Kanovitz: Constitutional Law, 13th Edition


Case Studies

Chapter 1: History, Structure, and Content of the United States Constitution

Case 1

John Q. Public of New Hampshire was a member of the Convention of Delegates of the People of the State of New Hampshire in 1778. The delegates had gathered to discuss ratification of the United States Constitution, drafted in 1787. If they decided to ratify the document, they would be the ninth state to do so, making the Constitution the law of the land.
Public, who had fought in the Revolutionary War, was skeptical of conferring broad powers on the federal government. He wanted the states to retain the balance of power and was concerned that New Hampshire would not have enough representation in the new legislative body. However, he also realized that the current government was insufficient to protect the interests of the new republic.
While a central government existed under the current government, it lacked the power to tax, regulate commerce, or pass laws governing domestic affairs. A stronger government was clearly needed, but Public remained leery of concentrated power. He had studied the new Constitution thoroughly, as well as the writings of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in support of the Constitution. The separation of powers among the proposed federal legislative, executive, and judicial branches appealed to Public, as he felt that it placed an important check on federal authority. However, he had also absorbed the arguments against ratification.

At the convention, delegates argued back and forth over whether to ratify the Constitution. Public found himself persuaded that ratifying the Constitution was the best way to ensure that the ideals he had fought for in the Revolutionary War would be preserved. He voted in favor of ratification, and on June 21, 1778, the Constitution became the law of the United States.

Questions

  1. Before the Constitution, what was the law of the land in the United States? What were some of the problems associated with this system?

    Correct Answer

    Prior to the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation were the law of the land. Distrustful, to say the least, of concentrated federal power, the founders refused to grant the federal government the most basic powers necessary to function. For example, under the Articles, the government could not tax or regulate commerce. Just a few short years after its ratification, delegates assembled again in Philadelphia to discuss how to resolve the issues.

  2. What were the arguments in favor of the Constitution called? What were the arguments against ratifying the Constitution?

    Correct Answer

    John Q. Public read essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, known collectively as the Federalist Papers.These writings argued that a strong central government was necessary for the stability and security of the union. Those opposed to the Constitution argued that giving the central government the power to tax was dangerous. As the Constitution did not yet have the Bill of Rights, the right to a fair trial was not enshrined in the Constitution. In addition, the broad powers conferred on the federal government undermined state sovereignty, according to the Constitution’s opponents.

  3. New Hampshire’s ratification of the Constitution made it the law of the land. However, two important states still needed to ratify it in order to ensure the stability of the new government. When did they ratify the Constitution, and when was the first president inaugurated?

    Correct Answer

    New York and Virginia had yet to ratify the Constitution. On June 25, 1788, Virginia ratified the Constitution by a narrow margin, over the fiery opposition of George Mason and Patrick Henry. On July 2, 1788, the Constitution was declared to have been duly ratified. New York ratified the Constitution less than a month later. Rhode Island ratified the Constitution in November, 1789, and North Carolina ratified it in May 1790, more than a year after George Washington had been inaugurated as the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789.

Case 2

Perhaps the most famous Supreme Court decision of all time, Miranda v. Arizona instituted the famous Miranda warnings known to everyone who has ever watched a police procedural drama. By explicitly warning suspects about their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and their right to an attorney upon their arrest and during custodial interrogations, Miranda changed the face of law enforcement. The 1966 decision infuriated members of Congress, who thought that it unnecessarily tied the hands of law enforcement.
Two years later, Congress passed 18 U.S.C. § 3501 in an effort to overturn Miranda. President Johnson signed the bill, known as the “Crime Bill,” into law. Section 3501 instructed federal judges to admit confessions made without Miranda warnings, so long as the confessions were made voluntarily. The statute applied only to federal cases. Under § 3501, Fifth Amendment safeguards were not completely overturned, but the absence of Miranda safeguards did not automatically render statements inadmissible.
A challenge to § 3501 was made by Charles Dickerson, a 27-year-old man who had confessed to FBI agents that he had been involved in a bank robbery in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1997. The FBI agents had not read him his Miranda rights before obtaining his confession. Dickerson sued to suppress the use of his statements against him in court. His case was heard by the Fourth Circuit. In ruling against him, the court reasoned that § 3501 made Miranda warnings unnecessary in federal cases. Dickerson appealed the ruling and his case was heard by the Supreme Court.

Questions

  1. In Dickerson v. United States (2000), the Supreme Court overturned the Fourth Circuit’s decision. Based on your reading in the textbook, what do you think the Court’s reasoning was?

