write down vocabulary that is unfamiliar; and takenotes on questions to discuss after the visit.
* The judge may take time during "recess" to talk withyour group, or he/she may have time at the close of thesession. This should be arranged ahead of time.
* The bailiff, or sheriff, is in the court to keeporder and to tell the public what to do. Follow hisdirections.
- Follow-up - for homework or discussion
* A student may tape or write down impressions of whatwas seen in the courtroom, who was there and what eachone did.
* Reviewing the Amendments with a student to understandwhich rights they saw being given to the defendant.
* The student may draw a diagram of a courtroom to showwho sat where.
* The tutor should make sure an ESL student understands
1 '7104
that any person who is not proficient in English canrequire that an interpreter be provided at his/hertrial, or when he/she is a witness in the court, aswell as in dealings with the police. Furthermore, theESL student should understand that these, and otherrights in the Bill of Rights, are guaranteed to non-citizens.
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIESWhat about serving on jury duty if you are called.
What about being a witness and telling what you knowabout an accused person during a trial?
If a person is assumed to be innocent until a jurydecides he/she is guilty, how should you talk abouthim/her before the verdict?
- Supposing you had some evidence about a crime whichno one else had. What should you do with it?
SAMPLE FROM TUTOR JOURNAL
Following our visit to Judge Turano's court. Iwent over with Rose the steps taken in a trial byjury. She found difficulty in following theprocesses.
We talked about a jury and how it is chosen and howit reaches a decision. I told her of my experience ona jury in a civil suit, and how excited I was when Iexperienced justice being served by the agreeing oftwelve disparate persons.
6th AMENDMENT - SAMPLES OF STUDENT WRITINGS
6th: Rights of aperson accusedof a crime,including theright to berepresentedby a lawyer
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SIXTH
- Every member of the jury must be impartial,
and he must not discriminate against black or
white people; women or men.
- Judge must give every accused person the
same conditions for his defense.
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SAMPLE STUDENT ACTIVITIES
(adapted from CRIMINAL JUSTICE, THE POLICE AND YOU,Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles, CA.
Experimental Draft)THE MIRANDA RIGHTSCROSSWORD PUZZLE
1 1 LE Itti 1
ACROSS2. the rights an arresting of-
ficer must read5. a place where trials are held
6. a person who has been trainedin the law
109
DOWN1. to be quiet3. to make a request4. the opposite of
"innocent"5. to admit to guilt7. "You have the right
tosi lent . "
122
CREATE YOUR OWN CROSSWORD PUZZLE
Use these words: arrest, police, prison, evidencetrial, public defender, court, jury, lawyer, crime
-41
11, 4
ACROSS DOWN1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
Review activity - 6th Amendment
Ask the student to match the words in column A to thedefinitions in B
A Matches
1. jury a.2. verdict b.3. guilty c.
4. prosecutor d.5. public defender e.6. proof f.7. crime g.
8. evidence h.
9. criminal i.
10. truth j.
11. summons k.12. court 1.
13. witness m.14. defendant n.
Complete these sentences.
A person accused of a crime is
B
did commit the crimelawyer for the governmenta group of people who hearthe evidence at a trial, anddecide who is telling thetruthdecision of the jurywhat really happened in a crimean act that is against the lawfacts that help to discover the
the trutha person who has seen whathappenedlawyer for the defendantwhere judges and juries dotheir jobssomething that shows the truththe person found guiltythe person accused of a crimean order to appear in court.
until proven
When the police accuse a person of a crime, they must tell himhis Rights. These tell him :
1. He has a right to remain . If he says anything,it may be in as againsthim.2. He has the right to a3. If he cannot pay for aappoint one.4. The police will these rights again if theperson says he does not them.
to him., the will
A suspect does not have to answer questions of theuntil a is present to
A foreigner who does not speak English well may ask foran .
111
124
him.
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*confess to the crime verdict *plea
*prosecuting attorney sentence court
*oublic defender fine punish
*Miranda Rights jury *waive
*search and seizure judge offense
evidence violation Young
summons proof Yi
lawyer trial Julie
remain silent guilty Wendy
due process innocent Anne
indictment confess David
hearings warrant Deer
privacy defendent
pre-trial crimewitness arrest
112
BESIt!. -
r
THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT
PROTECTS AGAINST
------ -----
innocent 'tilproven guilty
126 tlikr7,17 ?:"' 76 01 V rtra.kiA"-+
THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor exces-sive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishmentsinflicted.
Language Development ActivitiesHave the student read through the Amendment under-
lining each unfamiliar word. Then, using a dictionaryand discussion, work out a definition for each oneputting it into the student's own words. Add these tothe vocabulary box, and to the sound box (ESL).
Here are some legal explanations which may help:*bail - a deposit given to the court by some
one who is accused of a crime and goingto be tried. It is "insurance" that theaccused person will be present at thetrial. If he/she comes to the trial ontime, the money is returned.
*fine - a sum of money required of a personwho has been found guilty of a crime ashis/her punishment. The range of fineswhich a judge may impose for each par-ticular crime is given in the laws forsentencing. For example, for the crimeof possessing illegal drugs the law saysa judge may fine a guilty person for thefirst offense up to $50,000. For thesecond offense the fine may be up to$100,000. (example from Connecticut law)
Discuss what "up to" means in thosesentences.
*to imprison - A guilty person may be sen-tenced by a judge to a term inprison as a punishment inaddition to paying a fine. Forexample, Connecticut law saysa judge may send the personfound guilty of having illegaldrugs to prison for up toseven years for the first of-fense, and up to fifteen yearsfor the second offense, aswell as ordering payment ofthe fine.
*offense - any crime for which a judge mayorder the person judged guilty of it to
127114
pay a fine or serve a prison term, orboth.
- Extend vocabulary through word families:* bail - bailiff (an officer of the court
responsible for keeping order);to bail out (as empty water from aboat, or jump out of a plane with aparachute, or help someone out oftrouble).
*impose - impositionUsing core word "pose," defineexpose, dispose, disposition, sup-pose, supposition,compose, composition
*unusual - usual, use, to use, useful, us-able, unusable
*excessive - excessUsing core syllable "cess," defineprocess, success, successful, suc-cessive, succession.
Discussion- Re-read the Amendment for understanding. Ask thestudent to describe in his/her own words the protec-tions it gives.
- Laws about crimes and the punishments allowed foreach one are public, so any person can find out whatwill happen to him/her if he/she commits a crime. Doyou think that makes a difference if a person is think-ing about breaking a law? Would a very severe punish-ment stop a person from committing a crime? For exam-ple, would the death penalty keep a person from commit-ting murder?
How does your family punish a person who breaksthe rules? Does everyone in the family know ahead oftime what punishment will be given if rules are broken?
Shared Reading- As with the 5th and the 6th Amendments, the pro-tections guaranteed by the 8th Amendment tell us whatabuses by the English courts the Americans wanted toprevent. For example, in England people who were sus-
115
pected of a crime were kept in prison for long periodsof time - sometimes for years - before they werebrought to trial. The men who wrote the Bill of Rightsthought a system of bail would be more fair because itwould allow an accused person to be free to gatherevidence and witnesses for his/her defense before thetrial. That is one way of treating the person as inno-cent until a jury decides he/she is guilty. They said,however, that the amount of the bail may not be "exces-sive". The amendment means the amount of the bailshould be only enough money to make sure the personwill show up for the trial. If a court holds enoughmoney, the accused person will probably not run away.On the other hand, the amount of the bail should not beso large as to take away all the money a person has.
In our courts a judge decides what bail an accusedperson must deposit with the court. First the judgewill listen to the charges against the person and thinkabout how reliable he/she is. Setting and paying bailis one of the first steps in bringing an accused personto trial. If he/she comes to court on the date and timeset for the trial, the money is given back to theaccused. If he/she does not show up, the court willkeep the money.
After the trial, if the jury has decided theperson is guilty, the judge will decide on the punish-ment. The judge will consider how serious the crimewas, and how many times the person was proven guilty ofthe same offense, or other offenses, before. He willlook carefully at the laws about that particular crime.These tell him what are the limits of punishments hemay impose. Punishments may include a fine, or a termin prison, or both.
Three hundred years ago in England the king'sjudges could set any amount they wanted to for bail orfor fines. Sometimes these were so huge they took awayall the property a man had and left a debt for hischildren to pay.
Because of the 8th Amendment, the federal and thestate governments have developed clear definitions ofwhat bail and fines are reasonable for particularcrimes. Judges usually stay within those limits.
Ideas about what are "cruel and unusual" punish-rr_Ints have changed a great deal over the years. Three
hundred years ago the English courts could sentence aperson to be burned to death, or be pulled apart byhorses, or beheaded, or have his ears or his hands cutoff. Public whippings and hangings were common and sowas slitting a person's nostrils for minor crimes.
None of those terrible punishments are allowedbecause of the 8th Amendment. Now we think about wheth-er other punishments are "cruel and unusual." Forexample, what do you think about the death penalty fora convicted murderer? Supposedly the condemned personis killed quickly by electric shock or lethal injec-tion; but is taking away the life of even a convictedkiller too "cruel" to be allowed? The U.S. SupremeCourt says that the death penalty is constitutional,but only within very strict limits. Judges must consid-er many circumstances such as the character and pastrecord of the murderer, how many people he/she killed,how they were killed, and other factors.
You Be A JudgeFirst re-read the Amendment for understanding.
Then discuss how you would decide these cases.
- A man was found guilty of changing the recordsin the tax office where he was a clerk. The amountlost was not very large, but the judge sentencedhim to 15 years of hard labor on a chain gang andordered him to pay a fine 10 times larger than theamount he had cost the town in lost taxes. The manappealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court,saying the punishment violated his 8th Amendmentprotection against cruel and unusual punishment.What would you decide?
- A boy in high school was paddled by the principal for misbehaving a number of times in his clas-ses. A wooden paddle was used, and the boy claimedhe was black and blue and lame for weeks after-wards. He asked the U.S. Supreme Court to say thatwas "cruel and unusual punishment." What wouldyou decide?
(case of Ingraham v. Wright, 1977)
- In Georgia a jury decided a man was guilty ofmurder. Then the judge sentenced him to die in theelectric chair. His lawyers said that although thedeath penalty for murder was allowed by Georgia'slaw, the law itself was unfair. They said it gave
1'7 130
the judge too much discretion in imposing thedeath penalty, and the rules about who could beexecuted for particular crimes were not clear.
What do you think? How strict should laws bewhich allow the death penalty? What should ajudge have to consider before he gives the deathpenalty?
(case of Furman v. Georgia, 1972case of Gregg v. Georgia, 1976)
Community Site VisitTo see the 8th Amendment rights in action, a visit
to a municipal or state trial court is recommended. Apreliminary visit by a tutor to the court will helpwith planning to have students see what they are study-ing. Court officials and lawyers can explain thecourt's docket (or schedule) and the cases being tried,and suggest dates and times when appropriate sessionswill go on. Setting bail is usually done at an Arraign-ment (the first step in a trial). Fines and punishmentsare given by the judge after a jury's verdict ofguilty. They may be imposed by the judge immediatelyafter the verdict, or, if the case is complicated, thejudge will schedule a special session for sentencing ata later time.
If possible, arrangements should be made to talkwith a bail commissioner, a lawyer and a judge duringthe visit. This may be done before the court goes intosession, after the session, or during the recess. Thosepeople can explain the case(s) before the court on theday you visit and how the rights of the accused personon trial determine the procedures being used.-Review with the student:
* the name of the judge in the court* who will speak for the government's side in the
case you will observe (the prosecutor, or apolice officer)
* who will speak for the accused person (thedefense attorney)
* what step(s) in the trial process you will watch* what questions to ask the judge and other mem
bers of the court when there is an opportuni-ty.
* Remember - no talking is allowed while the courtis in session.
* Keep a pencil and paper handy to write down
questions to discuss later.
