The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.
The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five landmark cases, including US v. Stanley, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals. The holding that the Thirteenth Amendment did not empower the federal government to punish racist acts done by private citizens would be overturned by the Supreme Court in the 1968 case Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. The Fourteenth Amendment not applying to private entities, however, is still valid precedent to this day. Although the Fourteenth Amendment-related decision has never been overturned, in the 1964 case of Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, the Supreme Court held that Congress could prohibit racial discrimination by private actors under the Commerce Clause, though that and other loose interpretations of the Clause to expand federal power have been subject to criticism.
The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision consolidating several cases that held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only protects the legal rights that are associated with federal U.S. citizenship, not those that pertain to state citizenship. Though the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases minimized the impact of the Privileges or Immunities Clause on state law, the Supreme Court would later incorporate the Bill of Rights to strike down state laws on the basis of other clauses. In 2010 the Court rejected argument in McDonald v. Chicago to overrule the established precedent of Slaughterhouse and decided instead to incorporate the Second Amendment via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
A subpoena or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoenas:
- subpoena ad testificandum orders a person to testify before the ordering authority or face punishment. The subpoena can also request the testimony to be given by phone or in person.
- subpoena duces tecum orders a person or organization to bring physical evidence before the ordering authority or face punishment. This is often used for requests to mail copies of documents to requesting party or directly to court.
A Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibit the deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the federal and state governments, respectively, without due process of law.
Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a statute requiring suspects to disclose their names during a valid Terry stop does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the statute first requires reasonable suspicion of criminal involvement, and does not violate the Fifth Amendment if there is no allegation that their names could have caused an incrimination.
In United States constitutional law, incorporation is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of the state and local governments. However, the post–Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time. Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to the state and local governments by incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.
In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another [person] in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof"..
The Privileges or Immunities Clause is Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. Along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, this clause became part of the Constitution on July 9, 1868.
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78 (1908), was a case of the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, the Court established the Incorporation Doctrine by concluding that while certain rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights might apply to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination is not incorporated.
United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27 (2000), was a United States Supreme Court case involving Webster Hubbell, who had been indicted on various tax-related charges, and mail and wire fraud charges, based on documents that the government had subpoenaed from him. The Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The Supreme Court has, since 1976, applied the so-called “act-of-production doctrine.” Under this doctrine, a person can invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against the production of documents only where the very act of producing the documents is incriminating in itself.
Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which the Court held that States and their officials acting in their official capacity are not persons when sued for monetary damages under the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers regarding both criminal procedure and civil matters. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment applies to every level of the government, including the federal, state, and local levels, in regard to any "person". The Supreme Court furthered the protections of this amendment through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82 (1985), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that, because of the doctrine of "dual sovereignty", the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution does not prohibit one state from prosecuting and punishing somebody for an act of which they had already been convicted of and sentenced for in another state.
Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the issue of whether the government's grant of immunity from prosecution can compel a witness to testify over an assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Schillinger v. United States, 155 U.S. 163 (1894), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, holding that a suit for patent infringement cannot be entertained against the United States, because patent infringement is a tort and the United States has not waived sovereign immunity for intentional torts.
In United States law, the federal government as well as state and tribal governments generally enjoy sovereign immunity, also known as governmental immunity, from lawsuits. Local governments in most jurisdictions enjoy immunity from some forms of suit, particularly in tort. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides foreign governments, including state-owned companies, with a related form of immunity—state immunity—that shields them from lawsuits except in relation to certain actions relating to commercial activity in the United States. The principle of sovereign immunity in US law was inherited from the English common law legal maxim rex non potest peccare, meaning "the king can do no wrong." In some situations, sovereign immunity may be waived by law.
Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court, which held that a police officer does not deprive a suspect of constitutional rights by failing to issue a Miranda warning. However, the court held open the possibility that the right to substantive due process could be violated in certain egregious circumstances and remanded the case to the lower court to decide this issue on the case's facts.
Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. ___ (2015), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a police officer who shot a suspect during a police pursuit was entitled to qualified immunity. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that prior precedent did not establish "beyond debate" that the officer's actions were objectively unreasonable.
Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 (1906), was a major United States Supreme Court case in which the Court established the power of a federal grand jury engaged in an investigation into corporate malfeasance to require the corporation in question to surrender its records.
