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Nevada Civil Liberties | Jeremy Bowling | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Nevada Civil Liberties
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hello and welcome back to Nevada
constitution political science 100 in
this lecture I will be discussing civil
civil liberties can be defined as
individual freedoms protected from
infringement by government so these act
as negative restraints on government
they enumerate the restrictions on
government's authority to interfere with
the lives of its citizens
they are found in Article 1 of the
Nevada constitution known as the
Declaration of Rights so for example you
have a freedom of speech that is protected
protected
these protections afforded in the
Declaration of Rights are very similar
to the U.S Bill of Rights protections
the U.S Bill of Rights of course
consists of the first 10 amendments to
the U.S Constitution which also protects
your freedom of speech
it's important for us to go ahead and
note the difference between civil
liberties and civil rights oftentimes
today people use those interchangeably
but for academic purposes we should
distinguish them
with regard to civil liberties again
they act as negative restraints upon
government they prevent government from
interfering in our freedoms or depriving
people for example of their right to an attorney
attorney
you have the right to an attorney
you have the right to a trial by jury
you have the right to free speech you
have the right to freedom of religion
okay and so it prevents government from
denying you those rights civil rights on
the other hand usually requires positive
action by government where the
government must actively pursue the
guarantee of Rights through either the
Constitution or through a statute for
example the Voting Rights Act of 1965
which is U.S national legislation
illustrates this
now of course the right to vote had been
extended to minorities through the 15th
Amendment to the U.S Constitution
adopted in 1870 but even into the 1960s
Southern States in particular were
denying African-Americans and minorities
the right to vote using various
mechanisms to prevent them
for example literacy tests or poll taxes
were used to disenfranchise people the
Voting Rights Act did away with literacy
tests but it also had the federal
government take a look at the percentage
of minorities in a state and then the
percentage of minorities voting in that
state they looked at the number of
minorities in the state as well as the
number of minorities registering to vote
and participating in the voting process
in that state if the if the federal
government noticed a great disparity
between the percentage of minorities in
that state and the percentage of
minorities participating in the voting
process then the federal government sent
Federal officials to register minorities
in those States this did change the
makeup of voting in those states where
we saw an increase in minority
participation but as you can see from
that example it's positive action by
government as opposed to a negative
restraint on government like civil liberties
another way to differentiate civil
rights from civil liberties is that
while the focus of civil liberties is
the individual the focus of civil rights
is typically on groups all right so for
example in our Voting Rights Act the
focus was minority groups and the
protection of their rights
moving on from the difference between
civil liberties and civil rights let's
take a look at the declaration of rights
as I mentioned the Declaration of Rights
which is article one of the Nevada
constitutions reads very similarly to
the U.S Bill of Rights and the
protections guaranteed in the first 10
amendments among some of the Protections
in both the Declaration of Rights and
the Bill of Rights is that you have a
trial by jury
you also have your trial by jury
protected in civil cases you have
Liberty of conscience protected
habeas corpus cannot be suspended now
habeas corpus is protected in the U.S
Constitution under Article 1 Section 9.
it's not within the first 10 amendments
it's actually in the original
Constitution under Article 1 Section 9.
