The idea of due process - the following of fair and regular procedures in actions against an individual - is central to the Anglo-American concept of liberty and justice. The Bill of Rights devotes more attention to the rights attendant upon a fair criminal process than it does to any other group of rights. This volume examines the theory and practice of the protection of defendants' rights in the USA from the colonial era to the present, emphasizing the transition from the State to the Federal government of the role of principal guarantor of constitutional protections for criminal defendants.

Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights)

History

Bodenhamer, David J.

Americas

Oxford University Press

The only comprehensive survey of rights of the accused in American history, this new text guides the reader through the development of these rights and their central relationship to liberty, justice, and social order. Integrating legal, social, and political history, Fair Trial focuses on the defendant's rights in theory and practice and traces developments in local and state courts as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court, recognizing that, throughout history, the expression and protection of rights has most often been a matter of local concern. The second volume in the Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights series, co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians and Oxford University Press, this is an essential introduction to criminal due process and its importance to American liberty.

Our Rights

Designed for high school students and motivated lay readers, this book is an introduction to the rights held by American citizens under the U.S. Constitution as explored through a series of historical case studies. Each chapter uses dramatic narrative to illustrate a right in action. Most examples use U.S. Supreme Court cases to focus on a time when the right in question received its modern interpretation. Each chapter discusses how the right applies today and how courts and other interpreters seek to balance this right with important societal concerns, such as the need for order and public safety. Beginning with a 20-page chapter on how we arrived at our modern concept of rights, the major interpretive thread is the continual struggle to define limits on the power of the state. Introducing several key themes: our understanding of rights have emerged from history (experience); our definition and interpretation of rights are always evolving; concepts of rights are always under contention; and various actors-legislatures, executives, and courts-compete to be the final interpreter of our rights. American constitutional rights generally fall into one of three groups-rights of democracy, that is, rights required for American democracy to work effectively; rights of the accused, or due process rights that assure a fair trial for individuals accused of crimes; and other rights of persons, including the right to privacy. A fourth category of rights are not constitutional per se, but often we conceive of them as such even though often they are statutory rights, such as the right to education.

Legal History

Designed for high school students and motivated lay readers, this book is an introduction to the rights held by American citizens under the U.S. Constitution as explored through a series of historical case studies. Each chapter uses dramatic narrative to illustrate a right in action. Most examples use U.S. Supreme Court cases to focus on a time when the right in question received its modern interpretation. Each chapter discusses how the right applies today and how courts and other interpreters seek to balance this right with important societal concerns, such as the need for order and public safety. Beginning with a 20-page chapter on how we arrived at our modern concept of rights, the major interpretive thread is the continual struggle to define limits on the power of the state. Introducing several key themes: our understanding of rights have emerged from history (experience); our definition and interpretation of rights are always evolving; concepts of rights are always under contention; and various actors-legislatures, executives, and courts-compete to be the final interpreter of our rights. American constitutional rights generally fall into one of three groups-rights of democracy, that is, rights required for American democracy to work effectively; rights of the accused, or due process rights that assure a fair trial for individuals accused of crimes; and other rights of persons, including the right to privacy. A fourth category of rights are not constitutional per se, but often we conceive of them as such even though often they are statutory rights, such as the right to education.

The framers of the Constitution chose their words carefully when they wrote of a more perfect union--not absolutely perfect, but with room for improvement. Indeed, we no longer operate under the same Constitution as that ratified in 1788, or even the one completed by the Bill of Rights in 1791--because we are no longer the same nation. In The Revolutionary Constitution, David J. Bodenhamer provides a comprehensive new look at America's basic law, integrating the latest legal scholarship with historical context to highlight how it has evolved over time. The Constitution, he notes, was the product of the first modern revolution, and revolutions are, by definition, moments when the past shifts toward an unfamiliar future, one radically different from what was foreseen only a brief time earlier. In seeking to balance power and liberty, the framers established a structure that would allow future generations to continually readjust the scale. Bodenhamer explores this dynamic through seven major constitutional themes: federalism, balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security. With each, he takes a historical approach, following their changes over time. For example, the framers wrote multiple protections for property rights into the Constitution in response to actions by state governments after the Revolution. But twentieth-century courts--and Congress--redefined property rights through measures such as zoning and the designation of historical landmarks (diminishing their commercial value) in response to the needs of a modern economy. The framers anticipated just such a future reworking of their own compromises between liberty and power. With up-to-the-minute legal expertise and a broad grasp of the social and political context, this book is a tour de force of Constitutional history and analysis.

The Revolutionary Constitution

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Books by Bodenhamer, David J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bodenhamer, David J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights)

Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights)

Our Rights

Our Rights

The Revolutionary Constitution

The Revolutionary Constitution