Individual rights: foundations and applications

Protecting Liberty

Individual rights

Bill of Rights defines the protections afforded individual citizens under the Constitution against excessive government intrusions into private lives and arbitrary prosecutions. These rights are contained in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Since these Amendments were first adopted by the ratifying states the courts have interpreted the intent of each and created rules that attempt to keep the government from running roughshod over these rights. In 1944, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedures were generated by the Supreme Court and Congress turned them into law (LII, 2010).

One of the most important rights is to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment (LII, 2010). A warrant issued by a magistrate or judge is typically required before a police officer can enter a private citizen's residence or other property and conduct a search. In addition, the focus of the search has to be limited to specific items and the search must be based on probable cause. To establish probable cause the police officer must present the reasoning behind the request under oath. To enforce the Fourth Amendment privacy protections, the court can prevent evidence obtained without a warrant from being presented during trial. This practice is called the "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" Doctrine or the Exclusionary Rule (Bilz, 2012).

The Fifth Amendment requires law enforcement officers to inform anyone arrested for a criminal offense of their right to remain silent and that any statements can and will be used to prosecute them for the alleged crime (LII, 2010). The Sixth Amendment, as interpreted by the courts, confers to criminal defendants the right to counsel whether they can afford it or not. These rights have collectively been called substantive due process. When criminal defendants are facing trial in state courts, which is the most common scenario, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees substantive due process rights in those courts as well. If these rights are violated, the courts can provide a remedy to the accused by declaring any statements made in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments inadmissible.

The Amendments discussed above were created by colonial business leaders who were fed up with the maltreatment they were experiencing under British rule (ACLU, 2002). British troops could arbitrarily enter, search, and take whatever they needed and the colonist could do little to prevent this from occurring. Arbitrary arrests and prosecutions also took place. From the perspective of colonists, these intrusions and abuses of power were just a few of the many committed by an indifferent English ruling class.

When it came time to create a constitution that the states could agree upon, a major sticking point was the lack of a bill of rights to protect individual citizens from the power of the government (ACLU, 2002). The Constitution before the Bill of Rights was added outlined what the government had a right and responsibility to do, but there was little mention of ways to limit government power. The Revolutionary War was triggered by government overreach so several of the new states wanted a way to prevent the same abuses from occurring in their new nation.

I cannot imagine living in a country where there are no limits on government power; therefore the Bill of Rights is essential to the preservation of individual liberty. If law enforcement officers believed that individual rights were not important, or got in the way of catching criminals, then we as a nation would return to a time when abuses of government power were routine and individual liberty uncertain.

When the courts apply the Exclusionary Rule it tends to discourage well-intentioned law enforcement officers from engaging in warrantless searches or failing to advise criminal defendants of their right to remain silent; however, police officers sometimes lie under oath to subvert court procedures designed to protect the rights of the accused (Wilson, 2010). Officers report that they lie to ensure justice is done because they believe that the defendant is guilty of the alleged crime. The practice is so pervasive in New York State that federal judges no longer assume that a police officer is telling the truth under oath. A 1992 survey also found that lying by Chicago police officers under oath is pervasive. Lying by police officers to get a search warrant or to prevent evidence from being ruled inadmissible, renders judges and juries irrelevant because police officers are effectively determining guilt or innocence. This suggests that the courts have not gone far enough to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of defendants.

Melanie Wilson (2010) argued for an 'Exclusionary Rule' for police officers who lie under oath. Creating such a rule would send a message to judges and prosecutors at both the federal and state level that police lying under oath will not be tolerated. Despite New York federal judges learning to compensate for police lying during criminal proceedings, state criminal courts in Illinois routinely tolerate such activity. This tolerance therefore encourages Chicago police officers to lie when under oath. The courts have not gone far enough to end this practice.