and again these protections are stated
in both the constitution of Nevada and
the U.S Constitution
Corpus means to bring the body forth an
arid of habeas corpus is a legal order
to bring the body forth a writ is simply
a legal order
w-r-i-t now what does that mean in
practice why should we care about this
well what it means in practice is that
you cannot be detained indefinitely
without being brought before a judge and
just cause shown for your detention and
that is why if you watch any of your
police dramas you'll notice that the
police will often say that we can only
hold the suspect for 24 hours or 48
hours and at that time we either have to
charge them or let them go that's habeas
corpus in practice so you can't be held
for months at a time without being
brought before a judge and just cause
shown for you to tension
other Protections in the Declaration of
Rights are against excessive bails or
that should sound familiar that
protection against cruel
or unusual
punishment is also provided for in the
Eighth Amendment to the U.S Constitution
yet another example is that there shall
which is also protected under the Fifth
Amendment of the U.S Constitution
due process of law is also found in the
Fifth Amendment of the U.S Constitution
of course speech and press assembly and
petition are also found in the First
Amendment to the U.S Constitution
the right to bear arms is protected not
only by the Declaration of Rights but
also in the Second Amendment to the U.S Constitution
Constitution
and finally quartering of soldiers and
private homes that's actually protected
in the U.S Constitution under the third amendment
amendment
so you may be wondering to yourself
why does it matter if we have a state
Declaration of Rights if these rights
are protected and the U.S Bill of Rights
under the U.S Constitution
why should we even have protection
provided for in the Nevada constitution
the reason this is important is because
in a very important case in 1833 Barron
versus Baltimore the U.S Supreme Court
ruled that the U.S Bill of Rights did
not apply to state governments
what this meant in practice is that
while for example you were guaranteed
protection against unreasonable searches
and seizures under the Fourth Amendment
of the U.S Constitution where typically
police have to have probable cause and a
warrant to come search your house this
did not apply to state governments
so under that ruling unless you're State
protected against unreasonable searches
and seizures then the state police could
come and search your home without a
warrant without probable cause it only
applied for example to the FBI not to
the Metro Police Department
that's significance because really even
though police powers of those in law
enforcement are shared or concurrent
powers most law enforcement is exercised
by your state government where your
state government again is closest to
your daily life
so if law enforcement comes knocking at
your door is most likely going to be
Metro Police not the FBI or other
national law enforcement agents because
most crimes are controlled by state law
unless your state constitution prevented
the police from engaging in unreasonable
search and seizures local law
enforcement could do that
we certainly saw this happen in states
that did not provide this protection
so Nevada's Constitution was very
important since those statements were
the only protection for its citizens in
1864 from abusive governmental Authority
now today of course we do see that many
of the rights listed in the first 10
amendments to the U.S Constitution do
apply to state governments
this changed largely with the adoption
of the 14th amendment in 1868 and the
process for applying certain rights in
the Bill of Rights so that so that they
apply to state governments is known as
selective incorporation because even to
this day not all of the provisions
within the first ten amendments to the
U.S Constitution apply to state governments
governments
the 14th amendment was adopted in 1868
and had a clause stating that no state
shall deprive its citizens of life
liberty or property without due process
a block
and the Supreme Court used this as a way
to get out the states so that further
protections could be applied to state
governments certain provisions of the
Bill of Rights could be applied to state
governments the way they interpreted was
that Liberty has to mean something in
practice it has to be tangible due
process has to mean something in actual
press practice
and so they began this process of
selective incorporation in the 1900s
properly understood selective
incorporation can be defined as the
absorption of certain Provisions in the
Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment
so they apply to state governments
so they may say that the freedom of
speech is now incorporated into the 14th
Amendment absorbed into the 14th
Amendment due protection due process clause
clause
so that it applies to state governments
again it is selective because not all of
the guarantees within the U.S Bill of
Rights have been applied to state governments
governments
almost all of them have but not all of
them and it's a process because the
rights are absorbed and applied to state
governments on a case-by-case basis
for example if you have a case that
comes to the Supreme Court regarding the
issue of freedom of religion in the
First Amendment
the Supreme Court does not then go and
take that opportunity and say oh and by
the way now cruel or unusual punishment
because those two issues don't have
anything to do with each other
that's why again this selective
incorporation is done on a case-by-case basis
in the early 1900s we saw free
expression rights freedom of the press
freedom of speech freedom of assembly
applied to state governments in the
1960s we saw many rights of the accused
Incorporated to apply to state
governments things like the right to an
attorney the right to trial by jury the
right against unreasonable search and
seizure the right to remain silent not
to self-incriminate yourself under the
Fifth Amendment
but it is still the case that we have
some Provisions within the Bill of
Rights that do not apply to state
governments uh so let's take a look
one thing we do need to know before we
move on to those two differences is the
most recent incorporation case
and this was pretty significant a great
deal of time had elapsed in between the
last incorporation case and the Second
Amendment right to bear arms and
Corporation case
up until 2010 the only protection
citizens had in States for the right to
bear arms was if their state
constitution protected a right to bear
arms in Nevada of course we saw in the
Declaration of Rights in Article 1
Section 11 that Nevada citizens have
been afforded the right to bear arms
protected in the right to bear arms
since the state constitution was adopted
in 1864.