- Follow-up to the visit may include:* writing down impressions in the student journal,
or making tape* comparing what you saw in court with a trial on
television* looking at a video or reading about a trial, and
comparing that with what you saw in court.(The Ox Bow Incident, Twelve Angry Men, andTo Kill A mocking Bird are all good forshowing and discussing trials)
* ESL - may compare American court and trial within their country.
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES- Think about the fact that as many as 60 - 65 %of the people in prison are illiterate.- Do you think citizens should be more concernedabout the conditions of life in prison? Is beingimprisoned under those condition sometimes "crueland unusual punishments"?- If you have a strong opinion about the deathpenalty, how could you tell other people aboutyour ideas?
119 I 32
STUDENT ACTIVITY
-4Z
8th: Unfairbail, fines, andpunishmentforbidden
1. In this picture the woman may be giving the court official
money for before her trial. The purpose is to
Who told her how much money she had to deposit with the official?
2. The woman may be paying a
guilty of a crime. A
pay for her
out what is a fair amount?
after the jury says she is
told her how much money she had to
Where did that person look to find
ESL Topics for writing, taping or discussing:
1. In your country how is a person who has committed a crime protectedfrom cruel or unusual punishments?
2. Are people allowed to observe trials?
3. How do they find out what punishment has been given to a criminal?
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WHEN PEOPLE HAVE DISPUTES WITH EACH OTHER,
SEVENTHAMENDMENT
guarantees
trialby jury
135
rulesof the
comon law
THE SEVENTH AMENDMENT
In suits at common law, where the value in contro-versy shall exceed twenty dollars ($20), the right oftrial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by ajury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of theUnited States than according to the rules of the commonlaw.
Language Development Activities
- Read through the Amendment with the student, under-lining and discussing unfamiliar words.
* Here is some legal information that may help.* This Amendment deals only with civil cases.
See Shared Reading.* Common law is explained in Shared Reading.* "no fact tried by a jury" means no evidenceor witnesses heard and decided upon by ajury in a trial...
* "Re-examined" means that the decision of thejury about the truth of the facts is re-viewed by an Appeals Court.
* Using a dictionary, Shared Reading and discus-sion, have the student work out a definition ofeach new word. These may be added to a vocabularybox and to a sound box for pronunciation.* Ask the student to use each new word in two orthree sentences. Then ask him/her to explain whatthe Amendment means in his/her own words.
- Extend vocabulary by word families* suit - a civil case taken to court.
. to sue (verb) - to take a civil case tocourt.
. to bring a suit for damages against someone.suit - also describes a two-piece garment.
. to suit (verb), such as "that dress suitsyou."
. suitable (adjective)
. Unravel this sentence: That suit will suityou when you bring your suit into court; itis suitable for a plaintiff who sues a manwho has made bad suits for years.
* controversy - a dispute or quarrel. prefix: "contra"... contrary, contradict. suffix: "versy"... converse, perverse
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* preserved means "be kept in place," or "as in thepast"
prefix:"pre"... precondition, preliminary,pretend, preservative
* re-examined - examined again, in this context by
a courtprefix: "re"... repeat, rebuild, rethink,
review* exceed - go beyond
prefix: "ex"... expel, exit, explaincore syllable: "ceed" ... succeed, precede,
proceed
Discussion
Review the differences between civil and criminallaws. Ask the student to draw a story map which shows thedifferences, make a chart, or describe an example ofeach.
- Added information for understanding the 7th Amend-ment:
* A civil case usually results in a settlement oran award. It may not be all the plaintiff asked forin the suit, but it is what the jury and the judgethink is fair payment, or compensation, for damagedone to him/her. It is not a verdict that someoneis guilty or innocent of a crime.
* Common law is based on precedents. Precedents arepreceding, or earlier, decisions by judges thathave guided what judges use to decide later caseswith similar circumstances.
* The sum of $20 in 1791, when the Bill of Rightswas written, represented about 40 days wages, so itwas a significant amount of money. The limit wasset in order to avoid taking the court's time tosettle disputes over very small amounts.
Review the role of the people on a jury in a trial:* They listen to facts presented by both sides in acase.
* They decide which side is telling the truth, orhas the most convincing evidence and witnesses.
* A civil trial jury makes its decision on "the
preponderance of the evidence."
* In a civil case the jury may recommend the amountof a settlement or an award, but the judge makesthe final decision.
* In a criminal case the jury will give a verdictof "guilty" or "not guilty." They may recomment apunishment (fine, imprisonment, or both), but thejudge will decide what is appropriate within thelimits of the law.
* The decision of a jury on the facts presented ina trial is final.
- Review information about appeals.
* Anyone who loses their case in a civil trial hasthe right to appeal to a higher court.
* In a criminal trial if the accused person isfound "guilty" by the jury, he/she has the right toappeal. But if the accused is found "not guilty,"the government may not appeal that verdict (5thAmendment protection against double jeopardy).
Only if the government gathers significant newevidence about the crime, or an Appeals Courtorders a new trial because the first one was notfair, can there be a new criminal trial by anotherjury. (Re-read Ernesto Mirando's story on p. ).
* An appeals court does not listen again to thefacts decided by a jury in a trial. Instead, thejudges will listen to lawyers from both sides andwill consider:
. whether the jury trial was carried outaccording to the rules for due process;
whether the trial judge applied the lawcorrectly;
whether the rights and protections guaran-teed by the Bill of Rights were given tothe person accused of a crime, or theperson who brought a civil suit.
Shared Reading
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The 7th Amendment is important because it guaranteestwo constitutional rights in civil cases. Civil casesdeal with disputes among people over such matters asprivate property, contracts and patents, marriage andfamily, libels and slander, and wills and inheritances.In these cases there are no crimes which the governmentmay punish. But there may be damages done by one personto another, or there may be quarrels people cannot settleby themselves. A person who has been hurt by the acts ofanother may bring a complaint to the court. He/she iscalled a Plaintiff. He/she asks the court to make theperson who has done the damage pay him/her back, or
compensate for the injury.
The 7th Amendment guarantees that in these civilcases:
* there will be a trial by a jury whenever theamount of the damage is over $20; and* the cases will be decided by common law inthe trial and also in an appeals court.
Both parties in a dispute may waive the right to ajury trial if they think a judge will give a more fairdecision after he has listened to both sides by himself.
Most civil juries have six people rather than thetwelve who hear a criminal case.
The common law goes as far back in English historyas Magna Carta (1215). It was brought to America by thefirst English colonists. As they established courts in
the colonies, judges referred to the well establishedprinciples and decisions in English common law when theydecided similar cases here. Therefore, English common lawgradually became American common law. And both the U.S.Constitution and the constitution of each state say thiscommon law (or judge-made law) will be followed in
certain cases.
The common law is different from laws passed by theCongress, a state legislature, or a town council. Theselaws are called "statutes" or "ordinances," and they maybe changed quickly, even at the next session of a
legislature. Common law, however, is not made by publicdebate or vote of elected representatives.
The common law comes through decisions by judges. Itmay change over time, but only very gradually. Eachjudge, when a case must be decided, will look very
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carefully at decisions made by other judges about caseswith similar facts. Those decisions are called prece-dents. If the judge decides none of them fits theparticular case, he must write out a long, thoughtfulopinion explaining why a new principle must be applied.That opinion may then be tested by other judges duringthe appeals process. A precedent may even be reversed;but a judge has to have very convincing reasons to gobeyond common law precedents. Many other judges mustagree with any changes he/she writes about in an opinion,as well as his/her reasons for them, before a newprecedent is established.
By depending on earlier decisions in that way, thecommon law helps the courts and everyone with a dispute.It is predictable. It sets well-tested limits on settle-ments. It follows procedures and customs which have beenaccepted as fair for a long time; and it protects therights of both sides to a fair hearing in which the rulesare well known.
You Decide ...
Here is a civil case in which the student and tutor mayact as members of the jury.
Charlie Brown ate dinner at a Chinese restaurantowned by Mr.Ho. Several hours afterwards Mr. Brown becamevery ill. Thinking it might be food poisoning, he calledthe Health Department and asked that their inspectorcheck the food at the restaurant. The next morning theinspector went to the restaurant and decided Mr. Brown'sillness might be due to uncooked eggs used in the Caesarsalad dressing he had eaten because one egg left in thecase from which they had been taken smelled bad.
Mr. Brown, in the meantime, ended up in the hospitalfor four days. His medical bills amounted to $1,072, andhe lost a week work during which he would have earned$5,000. He suffered a lot of pain, and he lost more timefrom his job off and on for another two weeks after heleft the hospital. He thought that was worth another$5,000, so he thought he might sue Mr. Ho for $12,000.
When Mr. Brown discussed the matter with Mr. Ho, heoffered to settle the dispute if Mr.Ho would agree to payhim $9,000 That would save both of them fees for lawyersand the court. But Mr. Ho refused. He said the eggs were
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fresh when they were delivered to his restaurant thatmorning, and he had kept them in the refrigerator. If hepaid Mr.Brown, he was afraid people would think he hadused bad eggs and would not come to his restaurant.
Mr. Brown was a wealthy man who owned a vacationhome in the town. He came down from Boston occasionally,but he had no friends among the people in the area andwas not active in any of the town affairs. When he wenthome to Boston, he hired a lawyer who told him he had wonmany personal injury suits. He thought Mr. Brown's casewould very simple. They chose to have a jury trial. Theyhad the statement from the Health inspector saying thathe had found a bad egg in the case from which the eggsfor the salad dressing had been taken. Mr. Brown's lawyerthought that would be enough to convince a jury to giveMr. Brown a big award. The lawyer told Mr. Brown his feewould be 1/3 of whatever the jury awarded him, andrecommended they raise the amount they would ask for to
$24,000.
First the lawyer filed Mr. Brown's complaint againstMr. Ho with the court in the town where the restaurantwas located. Then he got a certificate from the HealthDepartment. It said that their inspector had checked outMr. Brown's complaint within 24 hours, as required in afood poisoning case, and had reported the bad egg foundin the case in Mr. Ho's restaurant.
The case of eggs was traced back to the farm of awell-known man in the town. He was the very popularmayor, a booster of the high school football team, and apast president of the States's Poultry Raisers' Associa-tion. People told the lawyer he was a careful manager ofhis chicken farm. Also, everyone knew the local eggmarket was important to the town's economy, but themarket had recently been declining. In fact, all thechicken farmers had laid off their help and were buyingless feed, so many families were suffering. If the localnewspaper started writing stories about bad eggs and foodpoisoning at local restaurants, things would get a lotworse.
Mr. Ho hired a lawyer also. He was the mayor'snephew. He had recently graduated from the state's lawschool and had worked for his uncle, the chicken farmer,to help pay his law school bills. From his uncle he gota record showing the eggs in the case had been delivered
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fresh to Mr.Ho's restaurant on the morning of the daywhen Mr. Brown had eaten his Caesar salad for dinner.
On the day of the trial, a jury of six people waschosen. All of them lived in the town. Two were house-wives; one owned and managed a local hardware store; onewas a retired book-keeper; and two worked for contractorsin the town. The trial lasted an hour. The jury listenedto both sides. Then they decided in favor of Mr. Ho,recommending that Mr. Brown receive no award at all.
* * * * *- For discussion with the student:
* Do you agree with the jury's decision? Why? Whynot?
* If you were the judge, would you change thejury's recommendation about the award so that Mr.Brown would receive at least an amount to cover hishospital bill and lost wages? Why? Why not?
* If you were Mr. Brown's lawyer, would you advisean appeal? Why? Why not?
Community Site Visits
- A visit to observe the Municipal Court in town ona day when the judge was hearing civil complaints wasdescribed in this Tutor's journal:
The day we went to Judge Turano's court he washearing a case based on a complaint of one neighboragainst another neighbor. Rose knew the defendantsso she was very interested; she also hoped shewouldn't have to explain why she was there.