    Correct Answer

    In passing § 3501, the Supreme Court determined that Congress attempted to encroach on the Supreme Court’s powers to interpret the Constitution. When the Court announces a constitutional decision, such as Miranda, the decision in effect becomes embedded in the Constitution. Congress cannot overturn interpretations by statute.

  2. What is the only action that could get rid of a Supreme Court interpretation?

    Correct Answer

    The only way to change a Court interpretation (other than the Court reversing itself) is by constitutional amendment. This is a cumbersome process that has only been successful 27 times in U.S. history.

  3. In addition to attempts by one branch of government to do what Congress attempted with § 3501, what is the other way that branches can run afoul of the Constitution?

    Correct Answer

    In addition to encroachment, the Constitution also prohibits the delegation of powers. Congress, for example, cannot delegate responsibility for enacting laws to the executive or judicial branches. The nondelegation doctrine stems from the language of Article I, Section 1, which declares that “[a]ll legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” However, the Constitution does not prohibit Congress from seeking assistance from coordinate branches.

Case 3

One of the fiercest debates in contemporary U.S. politics centers on illegal immigration. In April 2010, the debate exploded with the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona, a controversial measure designed to identify and ultimately deport illegal aliens. Under the law, police officers in Arizona are required to demand documentation from anyone they suspect of being an illegal alien. The suspected illegal alien does not have to be suspected of being engaged in any illegal activity at the time. Those unable to produce documentation and who are found to be in the United States illegally will be detained, prosecuted, and deported.
The statute also made it a crime for legal immigrants to be caught without papers. Should they be stopped without documentation, they will be guilty of a misdemeanor and can face jail time. While other countries have long had laws requiring residents to carry identification, SB 1070 is the first measure of its kind in the United States.
This law has proven highly controversial because it is perceived to target the Latino population of Arizona. Despite Governor Jan Brewer’s insistence that police officers have been trained to use methods other than racial profiling to target potential illegal immigrants, groups have staged protests and called for outright boycotts of the state.
The Obama administration has protested the statute vigorously as being racially motivated and hostile to citizens and legal residents of Latino origin. The Justice Department also filed a complaint against Arizona in federal court to challenge the constitutionality of key provisions of the law. In July 2010, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked those provisions, putting them on hold days before the law was to go into effect.

Questions

  1. Based on your reading in this section, what was the primary reason the federal government has argued that Arizona’s immigration law is unconstitutional?

    Correct Answer

    Under Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, only the federal government has the authority to regulate immigration. The supremacy clause in Article VI declares, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” Therefore, Arizona, according to the federal government, does not have the right to enact legislation regulating immigration. The DOJ complaint specified that SB 1070 created an immigration policy specific to Arizona (http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/az-complaint.pdf).

  2. On what other grounds could the government challenge the constitutionality of Arizona immigration law?

    Correct Answer

    The Fourteenth Amendment placed certain restrictions on state governments and authorized the federal government to enforce the restrictions by appropriate legislation. The federal government’s Fourteenth Amendment powers include the power to prohibit state governments from discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender, or national origin and from denying persons rights protected by the Bill of Rights. Given the difficulty in enforcing this law without resorting to targeting Latinos based on their ethnicity, the Arizona immigration law could be found unconstitutional.

  3. What powers do the states retain today?

    Correct Answer

    When the Tenth Amendment was drafted, the Framers assumed that limited powers would be delegated to the federal government. Today, the balance of power has shifted. While the federal government has vast regulatory powers, its powers are mainly over the American people, not the states. Principles of federalism prevent the federal government from using its Article I powers to regulate the actions of the states in ways that infringe on their sovereignty. The federal government, for example, may not use its Article I powers to force state governments to enact particular laws, administer federal programs, enforce federal statutes, or to impose certain monetary obligations on state government.

