Quotes About Constitution

I am an anarch in space, a metahistorian in time. Hence I am committed to neither the political present nor tradition; I am blank and also open and potent in any direction. Dear old Dad, in contrast, still pours his wine into the same decaying old wineskins, he still believes in a constitution when nothing and no one constitutes anything.

In our present age, each day can bring shocking new manifestations of oppression, slavery, or extermination—whether aimed at specific social groupings or spread over entire regions. Exercising resistance to this is legal, as an assertion of basic human rights, which, in the best cases, are guaranteed in constitutions but which the individual has nevertheless to enforce.

Largos períodos de paz promueven ciertas ilusiones. Una de ellas es creer que la inviolabilidad del hogar se basa en la Constitución. En realidad, se basa en el padre de familia que se encuentra en su puerta, rodeado de sus hijos, hacha en mano

Fourth Amendment, which requires a judge-issued warrant for an arrest; the Fifth Amendment, which requires a grand jury indictment before a person is held for trial; and the Sixth Amendment, which says that a person can be imprisoned only after conviction by a jury based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Erwin Chemerinsky

But the importance of the Supreme Court's silence should not be underestimated. By declining to enforce the Constitutions's limits on police conduct, the Court was empowering the police and letting officers know that they could violate the Constitution with impunity. And by failing to limit racist policing, the Courts allowed it to continue unchecked.

In California v. Hodari D. in 1991, the Court held that a person who is being chased by the police is not considered to be seized until he or she is actually tackled by the officer; chasing the individual does not constitute a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.63 But fifteen states have rejected this idea and said that under their state constitutions, chasing a suspect is sufficient to constitute a seizure and thus requires at least reasonable suspicion.64

The Fourth Amendment protects people, not property, the Court stressed. A person's Fourth Amendment rights do not depend on where he or she is at the time of the government intrusion, nor on whether a physical trespass occurs.

if a person invokes the right to remain silent, all questioning must cease. If a person asks for a lawyer, questioning must end until one is provided

Federalism should not provide state and local governments with the power to ignore the Constitution in any area, least of all in policing. Rizzo v. Goode, followed a short time later by City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, eliminated the power of federal courts to remedy proven patterns of racist, unconstitutional policing.

in 2000 the Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional, stressing that Congress by statute cannot overrule the Court's interpretation of the Constitution.

Such lawsuits, known as "Bivens suits," are an essential way to enforce the Constitution and hold federal officers liable, especially since the U.S. government has sovereign immunity and generally cannot be sued for monetary damages.

Justice Stewart wrote that the way the search was done had nothing to do with the reliability of the evidence.

Erwin Chemerinsky

First, it has narrowed the scope of rights that people have when dealing with the police. If there is no constitutional limit to police power, and politically imposed limits are absent, then police can do whatever they want. Overall, the Court has interpreted protections against unreasonable searches and arrests narrowly, compelled self-incrimination, and accepted faulty identification procedures.

Utah v. Strieff was one of many cases during the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts—from 1986 to the present—that empowered and encouraged police to violate the Constitution.

Neither the text of the Constitution nor the Framers' intent supports these rulings. Instead, we must regard the Court's decisions as a consistent choice, throughout American history, to favor the interests of law enforcement over the rights of individuals and to ignore the enormous racism that has infected policing since the nation's first days.

The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

You've got to protect the system of secular faith in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and Enlightenment values. That way, you can protect all religions.

When we refuse to help the enemies of ISIS, we're empowering ISIS. We're aiding their recruitment. We're abetting their argument that America discriminates against people based on their religions, which is expressly prohibited in our Constitution.

I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law.

I have always been a firm believer in the longstanding American principle of having the right to bear arms and I will remain committed to see that this freedom is not infringed upon, revoked, or limited in any way.

None of the constitutional, legal or other principles bars me from returning to the judiciary, since the judiciary remains independent if the actors remain independent and fair.

A judge's role is to ensure that the legislature remains within the limits of its assigned authority under the Constitution. Judges have no authority to second-guess the wisdom of the value judgments and policy choices the legislature has made.