Unfortunately, the plaintiff and hislawyer had some disagreement and were calledto the Judge's Chambers where they stayed forrest of the morning.
Rose thought the complaint was over aproperty line and the size of a new house.When she next met her acquaintance, she wasproud to tell her she was studying about ourgovernment.
This was a perfect illustration of the differencebetween criminal cases (the state vs. a person) and civil
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cases (between two persons).
A second community site visit was a meeting with alawyer. She emphasized the right of a person accused ofa crime to ask for a lawyer as soon as questioning by thepolice begins and the right of the person to remainsilent.
She also spoke about the importance of gettingaccurate advice whenever a person receives a legaldocument. She gave the group some samples of a courtsummons, a subpoena, and a civil complaint. Many words inthem are technical, and the response required is notalways clear. It is especially important for people withfew literacy skills or limited knowledge of Englishimmediately to find a person who can explain such adocument and what should be done. If deadlines forresponding are missed, or inaccurate information given,there may be serious consequences. She gave the group alist of places where legal consultation is available freeor at low cost.
For this session the tutor-student teams hadprepared at least one question to ask the attorney. Theycovered a wide range of civil and criminal matters, fromsuing in small claims court to landlord-tenant andconsumer problems to the rights of juveniles. As aconsequence, informational material on the topics of mostconcern were added to the Project's collection, and acopy of the decision in In re Gault (constitutional rightof juveniles) was sent to all the tutors(See Appendix).
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES- Consider the responsibilities of serving as a juror.
* Payment for being a juror may be as low as$10/day. What effect might this have on a person'sincome?* If a person asks to be excused from jury duty,will that have an effect on his/her reputation inthe community? Or, if many people ask to be ex-cused, will that affect the jury system?* If you are an employer and one of your employeesmust be away from work for 2 to 4 weeks on juryduty, do you have an obligation to continue to paythe employee's wages during that time? Even if youhave to hire a substitute to get the work done?* As a juror, it would be your responsibility tofollow the court's directions and come to a fair,
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unbiased decision. What difficulties might there bewith doing that?* Should a person be expected, as one of the dutiesof American citizens, to sacrifice earnings orpersonal activities in order to serve on a jury?
- What alternatives for settling civil disputes in courtcan you think of? How could you help family members orfriends to settle disputes between themselves?
SAMPLE OF STUDENT WRITING
7th: Jury trial in civil cases
Po r
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- 0 1/ , y
144 Bpzir
The 9th and 10th Amendments
9th: Citizensentitled to rightsnot listed in theConstitution
10th: Powersreserved tothe states orthe people
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THE NINTH AMENDMENT
The enumeration in the Constitution of certainrights shall not be construed to deny or disparageothers retained by the people.
THE TENTH AMENDMENT
The powers not delegated to the United States bythe Constitution, nor prohibited by it to thestates, are reserved to the states respectively orto the people.
Language Development Activities
- Read through the Amendments underlining new words.- Using a dictionary and discussion, have the studentwork out a definition of each new word. These may beadded to the vocabulary box and reviewed in laterlessons.Re-read for pronunciation and add new words to thesound box.
- Extend vocabulary through related words:* construed - means "shall not be interpreted,"
prefix "con" -conclusion, connection,conform, confirm
* enumeration - to enumerate, number, to number, tolist by number
* delegated - to delegate, delegation, be a delegate* deny - refuse to recognize or accept, denial,
refusal, to reject, rejection* disparage belittle, discredit, show disrespect
Using prefix "dis", define disdain,discriminate, discourage,disown, disappoint, disarm.
* dual - means "two parts". See Shared Reading forexplanation of "dual citizenship" inAmerica.
* prohibited - to forbid, forbidden, prohibitionUsing prefix "pro", define progress,process, procession, procedure, toproceed.
* reserved - to reserve, to hold, hold back, to havea reservationUsing core syllable "serve", definepreserve, conserve, deserve, observe.
* respectively - respective, to respect, respectful,respectable, respecting, with respect to
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* retained held back, keptUsing prefix "re", define repay,restore, react, recall, refine,respond.Using core syllable "tain", defineobtain, sustain, maintain, contain,attain.
- Ask the student to use each new word in 2 or 3 sentences,either through writing, taping, or discussing.
Shared Reading
The 9th and 10th Amendments describe the concept of dualcitizenship which we have in the United States. It is thebasis of our American system of shared powers. Each person isa citizen of both the United States (national citizenship) andof the state in which he/she lives. The U.S. Constitutionguarantees the two sets of laws will not contradict eachother.
As for the rights people have, the 9th and 10th
Amendments say that the rights listed in the U.S.
Constitution are not the only rights and protection peoplehave. Their state Constitution may give them others which arejust as important.
At the time the Bill of Rights was written in 1791, theAmendments said only what the national government could not doto citizens. For example, the Congress of the United Statesmay not pass a law that denies the rights of people to speakfreely, to follow the religion of their choice, or to gettogether and petition the government (1st Amendment rights).For another example, the law enforcers of the nationalgovernment (the U.S. Marshals) have to follow the 4th
Amendment rules for search and seizure, while the nationalcourts have to follow the rules for fair trials in the 5th,6th, 7th and 8th Amendments.
Besides those rules for the national government, each ofthe first 13 states had its own Constitution. All of thoseincluded a list of rights which limited what the stategovernment could do to the people who lived there. Even thoughthere are now 50 states, the same is true today.
The 9th and 10th Amendments say the people in each statehave the power to decide what rights they want to have intheir state Constitution. The only limitation is that thoserights may not change or take away any of our rights and
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protections as national citizens which are guaranteed to us inthe Bill of Rights.
It is the responsibility of the U.S. Supreme Court tomake sure that does not happen. However it is up to the personwho believes he/she has been denied one of thoseconstitutional rights or protections to take his/her case tocourt. In other words, it is the individual citizen who makesthe whole system work for all of us.
The 9th and 10th Amendments mean that the people in anystate may vote to add more rights and protections to the stateConstitution for those who live there. They never can vote forfewer. For example, no national right to a free education inpublic schools is provided in the Bill of Rights. Severalstates, however, have added that one to their stateConstitution. For example, here is what Connecticut has said:
There shall always be free publicelementary and secondary schools in theState, and every child shall have theright to attend.
In our system of shared powers, each state has theauthority to pass laws for the health, safety and common goodof its people. Therefore, when a state adds more rights andprotections for its citizens than the national Bill of Rightsgives, that state must also pass the laws necessary to insurethat everyone in the state can enjoy those rights.
In the example of the right to a free public education inConnecticut, the state legislators have a constitutionalresponsibility to make free public schools available for allchildren. Furthermore, the School Laws say that all parentsmust make sure their children attend school up to 16 years ofage.
The 9th and 10th Amendments confirm the basic principlethat the final power to decide issues of rights,responsibilities and government belongs to the people. Whenthe majority of them voted in favor of the U.S. Constitution,(between 1787 and 1789) they gave (delegated) to the nationalgovernment specific (enumerated) powers to do certain things,(Article I, Section 8). Other powers to do other things theykept (reserved) for each state, such as power to regulatehealth, safety, education for people in that state. Thecitizens have final "say" about powers, rights and protectionthrough their votes and the courts. That is what Lincoln meant
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by "government of the people, by the people and for thepeople."
Discussion and Writing ActivitiesRe-read the Amendments for understanding. Can the student
put them into his/her own words?
- For review, write out a list of the rights given in thefirst eight Amendments.
Talk about some rights not on that list which are importantfor people to have. Are they important for an individual? afamily? a work place? a town? for everyone in a state? in thewhole USA? Are there differences between personal rights andpublic rights? Can laws be passed to enforce some but notothers?
- In many countries people are national citizens only (inEngland, France, or China, for example). There are no
separate state constitutions. Do you think there areadvantages to having two sets of rights, laws, and dualcitizenship, as in the USA?
ESL students. What rights do ordinary people have in yourhomeland? What legal protections do they have from governmentofficials or soldiers? Would dual citizenship (national andstate) be possible in your country? (People who live in theformer USSR are now struggling with that question.)
You Decide ...- The United Nations has accepted a Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights. Look at this list of Rights on pA37,,Do you thinksome of them should be added to our U.S. Constitution, or toyour state Constitution?
- Are some of the Rights on the list different from Rights
in the Amendments which tell government officials whatthey may not do to people, or must do to be fair to people?
- What are responsibilities which balance the Rights on
the Universal Declaration?
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Copied from IT'S YOURS: THE BILL OF RIGHTS, Lessons on the Bill of Rights forStudents of English as a Second Language.
Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1991
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
In World War II, six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. People around the worldhoped that such a terrible crime against human rights would never happen again. In 1948,representatives of countries with different political systems and from all parts of the worldcame together at the United Nations. They wrote a declaration of the basic needs, hopes, andwishes of all men and women. They included rights in education, health, work, and cultureas well as legal and political rights. Following is a summary of these rights.
1. Right to equality2. Freedom from discrimination3. Right to life, liberty, personal safety4. Freedom from slavery5. Freedom from torture or cruel and inhuman punishment6. Right to be protected by the law7. Right to be treated in the same way as others by the law8. Right to legal help if rights are not respected9. No arrest, prison or exile without good reason10. Right to a public and fair trial11. Right to be considered innocent until proven guilty12. Right to privacy and protection of your good name13. Right to move within your country and to leave and return to it when you wish14. Right to protection in another country if your country violates your rights15. Right to be a citizen of your country or to become a citizen of another country16. Right to marriage and family, equal rights in marriage, protection of the family by
government17. Right to own property18. Freedom of religion19. Freedom of opinion and speech; freedom to give and receive information20. Right to organize meetings; right to join organizations; right not to join organizations21. Right to participate in government and in free elections22. Right to personal development by sharing in the economic, social and cultural life of
the country23. Right to work for fair pay and to join labor unions; men and women receive equal
pay24. Right to paid holidays and work hours that are not too long25. Right to food, housing, and medical care needed for a decent life; special help when
you cannot work; special care for mothers and children26. Right to the education you want and education that teaches understand' - and
tolerance among nations, races, and religions27. Right to participate in the cultural life of the community28. Right to social order and international order that protects all these rights29.. Right to these freedoms without interference by government, individuals or private groups
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- Abortion is a sensitive, complicated topic. If the studenthas interest and is aware of the current debate, it is achallenging example of the evolving balance between national,state and individual rights.
Currently a woman's right to have an abortion during thefirst trimester of pregnancy is one of her constitutionallyprotected privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court decided thatin the case of Roe v. Wade in 1973. The 9th Amendment inparticular was used to support that decision about the rightto privacy in such a personal matter.
* Is the student aware of how abortion is viewed in thiscountry by different groups of people or differentreligious organizations, etc.?
* How is abortion viewed in the homeland of an ESLstudent?
* Encourage the student to discuss his/her personal viewsand reasons for thinking abortion should or should notbe a constitutionally protected right during the firsttrimester. How about an abortion in the second or thirdtrimester?
Several state legislatures have passed laws which limitthat privacy right for women in their state. The majority ofthe voters who elected those legislatures wanted some limitson the right of a woman to make her own decision, so the statelaws require such restrictions as waiting for 24 hours, ormaking the woman get permission from her husband or parentsbefore getting an abortion. Some of these state laws are nowbeing reviewed by the U.S. Supreme court. The Court has thepower to uphold its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade or to reverseit. If it reverses the Roe decision, that means the state lawswhich limit the woman's rights to decide for herself areconstitutional.
If you were a judge, what would you decide?
Community Site Visit
- A meeting was arranged with the District's Represen-tative to the State General Assembly. The purpose of thesession was fully explained to her beforehand so shefocused her comments on rights of people in Rhode Islandwhich go beyond, or are more specific than, those -Ii.venin the national Bill of Rights. She also discussed casesin the state which have been a test of what some of theAmendments mean in practice. A current case of aninvocation by a rabbi at a middle school graduation wasreviewed as a "separation of church and state" iEsue (Seep. in the 1st Amendment Section). Also, a case of reli-gious symbols in Christmas decorations which were dis-played on town property was discussed as a 1st Amendmentissue.
