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Understanding the Criminal Amendments of the BIll of Rights as they relate to the judicial system.


Steven Colley


The Creation of “The Constitution”


 

The purpose of this lesson  is to help students understand how the criminal amendments have affected life in the United States. Students will research famous court cases in which the criminal amendments of the Bill of Rights were an issue. This lesson will also aid students in understanding how court cases are conducted in our judicial system.


 

 

 


90 minutes


4


 

 

How did the Criminal Amendments impact American society?


 

Using either their textbooks or the website, www.billofrightsinstitute.org, students should access the Criminal Amendments (4,5,6,8, 14)  and re-write in modern language.

 

 


  Ask students to think of a movie, tv program, etc., in which someone was arrested.  Have them describe the procedure that the law enforcement official followed.  Lead students to discussing the reading of the Miranda Rights and why  the person who was arrested was read his/her rights.


In order to help students understand how the criminal amendments have affected life in the United States, students will research famous court cases in which the criminal amendments were an issue.

 NOTE:  Teacher preparation:

 

1. The  Teacher will need to go to http://www.landmarkcases.org/ and retrieve the case history for each of the following cases:

2.  The teacher can access the case information by clicking on the above named individual cases located on the left side of the home page. The teacher can retrieve the case summary in three different reading levels.

3. Once the information is retrieved the teacher is to remove the Supreme Court decision from the summary. This information will be shared with the class after each trial.

Note to teacher:

The teacher will have to facilitate or guide the case. After the first court case the remaining students will better understand the procedure and what is expected of each group.

The teacher can assign students in other groups to read the statements or get students from another class.

The teacher will need to assign students not participating in the current case to be jurors.

Class activity:

The teacher is to divide the class into an equal number of groups, with no more than four members. The teacher will assign two groups the same court case. One group will act as the prosecution. The other group will act as the defense. Each group is to use the information found in the case summary to aid in their court case preparation. 

 Each group will be  responsible for the following:

Assignments of roles give the students a prospective of what it is like to be a witness and a juror. At the completion of each case the jurors are to convene and determine how the court case should unfold. The jury is to present its decision to the class.

The teacher will share with the class how the Supreme Court decided the court case and the rationale behind the decision. 


Have students select a case other than the one which they researched and write three paragraphs.  One paragraph is to detail the court case presented. In the second paragraph, the student will state his/her viewpoint on the issue and support with concrete facts. In the third paragraph the student should explain how American society has been impacted by this court case. Each paragraph should consist of no less than five lines.


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