Unit 12 Glossary Terms Flashcards
What is Habeas Corpus?
A court order directing any official having a person in custody to produce the prisoner in court and explain to the judge why the prisoner is being held.
What is Ex Post Facto?
A retroactive criminal law making a particular act a crime that was not a crime when the act was committed, or increasing punishment for a crime after the crime was committed.
What is a Bill of Attainder?
Legislative act inflicting punishment, including deprivation of property, without trial on named individuals, or members of a specified group.
What is Non-Protected Speech?
Speech that is not entitled in some circumstances to constitutional protection such as libel, fighting words, obscenity, and commercial speech.
What is Libel?
A written defamation of another person. Public figures have less protection than private citizens.
What are Civil Liberties?
Rights of all persons that cannot be denied by governmental power.
What does Incorporated (Selective) refer to?
Bill of Rights were brought within scope of 14th Amendment.
What is the Free Exercise Clause?
Congress shall make no law prohibiting religious free exercise.
What is Sedition?
Written or oral criticism of the government, or urging its forceful overthrow.
What is the Freedom of Information Act?
Legislation that makes records of public officials and agencies available to citizens except where specifically protected, i.e. private financial, personnel and criminal investigation files.
What are Sunshine Laws?
Required public agencies to open their meetings to the general public.
What is a Shield Law?
A state law that protects the sources used by a reporter from questioning in a trial.
What is the Nonpreferentialist View?
Court doctrine that allows the government to support religious activities that favor no specific faith.
What is the Accommodationist Doctrine?
Permits governmental support of activities that are only incidentally religious.
What is New Judicial Federalism?
The doctrine that states may extend freedoms guaranteed by the national Bill of Rights.
What is the Establishment Clause?
The clause in the First Amendment that states ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion…’
What is the Wall of Separation?
The doctrine that holds that the Constitution prohibits both the state and national governments from aiding any and all religions and religious activities.
What is Excessive Government Entanglement?
The ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) that a statute to be constitutional must not foster ‘an excessive government entanglement with religion.’
What are Fighting Words?
Words that have traditionally been recognized as likely by their very nature to inflict injury or incite an immediate breach of the peace.
What is Clear and Present Danger?
A test requiring that speech can be inhibited only when it constitutes a clear and imminent danger to substantial interests.
What is the Preferred Position Doctrine?
A formula that gives a special or privileged position to the First Amendment freedoms in our constitutional system.
What is Prior Restraint?
The requirement that prior approval, usually in the form of a permit or license, must be obtained before communication is permitted. The Court has been highly critical of this type of regulation.
What is Free Speech?
The right of individuals to have their say and the right for the rest of us to hear them.
What is Obscenity?
Work that appeals to a prurient interest in sex, lacking intrinsic value.
What is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993?
Restored the use of the compelling interest test which exempts people from laws and governmental actions that burden their religious freedom. The Act was declared unconstitutional in 1997 by the Supreme Court.
What is the Bad Tendency Doctrine?
Authorizes legislative bodies to forbid speech that has a tendency to lead to illegal action.
What is Civil Disobedience?
Refusal to obey the law or official orders as a symbol of protest.