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The session allowed time for students and tutors toask a range of questions which reflected interests aboutstate and local issues, both public and personal. Mattersof consumer rights, illegal drugs, the death penalty, re-districting, state laws about abortion and adoption, andthe environment were touched on. They demonstrated thespread of discussions between tutors and students beforethe session, as well as careful preparation of questionsto ask. The experience was especially valuable becausethe students, as concerned adults, had an opportunity toask their questions of one of the state's most thoughtfulRepresentatives. Listening to her made the group aware ofhow powers, rights and responsibilities are dividedbetween the national government, the state and each of usas individual citizens.
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES
Write out the responsibilities of the individualcitizen, considering what each of us has to do to makeour federal system work.
For each right or protection we have, there areresponsibilities. Look back at the rights you would liketo add to the U.S. Bill of Rights or your state's rights.What are corresponding duties or responsibilities foreach one?
Does the fact that we are citizens of both anational government and of a state government give us adouble set of responsibilities? Are our responsibilitiesas a national citizen the same as those we have as acitizen of our state? or different?
For an ESL student: In America we say "our rightsare balanced by our responsibilities." In the homelandare the rights of people written down in a Constitution?What are the responsibilities of the citizens? Where arethose written down? Do they balance the rights andprotecti given, or is there no connection betweenrights and responsibilities?
- Find a copy of your State Constitution and read thesection which guarantees rights to the citizens in yourstate. What are those rights? And what responsibilitiesgo with them?
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The Civil War Amendments
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THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT (1865)
Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,except as a punishment for a crime whereof theparty (person) shall have been duly convicted,shall exist within the United States nor anyplace subject to their jurisdiction.
Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce thisarticle by appropriate legislation.
Language Development Activities
- Read through the Amendment underlining unfamiliarwords.
- Using a dictionary and discussion, have thestudent work out a definition of each word. Thesemay be added to the vocabulary box.
- Re-read for pronunciation and add new words to thesound box.
- Extend vocabulary with related words* duly convicted - This means has been judged
guilty in a court of law according to therules for due process (see Amendments 5,6 and 8)
involuntary - voluntary, volunteer, tovolunteerprefix "in" means "not" - inadequate,
inferior, inconvenient, incom-plete
prefix also means "in" as in income, toinclude, incarcerate
* jurisdiction - This means any place which isbound by the laws of a particular govern-ment. A synonym is "power" or "authority".
* servitude - service, serviceable, to serve,serving, to be served, servant, servile
* slavery a slave, slaving, to slave* subject - This means "under the authority of
a particular set of laws" (as a citizenof the United States lives under the lawsof the USA).
- Another meaning of the wordimplies that a person is totally under thepower of a dictator or tyrannical ruler.
* to enforce this article - This means tocompel obedience to this Amendment bylaws. Enforcement, enforcer, force.
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Note the unusual word "whereof". Today it would be"of which".
- Words to know about the Civil War:* secession to break away from, to secede* abolish - to do away with, abolition,
abolitionist* Emancipation Proclamation (1863) - The
official statement by President Lincoln whichdeclared the slaves in the Confederate Statesto be free.
Shared reading for background
- The Civil War (1861-1865) was the most difficulttest in our history of the Union between the states andof the Constitution. It was a time of terrible losses andsadness for all the American people. However, it settledtwo issues about which people had debated and quarreledfor a long time: the issue of slavery in the southernstates, and the issue of whether states which did notagree with laws made by Congress could break away(secede) from the Union and set up their own nation.
- In 1861 there were 34 states in the Union. Eleven ofthem counted themselves as the southern states; nineteenwere called the northern states; and four were borderstates. See the list of states in the Appendix. Thenorthern states in 1861 are marked with "*"; thesouthern states are marked with "o". The border stateswhere people were divided are marked with "b". The restof the country was divided into territories until enoughpeople settled in each one to organize it into a state.Congress made the laws for the territories; the U. S.Marshals were the law enforcers there. Whether living ina state or a territory, however, people everywhere feltthey were bound together by their common traditions andby their experiences as Americans with winning the Warfor Independence and settling a new nation. Most of all,they believed the U.S. Constitution held them together intheir own unique system of government and laws.
Ever since the colonies were first settled there hadbeen some basic differences between those in the northand those in the south. Many of these had to do withclimate and ways of farming. In the north most farms weresmall, growing only crops intended to feed a family,while the men worked as craftsmen, sailors, ship-buildersand traders. But in the south it was possible to have
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very large farms (plantations) on which the owner couldgrow crops like tobacco, rice and sugar cane to sell. Inthe days before there were any machines for farming, allthe work of planting, hoeing, harvesting and preparingfor market was done by hand; so the plantation owners inthe south needed many workers who could be kept on theplantation year-round to take care of the crops. OwningNegro slaves brought from Africa was the answer theyfound for that problem. Slavery was a custom as old ashuman history; and it was generally accepted when thecolonies were being settled as the way to have reliable"hands" for the hardest, dirtiest jobs.
As the years went on, other differences between thenorth and the south developed. Soon after the Revolution,all the northern states passed laws which prohibitedslavery. In the south, however, the number of Negroslaves increased rapidly, and gradually laws were passedin the southern states to control the slave population.For example, no slave could leave his owner's plantationwithout permission. Slaves could not marry or establisha family. If a slave woman had a child, it belonged tothe plantation owner. An owner could sell a slave at anytime; and he could punish a slave for any reason becausea slave had no rights. Slaves were considered property,and so were their children and their children's children.
When the Constitution was written in 1787, slaverywas one of the main issues which divided the southernstates from the northern ones. Many people questionedwhether slavery was right for a new nation which said inits Declaration of Independence that "all men are createdequal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalien-able rights among which are life, liberty and the pursuitof happiness". But others were afraid the southern stateswould not join the Union created by the Constitution ifit prohibited slavery. Besides, many people believedslavery would eventually outlive its usefulness and wouldgradually disappear, Thomas Jefferson and George Washing-ton among them.
Perhaps it might have. But soon after the Constitu-tion was ratified, southern plantation owners learned howto plant cotton, and in a few years it became the mostprofitable crop in the United States. It was sold allover Europe as well as in the northern states to manufac-ture cloth, and it made many southern land owners veryrich. The trouble with growing cotton in the days before
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machines was that it needed even more "hands" to do thework in the fields than did other crops. The laws in the
southern States which controlled slaves became even morestrict and oppressive. Furthermore, the land owners inthe south began to move slaves into the frontier territo-ries on the westward edge of their states in order todevelop cotton plantations there. Therefore, it was clear
to more and more people that slavery would not graduallydisappear, but would spread wherever cotton could be
grown.
By the 1830s most people in the northern Statesopposed slavery, and many wanted Congress to abolish itin all the southern states by law. Some organized anti-slavery societies; some became very active in trying tohelp slaves escape from their owners. An "underground
railroad" organized by the northern abolitionistsprovided guides and "safe houses" for the run-away slaves
who made the long, dangerous trip from the south up toCanada. Up there they would not be found by the "slavecatchers" hired by southern plantation owners to bringtheir slaves back. It was a heroic effort by both theslaves who risked their lives to get away and by thenorthern people who helped them.
Other people in the north petitioned Congress againand again to end slavery by law in all the states and toprohibit slave owners from moving their slaves into theterritories to the west. Congress had the authority to do
that in the territories because, until each territorybecame a state, Congress passed its laws. Congress didprohibit slavery in the Northwest territory, but not in
the others. Furthermore, the southern states insistedthat the Constitution gave them the power to pass lawsfor their own people. They said the national governmenthad no authority to interfere with state laws. By the1850s some leaders in the south were saying that even ifit meant leaving the Union of States created by theConstitution, they were determined to stand together toprotect their way of life, including slavery.
By 1860 the movement to abolish slavery was sostrong in the northern states, voters were able to elect
an anti-slavery President, Abraham Lincoln. Aboveeverything, he was determined to keep the Union of Statestogether under the Constitution of 1787. Leaders in theeleven southern states took his election as a signal thatthe national government, under his leadership, would move
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to emancipate the slaves and abolish the laws which keptthe system of slavery in place; so their state legisla-tures voted to leave the Union and become a separatenation. Calling it the Union of Confederate States, theywrote their own Constitution which set up a government ofthree branches much like that in the U.S. Constitution.They even included a Bill of Rights - but none of thosewere given to the slaves. The whole system of Negroslavery was kept in place by the same oppressive laws asbefore.
- When the Confederate government tried to seize fortswhich belonged to the United States government, Lincolnknew he had to fight back. That began one of our worstwars, the Civil War. It lasted for four years, withterrible losses on both sides.
Finally it ended when the Confederate army surren-dered at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. As soonas peace was declared, Congress proposed and the northernstates ratified, the 13th Amendment. That meant theCivil War settled two issues which had divided the statesfor a long, long time.
* Slavery was abolished forever from the UnitedStates.
* No state can secede from (or leave) the UnitedStates. The U.S.Constitution and its Amend-ments bind all of them together in a federalsystem of powers, rights and responsibilitiesdivided among the national government, the,states, and individual citizens.
Discussion/Writing Activities
- Think about being a slave in the southern statesbefore the Civil War. What do you think would have beenthe most unbearable part of a slave's life?- Why do you think the laws of the southern States didnot allow slaves to be taught to read and write?- Here is a description written by a 10-year old girlNettie, in 1859. She went south with her family, andwrote letters to her friend Addie, which her family haskept all these years.
On Saturday we went to town andstopped at a house with a red flag out-side. I didn't want to go inside, Addie,but my brother said we had to see whatwas going on.
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Inside there was a platform. Men werestanding all around it looking at thepeople standing on it. One was a fat manin a tight white suit who was tellingeveryone what to do. He pushed a blackwoman forward on the platform and shoutedat her, 'Jump, gal, jump!' Someone in thecrowd called out a price, and the fat manpushed her off the platform so hard shealmost fell at the feet of the man whowas handing over some dollar bills. Thenshe was gone, Addie, like a sack of flourpushed across a store counter.
Next the fat man pushed forward a manwith a face all twisted. He had to jumpand run around the platform until someonecalled out a bid for him. Then he wasgone. The next were two children aboutour age. They were holding hands andlooked so frightened. They were bought bydifferent men, and the fat man had totear them apart. Addie, I can still hearthem crying.(Adapted from ACTING TOGETHER, Field TestCopy, Arlene F. Gallagher, Editor.)
What do you think was happening? How would you feelif you saw something like that?
Many people today have to do hard, dirty work. Wouldyou call them slaves? Does that mean the same thing asbeing a slave in the south before the 13th Amendment waspassed?
ESL - Are there any conditions in the student'shomeland which might be compared with the life of slavesin the southern states? What laws force people to livethat way? What laws give people opportunities to improvebad conditions in their lives?
144 1 59
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
GUARANTEES
Due .
Process )
//
\
Na
Equal
Protection)/
BILL OF RIGHTS
I
145 1 60
,
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
In 1865, thre were nearly five million black peoplewho had been slaves living in the southern states. Theyhad never been citizens; and they had had no rights orprotections in any laws. Congress proposed the 14thAmendment to protect them, as well as to tell thesouthern states what they had to do to come back into theUnion. The five Sections of the 14th Amendment make itthe longest of all the Amendments. The four whichregulate the return of the southern states are notimportant now. Section 1, however, is very important. Ittells exactly who is a citizen of the United States andexplains that each one is a citizen both of the nationand also of the state in which he/she lives. It also sayswhat the states may not do to citizens.
Section 1: The 14th Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the UnitedStates, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, arecitizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shallabridge the privileges or immunities of citizens ofthe United States; nor shall any state deprive anyperson of life, liberty, or property, without dueprocess of law; nor deny to any person within itsjurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Language Development Activities
- Follow the language development activities outlinedunder the 13th Amendment.The term "privileges and immunities" refers to rightsand protections in the Bill of Rights.
