Origins of American Criminal Law - 1ST AMENDMENT

Origins of American Criminal Law
1ST AMENDMENT

Subject of Discussion:

First Amendment to the
United States Constitution



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Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the United States
Strayer University
Professor – Zara Sette
Assignment #1
LEG 320
Online Summer 2012
July 20, 2012
Felicia McCaw

Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the
United States
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ABSTRACT



The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights
which serves as a guarantee of unequivocal rights of all people in the United States. Freedom of speech, Political Speech, Desecration of the Flag of this Country and proposed penalties, Free Speech Zones, Commercial Speech, Defamation and the balance of power of the Federal and State are the unique facets that ensure the greatness of this nation. balancing the four goals of the criminal justice system the First Amendment serves as a promise and guarantee of fairness to all.






















Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the
United States
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In the year of 1789, September 25, the composition of the constitution was created to adequately protect and guarantee civil liberties for all in the United States Constitution. This First Amendment (Amendment 1) is part of the Bill of Rights and allows prohibition of any law created that does not respect an establishment of religion, impedes the free exercise of religion or abridges the freedom of speech or infringes freedom of press or interferes with the right to assemble peacefully or prohibits the petitioning for a government redress of grievances.
Origination of the First Amendment to the constitution applied only to the federal government and after due process it was established the government must maintain a neutral stand in regards to religion and non-religion. It was established, confirmed and accepted the policy to not promote, endorse or fund religion or religious institutions therefore conceding the right to exercise the right to accept any religious belief without interference from the government. Interference in religious motivated conduct required the Supreme Court to meet “strict scrutiny” and compel a court ordered decision.
Freedom of Speech was acknowledged as a need for existence as long as utterance forbided or was not in conflict with accepted speech that does not overthrow organized government by unlawful means or present sufficient danger of substantive evil or to bring evil to country, state, people or abridged legislation established, petitioned and passed that would involve danger to public peace and security of country or state.
Political Speech under the First Amendment consist of free will to politic and petition to all in country, state and people of the right to express opinion of need to change, renovate and
Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the
United States
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evolve policy with innovative streamlining and cost effective junctions of legislative and political laws of country and state. As part of the stipulations for political speech is the strict policy and law which imposes restrictions on campaign funding or financing. Barring the use of soft money by national parties and the use by private parties to fund advertisements related to elections to sway or influence campaign swings.
Under the First Amendment any desecration of the Flag of this country establishes conspiracy and contempt for this country and those that dwell therein. Because the flag symbolizes this country’s independence from England and strength as a new nation any action deemed detrimental to the flag should be considered an affront as well as an inner threat to security.
Free Speech Zones are established for political activists to exercise freedom of speech and are allowed any demonstrations within and any outside these areas allow legal enforcement to commence. Commercial Speech is allowable and done on behalf of a company or individual and unlike political speech it is not protected under this amendment by the Supreme Court. Criteria is utilized to distinguish commercial speech from other types if the matter of litigation is in question by the Supreme Court as follows: (1) The contents do “no more than proposes a commercial transaction.”, (2) The contents may be characterized as advertisements., (3) The contents reference a specific product., (4) The disseminator is economically motivated to distribute the speech. (Reference directly from Wikipedia #1-4).

Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the
United States
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School Speech is extended to students by the Supreme Court and are allowed fundamental rights which the state must respect and are allowed speech that falls in the category of speech with allowable restrictions (excludes crudity, lewdness, sexual innuendo or promotion of illegal drug use).
Restrictions of obscenity or pornography have been permitted by the federal government and states. The Supreme Court has refused any protective measures for obscenity whereas pornography is subjected to little regulation. The Hicklin Test is used to define obscenity as an influential factor in the matter to deprave and corrupt those minds which are open and susceptible to immoral influences and are culpable and weak and is utilized as a measure of compliance to conclusion of obscenity.
Defamation of speech, publications, person or business originated from England and is covered under the First Amendment and is an action of libel. Erroneous information that may be ruinous to an individual or business can be used as a cite to indicate a violation of rights under the First Amendment.
The First Amendment was the beginning of adjusting protective statutes or laws that entail a part of the Bill of Rights. As time of relevance and enlightenment continues the First Amendment is a clear cut indication that protective measures will always need to be in effect to control detrimental behavior obstructing and violating criminal law. Without this First Amendment to the Constitution allowance of criminal activities going unchecked would be allowed continuance and not punished and given its due course these acts of criminality would
Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the
United States
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continue unstopped and render useless this Amendment. Criminal Law is the basis of all punitive restrictions that prevent the violation of laws of this country and should be allowed free rein to give corrective negative reinforcement to halt unwanted behavioral patterns.
The federal government is based on federalism and allows power to be distributed between the federal and state governments. It does not have the authority to make laws that require police power. Based upon the federal court its power extends both to civil actions and other redress and to criminal cases arising from federal law. Further the ability to hear cases that violate state laws gives precedence to its ability to render judgment and allows concurrent jurisdictions between federal and state.
Unlike the federal government the state has power delegated to them as pertains to criminal laws. Further the authority to enforce criminal laws but not to create criminal laws or make a criminal law to punish actions done prior to a law being created and enacted is restricted. Police Power is inherently invested or vested in each state and allows the execution of legislative powers to pass laws that promote public health, safety and welfare of people and restrictives that correct and prevent criminal activity. Further imposing limitations that state the execution of laws may not contravene the U. S. Constitution or infringe on any rights granted, secured and allowed by the Constitution or the constitution of that State. Clearly relayed must be language of rules (statutes) or ordinances that clearly tells people what they are not to do (or what they must do) and that the law prohibits only conduct that is forbidden. Authority is granted to create criminal laws under the police power of each state and both the state and federal are allowed

Origins of American
Criminal Law
1st Amendment to the
United States
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to keep a balance and allow neither to have too much representation of power to maintain a semblance of fairness and separateness.
Because of this there are four main goals or purpose of the criminal justice system and they involve the thought and installation of trust in the system that govern the people and country, the need for laws or rules to deal with transgressions of legalistic laws of society and that having a criminal justice system to determine innocence or guilt and which also offers legal recourse to prevent unlawful gatherings of people who participate in criminal actions of a mob is advantageous for all. Further because of the existence of a criminal system this allows separation of judge, jury and defense to balance justice and continuity of it and fulfill the guarantee of the First Amendment.











REFERENCES

Gardner, T.J., & Anderson, T.M., (2012). Criminal Law. (11th Edition). Mason: Cengage Learning.
(Gardner & Anderson, 2012)
Wikipedia. Federal Government of the United States. Retrieved July 19, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_government_of_the_United_States
Wikipedia. First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Retrieved July 19, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First _Amendment _to_the_United_States Constitution
Wikipedia. Police Power. Retrieved July 19, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police _power
Socyberty. What are the Primary Goals of the Criminal Justice System? Retrieved July 19,
2012, from
http://socyberty.com/crime/what-are-the-primary-goals-of-the-criminal-justice-system/