Essay on "Constitutional Protections in American Criminal Justice"

Essay 6 pages (1668 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Constitutional Protections in American Criminal Justice

The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, at which time it replaced the Articles of Confederation that had represented the same concept for the previous seven years. Since its ratification, the Constitution has been continually modified pursuant to the requirements for doing so by acts of Congress detailed in Article Five of the Constitution. The first ten constitutional amendments are jointly referred to as the Bill of Rights, based on their subject matter and areas of constitutional authority (Friedman, 2005).

The American criminal justice system evolved gradually over the last two centuries, with a series of some of the most important changes incorporated within the last fifty years. A few decades earlier, American law enforcement policies and criminal procedure was (in retrospect) not consistent with many of the fundamental principles of the Constitution. In fact, the comprehensive application of due process protections at both state and federal level was not the law of the land until the U.S. Supreme Court began applying them to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment in broader and broader respects throughout much of the 20th century (Friedman, 2005).

In contemporary American criminal justice policies and procedures, some of the most important rights and protections afforded to persons accused by the state of having committed crimes punishable by the state are the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Constitutional Amendments. Generally, the Fourth Amendment is the basis for modern search and seizure laws; the Fifth Amendment is the basis for the rights of the accused against coerced confessions (among other things); the Sixth Amendment is the basis for the right to competent legal representation, to confront one's accuser, and to compel witnesses by subpoena on his behalf; and the Eighth Amendment is the basis for protection from cruel and unusual forms of punishment (Dershowitz, 2002; Friedman, 2005; Schmalleger, 2008).

As was the case with other aspects of fundamental principles of American society even during the Colonial period, much of the attention subsequently devoted to due process as it relates to criminal procedure reflected the historical experience of life under British rule prior to the War of Independence. In particular, constitutional search & seizure and arrest limitations under the Fourth Amendment; compelled testimony prohibition under the Fifth Amendment; and the reference to "cruel and unusual" punishments under the Eighth Amendment were all direct attempts to limit state authority in ways that ensured against the new government's capability of the excesses experienced as subjects of the British Royal Crown in England (Schmalleger, 2008).

Fourth Constitutional Amendment Protections in American Criminal Justice:

The Fourth Constitutional Amendment is the embodiment of the right against constitutionally improper search and seizure or deprivation of liberty through arbitrary arrest by state authorities. In modern American criminal justice, the Fourth Amendment protections recognized by the Supreme Court evolved in particularly important respects during the 1960s, roughly coinciding with the Civil Rights Era (Dershowitz, 2002).

In Mapp v. Ohio 367 U.S. 643 (1961), the Supreme Court first applied Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted searches and seizures to the states after Ohio had argued that the Bill of Rights only applies to agencies (and agents) of the federal government. Mapp also applied the exclusionary rule to state (and other non-federal) criminal courts at a time when state law still permitted the introduction of inculpating evidence that had been seized by authorities improperly (Friedman, 2005).

Other Supreme Court decisions, such as Aguilar v. Texas 378 U.S. 108 (1964), established crucial requirements for probable cause constituting the basis for search warrants. Specifically, that decision held that mere descriptions by state agents (i.e. police officers) that "credible persons" had provided "reliable information" of criminal conduct were too vague to establish constitutionally sufficient probable cause (Zalman, 2008; Schmalleger, 2008). In contemporary American life, the rights emanating from the Fourth Amendment protect individuals from police investigations, searches of our homes, persons, and property without sufficient probable cause supporting a warrant by excluding from trial any evidence seized in violation thereof (Zalman, 2008)..

Fifth Constitutional Amendment Protections in American Criminal Justice:

The Fifth Constitutional Amendment (among other things) prohibits the state from extracting criminal confessions from criminal suspects or from compelling them to testify against themselves at trial (Zalman, 2008). During the first half of the 20th century, many state and local police authorities routinely abused arrestees to extract confessions from them. These types of abuses were particularly rampant in much of the American South, especially in connection with the continued subjugation of blacks before the Civil Rights era (Dershowitz, 2002).

In 1966, Miranda v. Arizona (348 U.S. 346) was the first of a series of important Fifth Amendment cases decided by the Supreme Court that established specific rules defining permissible police conduct in the area of interrogating criminal suspects. Specifically, Miranda prohibited the practice of interrogating criminal suspects unless police first advised them of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. More precisely, Miranda did not prohibit such questioning; but it made any evidence adduced that way inadmissible at trial under the exclusionary rule (Dershowitz, 2005; Friedman, 2005).

That area of constitutional law has undergone substantial evolution ever since, with subsequent cases recognizing valid exceptions to the general rule and also redressing impermissible police procedures designed to comply with the letter of the law while violating its spirit. In 2004, for just one recent important example, the Supreme Court decision in Missouri v. Seibert (542 U.S. 600) outlawed the evolved practice of the so-called "two-tiered" interrogation whereby police deliberately delayed arrest and/or issuing the required "Miranda warnings" to interrogate suspects outside of Miranda protections first, beforehand. This procedure often allowed police to extract confessions and other evidence from suspects, Mirandize them afterwards, and then use the information previously elicited to obtain confessions within Miranda protections to elicit admissible evidence under the guise of merely confirming the suspect's earlier (inadmissible) statements (Hoover, 2005).

Sixth Amendment Constitutional Amendment Protections in American Criminal Justice:

While Miranda was primarily a Fourth Amendment case, part of its outcome involved the Sixth Constitutional Amendment. In addition to requiring police to advise suspects in their custody of their Fifth Amendment rights, Miranda also established the requirement that suspects be advised of their Sixth Amendment right to competent legal representation if they are unable to afford counsel on their own (Schmalleger, 2008).

In modern times, the actual application of Sixth Amendment protections evolved first from capital crimes exclusively in 1932 to the landmark decision in 1961 that expanded the obligation to provide competent legal counsel free of charge (when necessary) to all criminal defendants who faced any term of penal incarceration (Friedman, 2005). In 1932, the Supreme Court decided Powell v. Alabama (287 U.S. 45) that established the requirement to provide legal counsel to indigent, illiterate, and other defendants who could not secure competent legal representation in all capital cases.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court expanded that requirement, first, to include all criminal defendants facing federal charges; and then to all criminal defendants facing felony charges in state courts as well (Friedman, 2005). Finally, in 1963, the Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainwright (372 U.S. 335) in which it established that due process principles triggered Sixth Amendment protections in any case in which defendants faced possible loss of liberty through penal incarceration (Friedman, 2005).

Eighth Amendment Constitutional Amendment Protections in American Criminal Justice:

The most important modern relevance of the Eighth Constitutional Amendment is in relation to the death penalty. In previous eras capital punishment was at various different times, prohibited altogether or applied too freely in a manner that violates numerous constitutional principles (Dershowitz, 2002). In 1972, the Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S. 238), in which it prohibited capital punishment where a single jury adjudicated both guilt and the criminal sentence in a unitary proceeding (Dershowitz, 2002; Friedman, 2005).

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