Shared Reading and Discussion
The subject of becoming a naturalized citizen offersmany possibilities for exploration and discussion withboth American and foreign-born students.
* What are the rules and steps for becoming anaturalized citizen?* What promises does a naturalized citizen make?What are his/her responsibilities?
* If a student is foreign-born, how does he/shefeel about going through the process of becoming
an American citizen? What would be the rules and
steps for becoming a naturalized citizen inhis/her homeland?* There are many readable, interesting accounts of
what immigrants experienced when they came toAmerica. Possibly the parents, grandparents orother relatives of an American student were immi-grants. Can the student talk with them, and writeor tape their "story"?
- Section 1 of the 14th Amendment was originally
intended for the freed slaves in the southern states.Because they had been born in America, it made them fullAmerican citizen, with all the rights, protections and
responsibilities of every other citizen under the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Imagine what changesthat meant for a person who one day was a slave, theproperty of another person, completely without rights orprotections, and the next day was a free citizen underthe Constitution of the United States which protectedthem and gave them full legal rights. For example, thinkabout their new opportunities to marry, to set up afamily, to own property, to go to school and to learn to
read and write.
- Section 1 also guaranteed the freed slaves that no
state could have laws which deprived them of due process
or equal protection of the laws. That meant all stateofficials had to treat them as they treated whitecitizens, and had to use the same steps for fairness if
they acted to take away their liberty, their life, ortheir property. Furthermore, by Section 5 of the Amend-ment, the U.S. Congress was given the authority and the
responsibility to enforce equal protection and due
process.
- Unfortunately for the freed slaves, it was notenough to have that goal written into the Constitution.
For a long time after the Civil War the southern statescontinued to make laws which segregated (kept separate by
law) black people from white, and the U.S. Supreme Courtsaid those laws were constitutional. In the case ofPlessv V. Ferguson, in 1896, the Court said separatefacilities (such as seats on public busses, or the public
schools, or the public swimming pools) were allowed underthe Constitution as long as they were provided equally
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for blacks and whites.
- Without education, the freed slaves could work atonly the hardest, dirtiest, lowest paying jobs. Many ofthem and their children moved out of the south over theyears to find work in northern states and to attend thepublic schools, which were not segregated by state laws.But their low level of skills kept most of them in thepoorest neighborhoods, crowded into the worst housing,with the fewest opportunities for improving their lives.Even now, after more than ol.e hundred years, in spite ofmany laws by Congress, many court cases, and extraordi-nary efforts of individual men and women, both black andwhite, the struggle for equal protection and fairtreatment promised in the 14th Amendment goes on.
- One of the most important court cases which used thepromises of the 14th Amendment to change state lawssegregating black people was the case of Brown v. TheBoard of Education of Topeka, Kansas,in 1954. The factswere these:
* The state of Kansas had laws which requiredthat black children attend separate public schoolsfrom the white children. All southern states hadsimilar laws. The problem was the schools for theblack children were not equal to those attended bywhite children. For example, the school buildingsfor the black children were shabby, poorly equippedand seldom repaired; their teachers were poorlytrained, and paid less than teachers in schools forwhite children; and the schools for black childrenwere given fewer supplies and books than schoolsfor white children.
* In the city of Topeka a black family decidedto test the law by asking that their daughter,Linda Brown, be admitted to the elementary schoolfor white children near their home. When the SchoolBoard refused, saying the state law did not allowthat, the Browns decided to go to court. With theparents of other black children, they claimed theI4th Amendment guaranteed to the black children ofTopeka equal educational opportunity - under the"equal protection" clause. The state law requiringsegregated schools, they claimed, deprived them ofthat protection.
* The parents and their lawyers took the case all
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the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Justicesthere unanimously agreed with the parents. In theirdecision they said that public schools which aresegregated on the basis of race are inherentlyunequal. The court said the segregated schools forblack children had never been given resources equalto those provided for white children. That tellsthe black children they are inferior, and notvalued by society as much as white children.
That decision reversed the Plessy v. Fergusonstandard which said "separate could be equal". From1954 on, all state laws which segregate publicschools by race have been unconstitutional; andpublic schools throughout the United States ha-worked to educate black and white children togeter. One family - the Browns in Topeka - who wantedthe best education possible for their 9-year olddaughter, Linda, truly understood what the 14thAmendment meant for all Americans. They showed thatone family can make a difference for everyone byexercising the rights and protections guaranteed inour Constitution.
The 14th Amendment has been used in many more cases tooverturn other state laws which have denied people equal protectionor the fundamental steps of due process. Several of these have beendescribed in earlier lessons. Through those cases, the Bill ofRights which was originally intended to protect people againstunfair actions by officials of the national government - has beenapplied to state officials and state laws. For some examples, look
at these :
* The flag-burning case described in the lesson on the 1stAmendment. Here the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a Texas lawwhich prohibited burning an American flag, saying it deniedthe person's right to express his opinion freely.
* The case of Christmas decorations on public property was atest of the "wall of separation between church and state"required by the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.Here the Court said that a town permit to have a creche in thepublic park which showed only the Christian Christmas storyfavored one religion over others and so violated freedom ofreligion.
* The case of Ernesto Miranda in the lessons on the 5th andthe 6th Amendments tested his right to remain silent and hisright to the help of a lawyer when the police arrested him.
149 1 4
Here the Court said everyone who is arrested has theright to know what protections he/she has under thoseAmendments. Now all state laws and rules for policeofficers require the officers to read the "MirandaRights" to a person as soon as he/she is arrested andaccused of a crime.
Community Site Visit
This activity was an extended session with the judgeof the local court. His presentation reviewed in depththe steps the police and the court follow to assure thateach person charged with a crime receives a fair hearingand has all the protections guaranteed in the Bill ofRights. He discussed a number of key U.S. Supreme Courtdecisions which have changed state laws and practices inorder to meet the requirements for due process and equalprotection, as well as to give people other rights likefree speech and freedom of belief.
The students had prepared questions to ask, but thediscussion went far beyond those. A pamphlet on the Rightto Fair Housing demonstrated how tx)th federal and statelaws work together in an 7'rea of prime concern to adults.Material about Rights on Your Job and The Rights ofElderly Fersons showed how broadly the 14th Amendment hasbeen applied by the courts and written into laws we livewith in every aspect of daily life. The formula thatthere can be no discrimination on the basis of "race,cor, religion, ancestral origin, gender, physicalhandicap, marital status or age" took on sharper meaning.Both tutors and students realized again what individualpeople have won for all Americans by using the 14thAmendment guarantees to take their cases to court.
One aspect of rights was touched on only. briefly -the rights of juveniles. To answer the questions aboutthe rights of those under 16 years of age who are chargedwith delinquent acts, a paper on In re Gault was sent tothe tutors to use in follow-up lessons if they wished. Itis included in the Appendix. There was not time to gointo the matter of the rights of neglected and abusedchildren in Juvenile Courts, but several people haveexpressed concern that "the Bill of Rights does not seemto protect them".
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YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES
- Think about the obligation to recognize the "citizen-ship" of others and their rights, regardless of theirorigins, gender, race, religion, politics, etc.
- Consider the obligation to pursue your own rights whenyou are convinced the government or its official seek toignore or reduce them.
Learn about volunteer groups and organizations in yourarea which will provide legal advice and sometimes legalassistance for people who can not afford to bring their
case to the courts.
- How can people be persuaded to look at their ownprejudices? Think about the song "children have to betaught to hate before they are six or seven or eight".What does that say about the responsibility of parents?And others who deal with children?
FROM A TUTOR'S JOURNAL :
The story of Rosa Parks was a good illustration ofhow one black woman made a difference for many others ofher race. The following excerpt was readable for mystudent, and gave us a basis for lively discussions aboutvarious kinds of discrimination. Also we both couldrelate to having tired feet!
Rosa Parks' feet ached as she walked to theCleveland Avenue bus stop. It was 1955 inMontgomery, Alabama. She had worked at housecleaning jobs since early morning, and withmany other people, was hurrying home after herhard day. When the bus arrived, all the seatswere quickly taken. Some people had to stand.The state law said black people could sit onlyat the back of the bus, and had to give theirseats to white people if the seats reservedfor whites in the front of the bus werefilled. Rosa sat down in the section reservedfor black people, relieved to ease her tiredfeet. Then the bus driver ordered her andthree other black people to give their seatsto white people who were standing in thefront. Rosa refused to get up, so she wasarrested for refusing to obey the state laws.
With the help of Civil Liberties Unionlawyers, she took her case all the way to theU.S. Supreme Court. There the Justices de-clared the Alabama law did not give equaltreatment to black people. They ruled it wasan unconstitutional violation of the 14thAmendment.
Mrs. Parks' case was one of several whichstarted the movement to change state laws thatdiscriminate on the basis of a person's race.Now all seats on any public transportation inevery state are open for anyone.
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The Voting Rights Amendments
1
Fifteenth Nineteenth
and Twenty-sixthAmendments
w
168
THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT (1870)
Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States tovote shall not be denied or abridged by theUnited States or by any State on account ofrace, color, or previous condition of servi-tude.
Section 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce thisarticle by appropriate legislation.
Language Development Activities
(Each of the three Voting Rights Amendments which followuses the same language, except for the people to whom itapplies. Therefore, the following Language Activities maybe used for all three.)
Read through the Amendment underlining the unfamiliarwords.With a dictionary and discussion, work out a definitionof each new word, putting it into the student's ownwords. Add to the vocabulary box.Use each new word in two or three sentences.
- Re-read the Amendment for pronunciation.Repeat each new sound and word, and add to sound box.
- Read the Amendment again for comprehension.Can the student put it into his/her own words?
- Extend vocabulary with related words* abridge (a verb) In this context the word means
"to deprive of," or "to take away."* appropriate (an adjective) A synonym would
be "suitable", "fitting". In this context, itmeans laws which accomplish the purpose ofthe Amendment.
verb form - to appropriate - means "to take"* entitled - means "to have a legal right."* intimidate In the context of voting this means
to make someone afraid to vote by threats,force or violence.
Core word is "timid".
* prohibit - In the context of voting this means toforbid by law.
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* qualify - (a verb)This means "to meet the legal
requirements needed to do something," in this
case to vote.
qualification(s) - The noun means "the legal
requirement(s) necessary to do something"
Shared Reading for Background
The 15th Amendment is one of the Civil War Amend-
ments. Many leaders, black and white, believed it was not
enough to declare (by the 13th Amendment) that all slaves
were free and by the 14th Amendment that they were full
citizens of the United States and the state in which they
lived, entitled to due process and equal protection of
the laws. One of them, Frederick Douglass, a former
slave, spoke for all when he said "slavery is not
abolished until the black man has the ballot." Only if
all black men had a clear legal right to vote could freed
slaves protect themselves. Because neither the 13th nor
14th gave them that protected right, the 15th Amendment
was added to the Constitution in 1870.
Adding all the men who were former slaves to the
voting lists created some very difficult problems. For
example, there were some significant changes in the
established political parties. At first the great
majority of black voters voted for the Republican Party.
That was the party of Lincoln and it had supported the
War which made them free. But that made the southern
white people, who had been defeated by Lincoln's armies,
angry and afraid of what the new black voters would do
with their new power. As time went on, their fears spread
among northern white people when the former slaves
migrated north to find jobs. White legislators in both
southern and northern states tried different ways to
limit the number of black people who could vote. For
example, in some states they passed laws which said every
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voter had to pass a literacy test. Knowing that most ofthe former slaves could not read or write, an official at
the voter registration desk would require them to read adifficult passage from the state Constitution. When ablack man could not do that, he was told he could notvote.
In other states, the voting laws required a man toprove he had paid taxes. When a black man could not show
papers to prove he had paid a property tax, or a polltax, he was told he could not vote.
