Fifth Amendment the Fourth Amendment,

Fifth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, protects against unreasonable search and seizure. The Fifth Amendment gives one the right not to be held to answer for a crime unless presented with an indictment. This means, among other things, that a person has against self-incrimination and against double jeopardy. This paper will analyze these two amendments and their importance in the protection of Americans' civil rights. The two amendments form the cornerstone of protection against government abuse in the judicial system, and both relate back to pre-independence rulings in Britain that built the foundations of those protections.

Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment derives from an 18th century English court case that was settled prior to independence, in 1775. The amendment grants "the right of the people to be secure in their persons…against unreasonable searches and seizures…but upon probable cause." The use of warrant is required along with probable cause and the warrant must be detailed with respect to the place, person or things that are allowed to be searched (Hornberger, 2005).

The Fourth Amendment is important because prior to the landmark English case, government was able to conduct searches and seizures against citizens with impunity. This lead to egregious abuses of power by government with respect to the execution of warrants and the confiscation of property. For citizens, the ability to go about one's business without fear of baseless search and seizure is an important right. It provides an atmosphere in which business can be conducted freely and in which ideas and thoughts can be gathered and disseminated to the extent that they do not constitute criminal activity. In that respect, the Fourth Amendment relates somewhat to the First Amendment. More importantly, the freedom that the Fourth Amendment grants allows people to live without undue fear of government intrusion on their lives, something that the citizens of many nations do not have.

Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment offers Americans several freedoms. The most famous of these is the right against self-incrimination, where Americans may not be compelled to offer testimony that would allow themselves to be viewed as guilty of a crime. From a procedural point-of-view, the concept is simple -- the person in question will need to answer for any alleged crimes on the basis of an indictment on their person, rather than the indictment of somebody else. The Fifth Amendment also grants the right to a grand jury, who determine if the defendant should be formally charged or not. If the defendant is indicted, then a trial may follow. The Fifth Amendment also includes a prohibition on double jeopardy -- being tried for the same crime twice. Due process is another element of the Fifth Amendment, and guarantees that all legal rights must be upheld in the process of a trial. A person may not be treated unfairly relative to others with respect to his or her trial. In addition, the Fifth Amendment grants the right to fair compensation, whereby any private property that is taken for public use must by compensated for fairly. This works with respect to eminent domain in particular, where the government seizes property for the public good; the Fifth Amendment demands that the property owner be compensated for this seizure (CIN, 2011).

The different elements of the Fifth Amendment are important for a number of reasons. Related somewhat to the Fourth Amendment, the protection against self-incrimination protects citizens from being compelled or coerced into providing information to the government that could later be used against the individual. This clause arose from the common practice in both England and the colonies of using torture and deception to bring about damning evidence from the accused, in particular political and religious dissenters (JRank.org, 2011).

Taken together, the protections afforded by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are essential to ensuring freedom from government persecution. The government must ensure that proceedings are brought against somebody on the basis of the specific case against them, and are brought only once. The case must be presented fairly and equitably. Evidence cannot be gathered through deceptive or coercive means, but rather by legal channels only.