but in other states citizens did not
have that protection for example Illinois
Illinois
and in Chicago there were very severe
restrictions on the right to bear arms
this resulted in a case coming before
the U.S Supreme Court called McDonald V Chicago
Chicago
in the case of McDonald V Chicago the
U.S Supreme Court Incorporated the
Second Amendment right to burn arms so
as to apply it to state governments and
this was done in 2010.
now the couple of differences that do
remain include jury verdicts in civil
cases and the power of eminent domain
the seventh Seventh Amendment to the U.S
Constitution has not been Incorporated
to apply to state governments and in
Nevada under Article 1 Section 3 of the
Nevada constitution you only need three
quarters of a jury to agree to decide
civil cases
now again this applies only to civil
cases in criminal cases you still need a
unanimous verdict to reach a decision in
Nevada but in civil cases you only need
three quarters of the jury to decide to
come to a decision
at the national Level under the Seventh
Amendment you need a unanimous jury break
break
the other remaining difference were the
Nevada Declaration of Rights Still
Remains relevant is regarding eminent domain
domain
eminent domain is the power of
government to take private property for
public use
for example eminent domain is often used
to expand roads and highways among other
things we've seen it used in Las Vegas
to expand the I-15 Freeway for example
this does exist at the federal level as
well as the state level
however the major difference is that at
the state level just compensation for
the taking of the property must be
issued prior to the taking
and just compensation traditionally has
meant fair market value although we will
talk about that more in a moment
but it's essentially how much the money
money the government is going to pay you
for taking your private property and in
Nevada under the Nevada constitution
just compensation for the taking of the
property must be issued prior to the taking
taking
this differs from the national
government because at the national level
while yours you still are afforded just
compensation the national government can
pay you your just compensation at any
time either before or after the taking
and that can make a big difference
because if you need that money to buy a
new home then that could become problematic
problematic
now with regard to eminent domain there
have also been further developments
worth discussing in 2005 the U.S Supreme
Court issued a ruling in kilo the city
of New London the city of New London is
in Connecticut and in that case the
Supreme Court ruled that it was
permissible for the city to take private
property and then sell it to another
private developer
the city had argued that single-family
residential homes were not bringing in
as much money in taxes as would a
commercial development so they under
eminent domain took these private
properties for what they called public
use but the public use was defined as
the city being provided more
compensation from commercial Endeavors
than single-family residential homes
since the Supreme Court upheld that as
appropriate under eminent domain and
allowed it to be understood as taking a
private property for public use many
citizens in several States reacted and
were quite dismayed and disturbed by
that ruling in Nevada there was a move
to adopt a constitutional amendment to
address this issue of eminent domain
and the initiative that is the
Constitutional Amendment that was
proposed through the initiative process
p-i-s-t-o-l it stands for the people's
initiative to stop the taking of our land
land
this was on the 2006 and 2008 ballots
and it was adopted by the voters in
those two consecutive elections and has
changed the constitution in the state of Nevada
Nevada
it was again a reaction to the kiloby
city of New London Supreme Court
decision in order to prevent the state
government from taking private property
and then selling it to private
developments so under pistol private
property cannot be taken and then sold
to another private party
it must be for public use like extending
the freeway widening the freeway
something like that
not just sold to another developer
further they also addressed the issue of
just compensation in more detail and did
state that it was not just fair market
value but the highest as and best use
so the most money for the highest and
in the end then there are only a couple
of differences but the Declaration of
Rights has proven to be important
throughout Nevada's history given how
long it took before many of the
provisions within the U.S Bill of Rights
were Incorporated to apply to state governments
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