The worst way by which some white people tried tokeep black people from voting was by intimidation. Withthreats or force, or actual violence, some groups ofwhite men made blacks afraid even to try to vote. TheKlu Klux Klan was one such organization. It grew up inthe years after the Civil War with the stated purpose of
keeping blacks (and also immigrants) away from votingplaces by force. It took extraordinary courage on thepart of black people to use their constitutional right to
vote under those circumstances.
It has taken a very long time for black people, as
well as some immigrants and other minorities to securethe right to vote. Gradually the ways by which they hadbeen kept from exercising their 15th Amendment right have
been prohibited by laws and by decisions of the U.S.Supreme Court.
In 1897, President Cleveland vetoed a bill of
Congress which would have required a literacy test forfederal elections. After that, the states one by oneremoved their literacy requirements.
In 1964, the 24th Amendment was added to the Consti-tution. That prohibited every state from requiring
171_1 55
payment of a poll tax to qualify for voting in any
election to a federal office (President, Vice President,
U.S. Senator, and U.S.Congressperson). Since then the
states have repealed the laws which required proof that
a person had paid taxes before allowing them to vote.
NOCOSTTO
VOTE!
\
24th: Forbids having to pay atax to vote. (1964)
156I 72
There is still a Klu Klux Klan in the United States.It is one of the private "hate organizations" for whichthe great majority of Americans have no liking. But ifour Constitution allows everyone the right to speak, towrite, to believe, and to associate freely, there willalways be groups which express ideas the majority doesnot agree with. The line we have drawn is that suchgroups or individuals may not act in ways that bringgreat fear or harm to others. Any of us may talk aboutdifferent ideas, but committing destructive or harmfulacts is forbidden by laws.
Now polling places for all voters are protectedequally and are open equally to citizens of all racesover the age of eighteen. Voting is one of the greatprivileges of United States citizens which is assuredunder the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amend-ment. It is the way by which each of us can have a voicein choosing those who represent us in government and makethe laws for our society.
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THE NINETEENTH AMENDMENT (1920)
Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States tovote shall not be denied or abridged by theUnited States or by any State on account ofsex.
Section 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce thisarticle by appropriate legislation.
Lan ua e Develo ment Activities (follow those outlinedunder the 15th Amendment)
- Extend vocabulary with related words* franchise - The right to vote given by law.
To enfranchise a person is to givehim/her a legal right to vote.
* sex - A preferred synonym is "gender"* suffrage In the context of women's strug-
gle to secure their right to vote,this term was commonly used by allgroups. The largest organization wascalled the National American WomanSuffrage Association. Women who wereactive in the struggle to obtaintheir right to vote were called"suffragettes".
- What does this cartoon say about the idea ofwomen's work held by the men who wrote the Constitutionin 1787?
WELL,6EIZEMEATHAT WRAP5UP,11ARE vJEFORGETTING
ANYBODYr
151 7 4Iftr
11040V 4"1,11fP c4, 4,, L
Shared Reading for Background
About 52 % of the American people in the 1990 censuswere women 18 years of age or more. Almost all of themare eligible to vote. But that was not the case before1920 when the 19th Amendment was passed. From the time ofthe Declaration of Independence in 1776 to 1920 none ofthe states gave women the right to vote in state orfederal elections.
When the Constitution was written in 1787, it gaveto the states the responsibility for deciding who shouldhave the right to vote. Each state passed election lawswhich said only men 21 years old or more could vote inboth state and federal elections; and, as each new statejoined the Union after that, the legislators passed thesame voting laws.
It was generally agreed that the place for women wasin the home, taking care of children, the house, and thefamily. Women had very important work to do, but peoplebelieved that a woman should work only where she wasprotected by her husband or, if she was not married, byher father or some other male relative. Men, on the otherhand, worked in business, in factories, in government,for example; and when public matters such as election hadto be decided, their vote represented both their owninterests and the interests of the women in their family.
Women in America began trying to change those statevoting laws long before the Civil War. The first meetingto work for women's rights was organized in 1848 by twoteachers, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.Called the Seneca Falls Convention, the women thereissued a Declaration of Independence for Women whichbegan with the statement "all men and women are createdequal...". They also unanimously declared:"it is thesacred duty of the women of the United States of Americato secure to themselves their sacred right to theelection franchise."
After the Seneca Falls Convention, many women beganto hold meetings in their own towns and to send petitionsto their state legislators asking that the election lawsbe changed to allow women to vote. In the years justbefore the Civil War many of those women also joinedanti-slavery societies. They confidently expected thatonce the slaves were freed and given the right to vote,
159
the women of America would be given the same right. Butafter the 15th Amendment was ratified, laws passed byCongress (for federal elections) and by the statelegislatures (for state and local elections) still gavethe right to vote only to men over 21 years old. Again
women were shut out of the public decision-makingprocess.
That made leaders of the woman's suffrage groupstruly angry and more determined than ever to win for allwomen - white and black - the right to vote. In 1869, theAmerican Equal Rights Association was organized by SusanB. Anthony, and the National Woman Suffrage Associationwas organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1890, the twoorganizations merged into the National American WomanSuffrage Association. Its members worked tirelessly inthe states to change state voting laws and in Congress tochange federal election laws. They lobbied individual
legislators; they sent petition after petition to
Congress and the state legislatures; they spoke atnumberless meetings to explain to the public how impor-tant the right to vote for women was; and the Suffra-gettes marched year after year in public parades acrossAmerica to make the public aware of their goal.
They were finally successful when the 19th Amendmentwas ratified in 1920. Because it was now part of the U.S.Constitution, it made all the state laws which limitedthe franchise to men unconstitutional. In that way, in
1920, 26,000,000 American women won their right to vote;and women have been exercising ever since this right andresponsibility so crucial for people in democracy.
Writing from a student iournal
"In older China women do not have any say in thefamily. The Chinese have a saying that when a girl getmarried, it would be like water being thrown away. Shewould not have much freedom to do anything. If she wouldlike to visit her own parents, she need to get permissionfrom her husband's parents. If she did not give birth toa baby boy, the husband could divorce her or maybe getanother wife. The woman could only blame that she wasfated. If she got divorce by the husband, she wouldcommit suicide because she has no place to go and sheusually could not go back to her own family. Her parentswould blame her for bringing disgrace to the family.
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7 6
"Nowdays, the Chinese women have been treated betterby the Chinese society. Most of the women have educationunless the family is very poor, and have many brothersand sisters. Then the older girls will not have chance togo to school.
"In China, because of over-population, it has apolicy of having only one child in a family. Therefore,a lot of baby girls were murdered, or given away tostrangers. In the restaurant where I work, one of thecooks told me that he had given 2 baby girls away inorder to try to get a boy. His first child is a daughterand he wanted a boy to carry on his name. Because of thepolicy, he asked for a transfer to work in the country.He got the transfer and so he went with his wife. In therural area the government was unable to take very seriouscontrol over the policy so his wife gave birth to twomore girls, but the Chinese preferred boy so as toinherit his family name. He had to give the baby girls totwo families that were strangers to him. After that, hedid not see his girls any more. A last he got a boy andhe asked for transfer back to his hometown. This policyis strictly enforced in the big city like Beijing. I readin the newspaper saying that the authority would sendworkers at night to each house to check whether there isany pregnant woman, who already have a child. If she wasfound to be having a second baby, the authority wouldforce her to have an abortion. Some women were five tosix months pregnant. They still have to go for theabortion. The women in China were not allowed to getmarry until the age of twenty one. The governmentencourage the girls to get marry at the age of twentyfive and above.
"The Chinese woman does not dare to have kids if sheis not married. The people atc4nd her would talk abouther and she would be difficult to get married.
"In the United States is different. There were a lotof women who did not get married and having children.Nobody would laugh at her. She and the kids are wellprotected by the government, and the male in the UnitedStates would not mind to get marry to a woman with kids.The Chinese male prefer a woman with no children, and thebest if the woman is a virgin. Now, the attitude of mostof the western educated Chinese male do not mind to geta wife with children."
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THE TWENTY-SIXTH AMENDMENT
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States,who are eighteen (18) years of age or older,to vote shall not be denied or abridged by theUnited States or by any state on account of
age.Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
Lanauage Development Activities- Follow the steps for vocabulary-building, pronuncia-tion and comprehension outlined under the 15th Amendment.
- Extend vocabulary with related words:* ballot - the official piece of paper on which a
voter marks his/her choices in an election.Each ballot is then put into a ballot box orrecorded by machine.
* candidate noun meaning a person who is proposedfor election to a public office.
* constituency noun referring to all the peoplewho live in a district which is repre-sented by an elected official in thelegislative or executive branch of gov-ernment. The official or representativeis accountable to all who live in his/herdistrict, whether or not they voted forhim/her. They are his/her constituents.
* election noun meaning the time, or the step,when public officials are chosen by vot-ers.
Related words - to elect, election, election-eer, to be elected, elective, electorate.elective, electorate.
* eligible adjective meaning fit to be elected,to be chosen, or to do a job. In govern-ment a person is eligible if he/she hasthe qualifications necessary for votingor for holding a public office.
* executive noun referring to the President of
the United States, the Governor of a
State, or any person in the branch of govern-ment which carries out (executes) laws passedby the legislative branch.to execute, execution.
* legislator - an elected member of the legisla-tive, or law-making, branch of the gov-ernment. To legislate is to vote on a proposed
162
1 78
law.legislature - the law-making body of any levelof government.
* lobbyist - noun meaning a person who tries topersuade legislators to vote for lawswhich are favorable to the interests of thelobbyist or those who employ him/her.
* poll - the official place where voters go to casttheir ballot. Means literally "to countheads."
* qualifications - noun meaning the ability,knowledge, experience, skills, or characterneeded to do a particular job.to qualify, quality, qualified.
* representative - noun or adjective refering to aperson who speaks or acts for another person.In the United States voters elect representa-tives for both legislative and executiveoffices.to represent, representing
* republic - a nation in which power rests with allcitizens who elect public officials to repre-sent them and to do for them things they cannot do by themselves.
Shared Reading for BackgroundIn the Constitution the power to make laws about
voting is divided between the U.S. Congress and thelegislature in each state. The Congress writes the lawswhich tell who can vote for federal (or national)officials. These are the PreL3ident and the Vice Presidentof the United States, the members of the U.S. Senate, andthe Representatives in the United States Congress. Eachstate legislature has the power to say who can vote inthe state and local elections. When the two sets of lawsare different, the right to vote in elections becomesconfusing. Then an amendment to the Constitution isnecessary to make the qualifications for voting forfederal, state and local officials consistent with oneanother.
From the time of the American Revolution on, bothfederal and state laws agreed that voters had to be atleast 21 years of age. In the 1950s, however, PresidentDwight Eisenhower (1952-1960) spoke out for giving theright to vote to 18-year-olds. He knew from his experi-ence as Commanding General of the Army in World War II(1940 - 1945) that young people at 18 years of age are
mature and responsible enough to make the importantchoices every voter has to make. He said if they can becalled on to fight and die for their country, they shouldbe entrusted with the right to vote. President RichardNixon also spoke out in favor of a constitutionalamendment to lower the voting age from 21 years of age to18, and many other public officials supported the changetoo.
In some states, however, there were people whowanted to keep the age for voting the same as the age fordrinking alcohol 21 years old. Finally in 1970, the26th Amendment was proposed by Congress to settle thedifference. It was ratified by the states more quicklythan any other Amendment ever had been before - in just107 days. When it was passed and the new age limit becamelaw, about 11,000,000 Americans between 21 and 18 yearsof age won the right to vote.
Discussion/Writing Activities
- Newspapers and magazines offer many topics ofcurrent interest. Here are some examples from a Tutor'sJournal.
Lesson Plan
Date of lesson : March 9, 1992Name of student : Wei Ning CaoTutors Name: Irene M. BestMaterial Used : NewspaperObjectives :
1. To help the student develop an interest inreading a newspaper.
2. To help the student develop an interest in theprimary elections.
3. To help the student develop an awareness of theimportance of reading and expanding his knowledge of all the presidential candidates.
