In America, the family serves as both the primary vehicle for the care and rearing of children and as a private realm of intimate association and moral autonomy.
In America, the family serves as both the primary vehicle for the care and rearing of children and as a private realm of intimate association and moral autonomy.
In the area of adoption, the interest that takes center stage is that of the biological parents.
The 1968 Democratic convention was held in one of the most tumultuous times in recent history. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, racial tensions exploded into riots in cities across the country, and student protests paralyzed college campuses.
If police set up a checkpoint (also known as a roadblock) on the highway, requiring all drivers to stop and answer some questions, is that constitutional? The answer is yes if certain conditions are met.
Charitable Choice is a set of statutory parameters attached to a social service program with the purpose of making the government more welcoming to all faith-based social service providers.
Military chaplains originated in biblical times and have long been recognized as an important component of many armed forces. They have served in Western armies since at least the fourth century.
The practice of using a chaplain to offer a prayer at the beginning of each legislative session dates back to the first session of the first congress.
In the late 1860s, state legislatures authorized judges to sentence offenders to work on chain gangs.
One of the difficult church–state issues is determining when the use of religious language by the government violates the Establishment Clause.
The ‘‘categorical approach’’ is a method of judging where decisions are reached through use of a preestablished system of classifications or categories.
The idea that speech may be curbed to protect the sensibilities of an audience held captive by the speaker is rooted in the notion that governmental power. . .
Proportionality in principle justifies, limits, or condemns capital punishment. That deeply held common value—that punishment must not be grossly disproportionate to the crime—dominates U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Jurisdictions with capital punishment use one or more of the following methods to implement the sentence: hanging, firing squad, electrocution, lethal gas, and lethal injection.
Lynching has a long history in the United States, beginning at least around the time of the Revolutionary War.
Until recent years, the execution of innocents was mostly an abstract debate.
The U. S. Supreme Court has interpreted the prohibition on ‘‘cruel and unusual punishments’’ in the Eighth Amendment to regulate but not forbid the use of capital punishment.
The Due Process Clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution have played an important role in efforts to promote fairness in the use of capital punishment.
When Congress in the mid-1990s began considering reforms of federal post-conviction review, lawmakers faced an ongoing dilemma about the scope of habeas corpus law.
In the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalties of three men.
After its finding the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), in 1976, the Supreme Court confronted newly enacted death penalty statutes from five states.
Felony murder must not be confused with murder during the course of a felony. Murder during the course of a felony is an ordinary, intentional murder.
Appellate review should ensure that no death sentence is handed down in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
Although the legal institution of slavery was dismantled by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, discrimination on the basis of race and racially motivated violence continued unabated.
Currently, forty jurisdictions (thirty-eight states, the federal government, and the military) authorize capital punishment.
