Criminal Procedure: Undergraduate Edition/ Key Constitutional Language/ Briefing a Judicial Opinion/ Generic Case Brief
- The Key Constitutional Language
- Briefing a Judicial Opinion
- Generic Case Brief
The Key Constitutional Language
The U.S. Constitution was drafted as an effort to combine the original states into one nation under a workable governing system. The Constitution replaced the original unifying document created after the Revolutionary War for independence from Great Britain, known as the Articles of Confederation, because many regarded the Articles of Confederation as providing too little authority for the national government. The national government needed greater ability to regulate the economy and to provide for national defense by obligating states to cooperate and help each other as one country. Prior to the ratification of the Constitution, states often regarded themselves as very separate entities and that were not fully committed to a unified whole. After the Constitution was ratified, creating the United States of America and designing the details of the nation’s governing system, concerns arose about whether the document provided enough protection for the rights of individuals. As a result, the Bill of Rights was drafted and ultimately added ten Amendments to the Constitution in 1791, the first eight of which specified legal protections for individuals, known to us as “constitutional rights”, that define the relationship of individuals to government. “Rights”, in a legal sense, are entitlements for individuals that the government is not supposed to violate. Over the course of subsequent decades, additional Amendments have been added to the Constitution. Of particular importance are the Amendments added after the Civil War, especially the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) that contains the rights to due process of law and equal protection of the laws.
In this course, students will focus on Supreme Court cases arising from a handful of constitutional provisions. Five Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are reprinted here (four in full, one in part) for your convenience. Note how the description of rights in these Amendments contain many vague terms, such as “unreasonable search” and “cruel and unusual punishment”. These terms require interpretation when disputes arise about their meaning. Judges have the authority to interpret these terms and thereby clarify—and change—the meanings of constitutional rights:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
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Savvy students will have noticed that the constitutional provisions reprinted above lack definitions for terms such as “unreasonable”, “search”, “seizure”, “probable cause”, “put in jeopardy”, “due process of law”, “confronted with the witnesses against him”, and “Assistance of Counsel”. The remainder of this book is, essentially, a summary of the Supreme Court’s ongoing efforts to provide the missing definitions.
(otherwise known as creating a “brief” or “case brief”)
When lawyers and law students read a judicial opinion (often referred to with the shorthand word “case”) that decides a legal dispute and provides reasoning for that decision, they try to boil the case down to a single page of organized notes that highlight the key features of the decision. Writing a good case brief involves the development of skill and analytical ability that comes from practice—by consistently creating these notes for every judicial opinion read for a course on Criminal Procedure. When doing case briefs for the first time, it is highly likely that a student will write too much or too little. There is no magical secret for writing a perfect brief. Indeed, individuals may differ in their own preferences about how much information to have in a brief. The important point is that the process of writing briefs will force the student to focus attentively on the details of the case and provide a quick reference to use during class discussions and when preparing for exams without going back to read the entire judicial opinion again.
Judges write their opinions for an audience of lawyers and judges, not for average citizens, not even for college educated members of the public. They use words and phrases that may be unfamiliar to people who did not attend law school. When you see an unfamiliar word: Look it up in an online dictionary!
Look at the elements of the generic sample brief below. When you read judicial opinions and write a one-page brief with essential information from a case, you first need the name of the case, the year it was decided, and the court that issued the opinion. Also note which judge or Supreme Court justice wrote the majority opinion. This will help you over time as you begin to recognize the approach to constitutional interpretation and values of specific Supreme Court justices. Then a very brief summary of the relevant FACTS in the case. Next, you need to formulate the question that is the ISSUE in the case. For this course, the issue should tie the facts to the part of the Constitution (including the Amendments in the Bill of Rights) that is alleged to be violated by a government action. The next element is the statement of the HOLDING. The holding is the rule that is reinforced, refined, or created by the judges’ decision in the case. Then you should briefly describe the REASONING of the majority opinion, as well as the separate reasoning of any Concurring (agreeing with the outcome) or Dissenting (disagreeing with the outcome) opinions. Read the judicial opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Safford School District v. Redding (2009). Write a case brief and then compare your case brief with the very simple case brief presented for the Redding case.
JONES V. SMITH (1986) U.S. Supreme Court
“Score”—vote of the justices:
- 5-4
Majority opinion author:
- Justice James
Facts:
- brief summary of specific events leading to case
Issue:
- question that is the focus of the case that links the facts to the part of the Constitution being interpreted
Holding:
- rule of the case that answers the question—written out as a rule, not just “yes” or “no”
Reasoning:
- reasons for decisions
Concurring opinion(s):
- author and reasoning
Dissenting opinion(s):
- author and reasoning
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Criminal Procedure: Undergraduate Edition/ Key Constitutional Language/ Briefing a Judicial Opinion/ Generic Case Brief based on Criminal Procedure: Undergraduate Edition by Christopher E. Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
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