4. To help the student expand his vocabulary list.5. To help the student read for comprehension.6. To help the student make personal, independent
choices.7. To help the student understand the importance of
his vote in any election.
164
iso
Town meeting on budget is July 13NORTH STONINGTON A
town meeting on the proposed$8.5 million town budget for 1992-93 will be held on Monday. July13. at 8 p.m. in the elementaryschool auditorium.
First Selectman Nicholas H.Mullane II said this morning henotified the Town Clerk todayand tax bills will be sent out intwo weeks
Tax Collector PatriciaMcGowan relused this morningto comment on the procedure forcollecting taxes. However, aspokesMan for the state Policyand Management Division saidresident have 30 days to paytheir taxes from the dav theyreceive their bills_
If tax bills are sent out two
weeks from tooa:..have until Aug. pa: !Lc,taxes.
Polls will be open from 9 to 9Polls Tuesday will open at 9
a.m. and close at 9 p.m. inCharlestown, Richmond,Hopkinton and Westerly, onpresidential preference prim-ary. day.
Hopkinton residents inDistrict 2 can vote at the HopeValley School off Main Street.p_ist)3 voters go to the11-6-FiritiWrowri Hall off Route3 in Hopkinton City.
Voters can cast theirballots at the Richmond Townlia1FFn Route 112 in Wyoming.
Voters in Charlestownwill cast ballots at Charles-town School on Route 112.
Residents of District 50 inWesterly will vote at TowerStreet School, while District 51
residents will vote at StateStreet School.
In addition to selecg apresidential candi a e, vo ersare being asked to name sevendelegates to the Democraticnational convention or ei htdelegates to th1epubIicanrib-Coital convention.
Local Republican delegatecandidates include, Scott BillHirst and Robert S. Hirst ofHopkinton, and David A. Ging-erella, Dennis L. Algiere,MI.iss Crotty Chapman, andNancy N. Richmond, all ofWesterly.
James J. Federico Jr. ofWesterly is a Democratic dele-gate candidate.
The material used was for Basic Reading and Comprehen-sion
The lesson began by my reading the first paragraphof the article, along with the title. Ning followed thewords as I read. We used the dictionary for words thatNing did not understand. He then wrote the words on cardsin a box for this purpose. Ning then repeated each worduntil he was able to use it freely. The words we dis-cussed are underlined.
165j I
- ESL students.* What about the right to vote in the student's
homeland? What laws protect it? Are there lawswhich make voting difficult? Who votes? Whodoes not?
In America there are usually three levels ofelected officials:
local, such as municipal, town, orcountystate,federal, or national.
How many levels are there in the homeland?
In America there are often many candidates whowant to be elected to an office, so the voterhas to decide among several names on theballot at an election. In the homeland dovoters choose between several candidates foran office, or is there only one name on theballot? Which way does the student prefer?Why?
In America voting is a privilege, a right, and aresponsibility, but no one is required to doso by law. Is voting required by law in thehomeland? Is there a penalty for not voting?
In America there are only two major politicalparties - the Democrats and the Republicans.How many major parties are there in the home-land? Do they explain to the voters what theywill do if their candidates are elected?
- What do you think ?* Should there be a law requiring that each voter
be able to read and write in English?
Should there be a law requiring every adultover 18 years of age to vote? If you thinkthere should be, would you fine all who do notvote?
What qualities do you think make a good candi-date?
What qualities make a good elected representa-tive?
14 2
Community Site ,isit - The Voter Registration OfficoSoii words to know before the visit:
* political party A group of people who share thesame ideas about government and plans to solveparticular public problems. A party willorganize people and raise money to help theparty's candidates to win an election andcarry out the part's plans if they do.
* primary elections - the first step in elections.Members of each party vote separately tochoose the candidate(s) who will representtheir party on the ballot in the final elec-tion.
* partisan - a person who very strongly supports oneside of an issue, or one of the politicalparties.
bi-2artisan - adjective meaning "the two majorparties, or their representatives, supportsomething together".
* controversy - discussion about a question in whichmore than one side is presented, or aboutwhich there are different opinions.
dissent - means disagreement, usually with theopinion of the majority. A dissenter is aperson who disagrees.
* majority means 50 % of the voters plus one;minority means less than 50 % of the voters.When the count of voters is exactly the sameon both sides, it is called "a tie vote". Thenmore votes may be taken to break the tie intoa majority and a minority, or some electedofficial may have the responsibility to cast avote to end the tie.
* census - The Constitution requires that the U.S.Government make an official count of everyperson in the nation once every ten years.This census, or count, becomes the basis onwhich many federal and state funds are dividedequally on the basis of population.
The census is also the basis on whichvoting districts are divided. The U.S. SupremeCourt has said that the power of each person'svote must be approximately equal to that ofevery other person's. Therefore, in eachvoting district there must be approximatelythe same number of voters. Every ten yearsafter a census is completed, a committee ofstate legislators re-draws the lines forvoting districts in that state so the numberof voters in all of them is nearly the same.That process is called "redistricting" or"reapportionment".
* to register to vote - Each person who wants tobecome a voter has to fill out a form and showproof of U.S. citizenship, age, and residence.
* referendum - noun meaning a question about a pub-lic issue which is put on the ballot for thevoters to decide.to refer, referral, reference, referee
The Office of Voter Registration is the best sourcefor information about qualifications for voting, sched-ules for elections, and explanations about pollingplaces, ballots and referendum. The Town Clerk in chargeof the local Office was pleased to explain the process ofvoting step-by-step during the visit, even showing thestudents how voting machines work and letting thempractice on a sample one. She encouraged people who werenot familiar with the machines to come again to practiceon them and to study the ballot before casting theirvotes.
The group realized what a complex job it is to keepaccurate records on the registered voters in a societylike ours where people move so often. The census andredistricting had more meaning as they saw the olderrecords kept by hand and the more recent ones on comput-er. Looking at the problems with redrawing new districtlines every 10 years, and the difficulties of doing thatin such a way that each person's vote will count the sameas every other person's, made the tutors and studentsappreciate how hard public officials work to keep thevoting system fair.
I S4168
YOUR BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES
Think about the fact that each person over 18 yearsof age may choose to vote or not to vote in this country.It is a right which can not be taken away, but it isalso a privilege. What responsibility comes from havingthat right and privilege?
- Think about the fact that one person's vote countsabout the same as every other person's. If one persondecides not to go to the polls and cast his/her ballot,is that really the same as voting?
Consider whether voters ought to know somethingabout the candidates and any referendum on the ballotwhen they go to the polls. Where could they find informa-tion? If you don't know anything at all about a candi-date, should you vote for him/her or not?
- What might be some responsibilities if a personreally wants to have one particular candidate elected?
SAMPLES OF STUDENT WRITINGS
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Time Line: COLONISTS IN AMERICA RESIST INJUSTICES AND ESTABLISHINDEPENDENCE FROM ENGLAND
1760s 1773Taxation withoutrepresentation
King George IIIof England triesto get coloniststo pay his debtsby taxing every-thing they needfor home andbusiness. Herequires them tobuy only Englishproducts.Colonistshave no voice inParliament. Theydecide to refuseto use or buyEnglish goods.This boy:ott madethe king stoptaxing all goodsexcept tea.1774 The BostonTea Party
Colonistsdressed as Indiansthrow 342 chestsof tea into Bostonharbor to show theking how angrythey are about thetea tax. Merchantsare going out ofbusiness becausetax makes tea toexpensive forcolonists to buy.1775 -Intolerableacts
King George IIIdecides to punishBoston and cutMassachusetts offfrom the rest ofthe colonies. Butinstead of beingafraid, thecolonists become
angry and unite.Representativesfrom the 13colonies meet andform the firstContinentalCongress. Theywork for colonialrights, self-government andsend complaints tothe king. But notall the colonistswant independence.Tories are thosestill loyal to theking.1775 1776The Battle ofLexington an:Concord
Paul Revere andWilliam Dawes rideto warn patriotsthat the Britishare marching toConcord and arelooking for JohnHancock and SamuelAdams.The Battle ofBunker Hill isfought and thesecond ContinentalCongress votes toform an army withGeorge Washingtonas leader andmakes a last tryto stop war withEngland.1776 1777The Declaration ofIndependenceWritten by
Thomas Jefferson,it tells the worldwhat rights peopleshould have, how
17 2 1s9
the king violatedthese rights andthat the UnitedStates of Americais a free andindependentcountry. Congresstalks it over andsigns it n July 4,1776. JohnHancock's was thefirst and largestsignature.1777 1778Stars and StripesCongress adopts
this version of theflag as theofficial flag ofthe United States.Valley Forge
The Army halfstarves during thiswinter. GeorgeWashington sharessuffering of hissoldiers.
John Paul Jones,our first navalhero, flies the newAmerican flag onhis ship, theBonhomme Richard,when he defeats theBritish ship,Scardis,Battle of Yorktown
The war is overin 1781. Americawins'Treaty of Paris
In 1781, theofficial peacedocuments betweenEngland and theUnited States weresigned in Paris.
STATE ENTERED THE UNION CAPITAL
Delaware bPennsylvania *
Dec. 7,Dec. 12,
17871787
DoverHarrisburg
New Jersey * Dec. 18, 1787 TrentonGeorgia o Jan. 1, 1788 AtlantaConnecticut * Jan. 9, 1788 HartfordMassachusetts * Feb. 16, 1788 BostonMaryland b Apr. 28, 1738 AnnapolisSouth Carolina o May 23, 1788 ColumbusNew Hampshire * June 21, 1788 ConcordVirginia o June 25, 1788 RichmondNew York * July 26, 178e AlbanyNorth Carolina o Nov. 21, 1789 RaleighRhode Island * May 29, 1790 Providence
*** **** **************** *A* * ***IF
Vermont * Mar. 4, 1791 Montpelier1-entucky b June 1, 1792 FrankfortTennessee o June 1, 1796 NashvilleOhio * Mar. 1, 10O3 ColumbusLouisiana o Apr. 30, 1012 Baton RougeIndiana * Dec. 11, 1816 IndianapolisMississippi o Dec. 16, 1817 JacksonIllinois * Dec. 3, 1210 SpringfieldAlabama o Dec. 14. 1819 Montgome(yMaine * Mar. 15, 1820 AugustaMissouri b Aug. 10, 1821 Jefferson ityAransas o June 15, 1826 Little PocMichigan * Jan. 26, 1827 LansingFlorida o Ict . 0, 1845 TallahasseeTexas o Dec. 2, 1345 AustinIowa * Dec. 28. 10,16 Des MoinesWisconsin 4 May 29, 1043 MadisonCalifornia * Sept. 9, 1850 SacramentoMinnesota * May 11, 1059 St. PaulOregon *tansas
Mar. 14,
Jan. 24.18591861
SalemTopeka
West Virginia b June 20, 1863 CharlestonNevada * De,.. 31, 1064 Carson City
44(OVVII*11iV*****1440)1**4*.***M***44X*X**4
1.ey to symbols:* states which fought on the Union side in the Civil Waro states whi.7h fought on the Southern side in the Civil
War (the Confederate States)b border states in which people were divided between
supporters of the Union and supporters of theConfederate States
173 I fii)
Nebraska Mar. 1, 1867 LincolnColorado Oct. 1, 1876 DenverNorth Dakota Nov. 2, 1889 BismarkSouth Dakota Nov. 2, 1889 PierreMontana Nov. 11, 1889 HelenaWashington Dec. 11, 1889 OlympiaIdaho July 3, 1890 BoiseWyoming July 10, 1890 CheyenneUtah Jan. 4, 1896 Salt Lake CityOklahoma Nov. 16, 1907 Oklahoma CityNew Mexico Jan. 6, 1912 Santa FeArizona Feb. 14, 1912 PhoenixAlaska Jan. 3, 1959 JuneauHawaii AUQ. 21, 1959 Honolulu
Witt of Tle,opormibilititoVrramblc. Freedom and responsibility are mutual and inseparable; we can ensure enjoyment of
the one only by exercising the other. Fre.edom for all of us depends on -responsibility by each of us. Tosecure and expand our liberties, therefore, we accept these responsibilities as individual members ofa. free society:
o be fully responsible for our own actions and for the consequences of those actions. Freedom to1/4:;,. choose carries with it the responsibility for our choices.
o respect the rights and beliefs of others. In a free society, diversity flourishes. Courtesy and1/4:," consideration toward others are measures of a civilized society.