Case 4

Officer Steven Price was a police officer at the Sometown Police Department. In recent months, the number of drug-related incidents in Sometown had increased dramatically. The week before, a high school student had died of an overdose. The citizens of Sometown were distraught, and the incident was getting nonstop attention in the Sometown Crier and the nightly news. The district attorney had called on the police department to crack down on the problem. 
While the police were eager to address the situation, they did not have a list of suspects. The general assumption around the department was that the guilty parties were black men between the ages of 18 and 34. They did not have facts to support this assumption. In a briefing to discuss strategy, one of the officers suggested bringing every black man in for questioning. While many police officers spoke against such a strategy, police were still determined to target black men in their investigation, whether or not they had probable cause for doing so.
In order to net as many of the drug dealers as possible, police officers were instructed to increase traffic stops for black men fitting this age range. Sometown Heights, a poor neighborhood, was home to much of Sometown’s minority population, and so police decided to focus their efforts there.
Officer Price was uncomfortable with this practice and urged his fellow officers to use other methods to detain the suspects. “Solid police work will solve this problem,” he said to his partner, Officer Jones. “We do not need to resort to pulling people over for no reason to net the drug dealers.”
While Officer Price did not engage in the practice, over the next couple of weeks, police arrested a number of young black men without cause. In addition to editorials about how the Sometown Police Department has not solved the drug problem, the Sometown Crier now carried complaints of racism by the Sometown Police Department.

Questions

  1. What is the Sometown Police Department engaging in by targeting young black men?  What is this practice violating?

    Correct Answer

    In targeting young black men, the Sometown Police Department was engaging in racial profiling. Racial profiling is a violation of the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment.

  2. What are some of the key problems with this practice, and how does it harm police investigations?

    Correct Answer

    This practice instills deep resentment and fear of police officers and does nothing to effectively solve crime. When people distrust the police, they do not cooperate with law enforcement. Such practices also contribute to racial divisions in society as a whole. In Sometown, police officers did not make any headway in solving the drug problem by engaging in racial profiling. Instead, they angered the community and arrested many young men unnecessarily.

  3. What is the central constitutional protection against such treatment?

    Correct Answer

    The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment can be summarized in one sentence: The government must treat all persons who are similarly situated alike.

Case 5

During a stationhouse interrogation about a double murder in Michigan, a police sergeant threatened to put Robert Williams in jail. Williams then made statements to the police implicating him in the crimes, and the sergeant then read him his Miranda warnings. Williams waived his rights and then proceeded to make more incriminating statements. Prior to his trial, Williams sought to have his statements suppressed, but the state court and the appeals court declined his petition. Williams was convicted of murder.
After his conviction, Williams filed a petition in federal court, arguing that his Miranda rights had been violated and that his statements should be suppressed. The district court ruled in his favor and also ruled that the statements Williams made after he had been read his Miranda warnings should be suppressed, as they were the fruits of the earlier interrogation.
The court of appeals affirmed this ruling and rejected an earlier precedent, set in Stone v. Powell (1976) that once Fourth Amendment claims had been heard and decided in state court they could not be heard again in federal court. The Supreme Court decided to hear Williams’ case in order to settle the question.
In Withrow v. Williams (1993), the Supreme Court affirmed Miranda safeguards as a “fundamental right” and declined to extend the precedent in Stone to apply to Miranda. Declining to hear such claims in federal court would not lessen the workload in federal courts, and so the Court did not rule that appeals based on Miranda could not be heard in federal court.

Questions

  1. Which type of review did Williams request, and what did he file to get the Supreme Court to hear his case?

    Correct Answer

    Williams had his case heard through habeas corpus review. Habeas corpus is a remedy used to secure release from an unlawful confinement. A state prisoner commences this action by filing a petition in federal court, alleging that he or she is being detained in prison in violation of his or her constitutional rights and requesting the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus directs the party having custody, usually the warden, to produce the prisoner in court, so that the court can inquire into the matter. The writ of habeas corpus enables state prisoners to have a federal judge review the constitutionality of their state court convictions. Federal habeas corpus involves a collateral attack on a state court judgment. The reason it is called a collateral attack is that the courts of one jurisdiction (federal) are exercising review powers over a case decided by the courts of another jurisdiction (state).
    In order to have his case heard by the Supreme Court, Williams filed a writ of certiorari.

  2. How did this case reach the Supreme Court?

    Correct Answer

    Prior to his conviction, Williams had appealed the admissibility of his statements in state court and the state appeals court, both of which ruled against him. After his conviction, he filed an appeal in federal district court and then his case was heard again by a federal appeals court. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, because the court of appeals had, in its ruling, refused to apply an earlier case. There was a substantial federal question at stake.

  3. This case was decided in 1993. Since then, this particular type of review has been restricted. What is its status today?

    Correct Answer

    In 1996, Congress restricted the availability of habeas corpus review, eliminating second and successive habeas corpus petitions and review of claims previously litigated in a state court unless the state court decision is contrary to clearly established constitutional standards. These procedural changes have made it more difficult for state prisoners to make their way to the Supreme Court.

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