The United States Constitution is one of the most progressive and the oldest written constitution in the world. It gives the government its legitimate authority and outlines the responsibilities of the people to the Nation. The constitution also protects human rights and fundamental freedoms of the citizens in the Bill of Rights. It provides the citizens with an avenue to enforce their alienable human rights by recourse to the judiciary.
Popular sovereignty is one outstanding characteristics of the US Constitution. Political power rests with the people, consequently, people have the power to elect into office and recall their representatives. Another principle espoused in the US constitution is the creation of a limited government where all authority figures are bound by the rule of law. A close scrutiny of the US constitution would unearth the doctrine of Federalism. The government is divided into the Central Government and Regional Governments. Next the constitution has checks and balances to prevent tyrannical exercise of authority. Lastly, the Constitution provides for judicial review which gives the courts to decide which laws are unconstitutional and which ones are not.
The Supreme Court of the United States of America is the most powerful court in the US. It has the power to establish subordinate courts. The judicial decisions of the Supreme Court are binding to all subordinate courts. The Supreme Court is, however, limited in its operations as it cannot institute its own case; a case has to come from lower courts in exception of the cases which the court has original jurisdiction. Once the decision has been made the Supreme Court lacks the mandate to enforce its ruling.
The fundamental fairness doctrine states that states shall follow the due process of the law in criminal prosecution. It protects a person’s liberty or property from being taken away without the due process of the law. The incorporation clause makes the Bill of rights binding to all states. In the exercise of constitutional rights, the Federal Government is held in the same standard with the State Governments.
In Rochlin v California, police had forced the appellant to vomit some morphine capsules he had taken to be used for evidence. The Appellant alleged that the police did not follow the due process guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The court of Appeals held that the evidence was admissible. When the case reached the Supreme Court of California, the decision was overturned with Justice Frankfurter holding that the method used to extract evidence was shocking to the conscience. The presumption of regularity is a maxim used in evidentiary evaluation that transactions made in the business operations were executed by the duly appointed person and that the transactions complied with the necessary formalities until the contrary is proved.
I concur with the majority in Hurtado v. California. The trial of Hurtado without the presence of a grand jury did not contravene the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments of the US constitution. Laws cannot be made to apply retroactively. To do so would entail acting contrary to the rule of law and democratic governance. The repercussions of the decision, however, have been injurious to the criminal justice system since majority of the state decided to abolish grand juries. Juries were replaced by information and preliminaries before the judge.
The United States criminal justice system provides a law student to have a glimpse of history of how the law was developed and cases decided. Past cases offer a student the opportunity to learn legal principles and their application.
References
Keane, A., & Paul, M. (2012). The Modern Law of Evidence. New York: Cengage Learning.
Perry, M. J. (2009). We the People and the Fourteenth Amendment . New York: Cengage Learning.
Pollard, D. (2007). Constitutional and Administrative Law: Text with Materials. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.
Tomlins, C. (2010). The United States Supreme Court: The Pursuit of Justice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Tushnet, M. V. (2010). The Constitution of the United States of America: a contextual analysis of the world constitution series. New York: Hart Publishing Limited.