-;71 o give sympathy, understanding and help to others. As we hope others will heIp us when we are inneed, we should help others when they are in need.
o do our best to meet our own and our families' needs. There is no personal freedom withoutQ.I, economic freedom. By helping ourselves and those closest to us to become productive members ofsociety, we contribute to the strength of the nation.
o respect and obey the laws. Laws are mutually accepted rules by which, together, we maintain aQ; free society. Liberty itself is built on a foundation of law. That foundation provides an orderlyprocess for changing laws. It also depends on our obeying laws once they have been freely adopted.
7-71 o respect the property of others. both private and Fablic. No one has a right to what is not his or1/42. hers. The right to enjoy what is ours depends on our respecting the right of others to enjoy what istheirs.
o share with others our appreciation of the benefits and obligations offreedom. Freedom shared is142.1, freedom strengthened.
o participate constructively in the nation's political life. Democracy depends on an active citizenry.kt.%It depends equally on an informed citizenry.
o help freedom survive by assuming personal responsibility for its defense. Our nation cannotsurvive unless we defend it. Its security rests on the individual determination of each of us to help
preserve it.
o respect the rights and to meet the responsibilities on which our liberty rests and our democracyV.1depends. This is the essence of freedom. Maintaining it requires our common effort, all togetherand each individually.
Deveroped and distrtoutea by Ffeecerns Fowloatron at Vairey Forge
C1985 0 y Freedoms 1;oundatron at Valle y Forge
175 1 92
to pay an exce sive bail in order to stay out ofjail before his/her trial. The purpose of bail isto insure that a person will show up in court forhis/her trial. It is set by judge in a "BailHearing" after a person is "arraigned" (told incourt what illegal acts he/she is accused of com-
mitting and allowed to plead guilty or notguilty).
- a judge, when he/she sentences a person who has
been proven guilty by a trial, can not imposeexcessive fines, or cruel and unusual punish-
ments. (Fines and punishments for specific crimesare part of the law which defines a crime. They
are usually given in a range, such as a fine up
to $1,000, or a prison term of 3 to 5 years, for
example. A judge may not deviate from the rangesstated in the law.)
POINTS TO EMPHASIZE:
- Though the Constitution does not say so, aperson who is accused of a crime is presumedINNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY BY A COURT OF LAW- A trial is a contest between rivals each of whom
is trying to prove to an impartial group of
people that his/her version of the facts is true.
This is called an "adversarial process" forarriving at the truth. It developed in contrastto the "inquisitorial process" in which the
judge(s) have already decided guilt (or inno-
cence), and then use the powers of the court toextract confessions (often by torture) and topunish.
These Amendments in the U.S. Constitution at first
applied due process requirements only to federal courtsand federal officers. They did not apply to statecourts.
1 3
178
The 14th Amendment in 1868 said the states also
must follow the due process requirements:
11 ... nor shall any State deprive any person oflife, liberty or property, without due process of
law."
It took a long time, however, and many decisions by
the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce due process require-
ments in all the state courts, or even to decide exact-
ly how they must be applied. Processes due to people
accused of a crime which would insure fundamentalfairness was a high priority of the U.S. Supreme Court
while Earl Warren was Chief Justice ("The WarrenCourt"). Now the "takings clause" in the 5th Amendment
appears to be a concern of the current jUstices. The
details of what constitutes due process and the stan-
dards which all public officials must meet in their
dealing with citizens will continue to be a matter of
concern and of interpretation as circumstances and the
needs of people change ... The commitment to fundamen-
tal fairness for everyone, however, will remain the
same, and so will the responsibility of each person to
speak out when they believe they have not been treated
fairly, in accordance with the law.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOR JUVENILES UNDER THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE OFTHE 14th AMENDMENT
Established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case IN RE GAULTI1967
Background facts
On a hot June morning in 1964, in Gila County, Arizona, aresident named Mrs. Cook called to report to the police that shehad received an obscene phone call. The call was traced to theneighboring home of the Gaults. The sheriff drove immediately tothe house, where he found two teenage boys, Gerald Gault and hisfriend Ronald Lewis, at home alone. Mr. and Mrs. Gault were both atwork. Although the sheriff took the two boys into custody and drovethem to Juvenile Detention Center, he left no notice of this at theGault home.
Because Gerald and Ronald were only 15, they were held asjuveniles. Gerald was already on 6 months probation for thedelinquency charge of "being in the company" of a boy who hadstolen a wallet from a lady's purse.
That evening when she came home from work, Mrs. Gault learnedof Gerald's whereabouts from the Lewis family and went to theJuvenile Detention Center. A probation officer there told her whyGerald was being held and told her a hearing would be held at theJuvenile Court the next day, June 9th.
The Probation Officer filed a formal petition against Geraldon the day of the hearing. It simply said that Gerald was under theage of 18 and therefore within the jurisdiction of the JuvenileCourt, and charged him with being "a delinquent minor." Thepetition stated no facts or reasons why Gerald was charged, norwhat his "delinquent act" was, and the charge was not made known toMr. and Mrs. Gault. No record was kept of the proceedings at thishearing. The judge asked questions about the phone call, but therewas a conflict in the testimony. Gerald's mother, who was presentat the hearing, recalled that Gerald told the judge that he onlydialed Mrs. Cook's number and then handed the phone to his friendRonald. He said that Ronald had made the lewd remarks. Theprobation officer, however, said he recalled that Gerald "admittedmaking one of the obscene statements." Mrs. Cook, who brought thecomplaint against Gerald, was not present at the hearing.
On June 12th Gerald was released from the Detention Center. Noreason was given for his having been detained -- or for hisrelease. That same day Mrs. Gault received a note signed by theprobation officer. It notified her of the date and time for"further hearings on Gerald's delinquency," but gave no otherinformation.
At the second hearing on June 15th, there was again conflictin the testimony. Gerald's parents insisted that he had merely
180 1. 95
dialed the number, and that Ronald had made the remarks. Again Mrs.Cook was not present. When Mrs. Gault asked that Mrs. Cook bebrought to the Court to identify which boy had made the remarks,the judge replied that she "didn't have to be present at thehearing." At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge committedGerald as a "juvenile delinquent" to the State Industrial School"for the period of his minority, unless sooner discharged by dueprocess of law," This order committed Gerald, age 15, to reformschool for 6 years, until he was 21 years old. If Gerald had beenover 18, and had been tried as an adult in a regular criminal courtfor making an obscene phone call, the maximum penalty under Arizonalaw would have been a fine of $5 to $50 or imprisonment for notmore than 2 months.
Up to this time the Gaults had not had the benefit of advicefrom a lawyer at either of the hearings.
An appeal was not permitted by Arizona law in juvenile casesat that time. So Gerald's parents filed a petition for a writ ofhabeas corpus (an order requiring a prisoner to be brought beforea judge to determine whether he is being legally held). The ArizonaSupreme Court referred the writ to a State Superior Court forhearing. At this hearing the Juvenile Court judge for Gerald's casewas questioned. He testified that he had found Gerald to bedelinquent because he was "habitually involved in immoral matters."As grounds for this conclusion, the judge declared that 2 yearsearlier Gerald had stolen a baseball glove from another boy and hadlied to the police about it. The judge also said that Gerald hadadmitted making other nuisance calls. Gerald had said these were"silly calls or funny calls, or something like that." At thishearing before the State Superior Court the judge relied only uponhis own recollections of Gerald's hearings on June 9th and June15th since no transcript of testimony or record of evidence wasmade at either of those hearings, and no memorandum on thesubstance of the proceedings had been prepared.
The State Superior Court ruled against the Gaults on the writof habeas corpus, so they asked for a review by the Arizona SupremeCourt. Here the Gaults claimed that under the Juvenile Code ofArizona they had been denied "due process of law guaranteed in the5th and the 14th Amendments." They gave the following reasons :
1. They had not been given proper notice of the first hearingor of the specific charges against their son.2. They had not been given sufficient time to prepare adefense for either of the Hearings (June 9, June 15).3. They had not been informed of their right to have anattorney at the hearings.4. They had not been told of their right to confront andcross-examine witnesses, and the judge had denied them anopportunity to confront Mrs. Cook at the hearing on June 15thwhen they requested that she be brought in. Furthermore,Gerald was not told of his right to remain silent.5. No transcript was kept of the court proceedings at either
181
R')6
hearing, and they had not been told of their right to haveone.6. They had not been told of their right to a habeas corpusreview.
The Supreme Court of Arizona replied that Juvenile Courtprocedures under Arizona law, as in other states, provided "forless than the full set of due process protections guaranteed foradults when charged with crime." The judges ruled against theGaults, therefore, saying that the informal Juvenile Courtproceedings represented an "effort to substitute protection andguidance for punishment, to withdraw the child from criminaljurisdiction", and to provide him "individualized justice". Suchinformality, said the Supreme Court of Arizona, "merely authorizesthe Juvenile Court to disregard technical matters of procedure notaffecting the fundamental right to due process of law." The Courtstated that Arizona juvenile law included such due process elementsas any child was entitled to in a Juvenile Court, and that thepurpose of the Juvenile Code was to "redirect and rehabilitate thechild".
After the Arizona Supreme Court ruled against the Gaults, theyappealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis of thedue process guarantees under the 5th and 14th Amendments. JusticeAbe Fortas wrote the opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court. Afterreviewing the history and philosophy of Juvenile Courts since 1890,the decision states, "Under our Constitution, the condition ofbeing a boy of 15 does not justify a kangaroo court." JusticeFortas then defined the processes due to juveniles when chargedwith a delinquent act (an act which if done by an adult would be acrime):
1. Adequate and specific notice of charges, with time toprepare a defense.2. The right to counsel - meaning the right to be told thatthey may have an attorney at all stages of the proceedings.(Later cases have ruled that the state must provide a lawyerif the family can not afford one.)3. The right to confront and cross examine witnesses.4. The right to remain silent. There may be no self-incrimination, or pressure on a child to admit thewrong-doing.5. The right to have a transcript made of the courtproceedings which is available to the child, his/her attorney,and the parents.6. The right to appeal the decision of Juvenile Court to ahigher court.
NOTE: Juveniles do NOT have:1. the right to a public trial. All juvenilehearings are confidential - to protect the child.2. the right to trial by a jury of peers3. in most cases, the right to bail.
Juveniles DO have some protection against cruel and
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unusual punishments as guaranteed in the 8th Amendment.For example, parents may punish their child as they seefit - but that is increasingly regulated under stateChild Abuse Prevention laws. Public school officials alsohave some leeway to do as they see fit, as decided in thecase of Ingraham v.Wright, but punishments of children inschool are likewise limited by state laws and by SchoolBoard polices.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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This Manual was produced in cooperation withThe Westerly Public Library
and
assistance with editing Robert Driscoll
assistance with typing Mary C. BurkeMaria LamerovaD'Ann Sullivan
assistance with design Loraine Byrne
Illustrations from THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND BEYOND,a poster from The Mini Page, Betty Debman, c1991
Universal Press Syndicate.
Printed by AGJO Printing ServicePawcatuck, Connecticut
Literacy . lntce-c America-Washinatcn County, Inc.P.O. 3ox 356
Westerly Public LibraryWesterly, RI 02891
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