Sy Moskowitz
Office 224
465-7858
Sy.Moskowitz@valpo.edu
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Amendments (13-15)
13th – no slavery or involuntary servitude
14th- all persons born or naturalized are subject to and citizens of US; due process
15th – right to vote regardless of….
Critical Cases between 1870-modern era
i. Civil rights
ii. Slaughterhouse
iii. Plussy v. Ferguson
Privileges/immunities of national citizenship
Crandall v. Navada, the right to go to the seat of your govt; the right to be protected while on the high seas.
U.S. v. Cruikshank, right to assembly, to petition the govt for redress of grievances.
Ex parte Yarbrough, right to vote in a national election.
U.S. v. Waddell, right to enter public lands
Logan v. U.S., right to be protected against violence while in the lawful custody of the US Marshall.
In re Quarles, right to inform govt of violations of its law.
U.S. v. Classic, right to have one’s ballot counted in a primary election for Congress.
Saenz v. Roe,
Twining v. New Jersey, incorporation of the bill of rights to states by way of Due Process clause. (Creates Substantive Due Process)
i. Cardoza’s dissent: requires fundamental rights that are rooted in history and tradition, no reason to incorporate the entire bill of rights.
Civil Rights Cases
Federal constitutional rights do not govern individual behavior and that Congress lacks the authority to apply them to private conduct. Structuring the legal relationships of private systems was for the state, not the national govt.
State Action
i. Marsh v. Alabama, the property rights or premises where the deprivation of liberty took place were held by others than the public is not sufficient to justify the State’s permitting a corporation to govern a community of citizens so as to restrict their fundamental liberties and the enforcement of such restraint by the application of a State statute.
ii. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison, Shutting off one’s electricity by an agency not associated to govt is not correlative of a State action and therefore notice and hearing under 14th Amendment not required. Provision of utilities is not traditionally the exclusive domain of the State. Affecting public interest does not make it a State Action.
iii. Terry v. Adams, excluding those protected by Constitution from voting is a State Action and therefore and agency working under the acquiescence of said State shall be liable.
iv. Evans v. Newton, wher
iv. Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete, Racial bias in a courtroom, regardless of whether that court is criminal or civil, is inappropriate; race-based exclusion violates the equal protection rights of the challenged jurors.
v. Georgia v. McCollum, Court found that a criminal defendant is a state actor in exercising peremptory challenges. Laws create peremptory challenge and jury selection is a governmental function accomplished through the power of the state and overseen by the judge.
Government Regulation
i. Government licensing or regulation is insufficient for a finding of state action, unless there is other government encouraging or facilitating of unconstitutional conduct.
ii. Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, When a State leases public property in the manner and for the purpose shown, the proscriptions of the 14th Amendment must be complied with the lessee as certainly as though they were binding covenants written into the agreement itself.
