Who actually enforces the bill of rights The US bill of rights was constructed to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government. Let's take for example our second amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. We only need two words for definitions "people" and "infringed". People is human beings in general or considered collectively.the men, women, and children of a particular nation, and that would be U.S.A . And at the end of the second amendment it clearly states "shall not be infringed" so that would be be defined as shall not break the terms of (a law, agreement, etc.). Shall not contravene, shall not violate, shall not transgress, shall not break, shall not breach, shall not commit a breach of, shall not disobey, shall not defy, shall not flout, including shall not undermine, erode, diminish, weaken, impair, damage, compromise; limit, curb, check, place a limit on, encroach on, interfere with, disturb, disrupt. So my question is If our bill of rights was constructed to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government. Wouldn't passing any gun law federal or state to place a limit on where you can have it interfering with being able to defend yourself wouldn't be a breach of our safety? Diminishing the meaning of a free state?? How is any gun control law that dose everything in the definition of infringed not be a violation of the Second amendment??
When an individual or an organization (such as a business or a local or state government) thinks that a governmental action is in violation of a constitutional limitation, s/he/it may file suit against the government (Federal, state, or local as the case may be). Such suits most often seek injunctions against continuation of the action, but sometimes damages, particularly under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Also, persons accused of crime may argue that the law violates their Constitutional rights, or that some part of the enforcement procedure violated those rights. Such suits and court actions are the main way in which US Constitutional rights, including those in the Bill of Rights, are enforced. Constitutional rights are almost never absolute. For example the rights of free speech and a free press in the First Amendment are stated in rather absolute terms, but libel and defamation laws are constitutionally permitted, although they were somewhat limited by the decision in NY Times vs Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). Regulation of the &quot;time, place, and manner&quot; of speech is also permitted. Although the same amendment guarantees Free Exercise of religion, laws prohibiting human sacrifice and polygamy are constitutional. the Fourth Amendment limits search and seizure, but search warrants are still issued every day. The Second Amendment does not mean that no regulation of guns can ever be constitutional. For much of our history, the clause A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State was considered to be a condition of the right, and no individual right to own firearms was guaranteed to those in no way connected with a governmentally authorized militia (private militias were not considered &quot;well regulated&quot;). Since DC. v. Heller that view has changed, but that does not make all regulation of guns impossible under the Constitution. Moreover, a number of legal scholars think that Heller was wrongly decided, and should be reversed. The Supreme Court could decide to do that, although the current Justices have not indicated any such intention. The U.S. Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) said, quoting DC vs Heller: It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” The question suggests that a dictionary definition of &quot;infringe&quot; implies that the right is utterly absolute. This contradicts the Supreme Court statement holding above, and all of our history of constitutional law. To the best of my knowledge there is no provision or right that does not have limited exceptions or room for interpretation. Justice Black's absolutist view of the Bill of Rights, and particularly of the rights of Freedom of Speech and of the Press, never carried a majority of the Court nor of the country. To &quot;infringe&quot; a right is to violate it, to fail to respect the right. But that leaves the question of just what the right guarantees. Suppose a law requires a permit to own a gun, but that permit is granted to anyone on filing an application and payment of a small fee. Would that infringe the right? Suppose a similar permit requirement, but one excluding felons, persons on parole, and persons under a domestic violence restraining order. Would that infringe? Suppose a requirement that a would-be owner first pass a firearms safety class, which most people pass easily. Would that infringe? There are many such questions, and current case law has not settled all of them. The first two above seem to be answered &quot;No&quot; by the US Supreme Court. By the way, the history of the debates does not suggest that the ability of individuals to defend themselves, particularly against the government, was a significant concern in drawing up the Second Amendment. The focus was largely on Federal funding of state militias (later the National Guard). Other data shows that gun ownership was comparatively rare at the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
In the US usa, at least, the concept of ex post facto laws, which is what you have described, are specifically prohibited: Article I, Section 9, Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
First off, a court in the United States does not care if the federal law was good policy or bad policy. Courts do not make those decisions. A court cannot strike down a law for being a stupid idea; it can only strike down the law for violating a more fundamental law (i.e. state and federal constitutions, including striking down state laws for going against federal laws). Courts are not in the business of evaluating whether marijuana is dangerous, because that determination was made by Congress. As long as the law itself does not violate the Constitution (and being stupid doesn't make it violate the Constitution), a court cannot strike it down. If a law is validly passed under the Constitution, a court likewise cannot decline to strike down a state law that contradicts it. Valid federal laws preempt state law. This is not seriously disputed by courts. The question before the court is whether or not the CSA forbids Colorado from involving itself in the marijuana business. This is a question about federal law. While the Supreme Court will make the ultimate decision themselves, the US government generally submits an amicus brief on just about every Supreme Court case involving federal laws, outlining its position. The purpose of the brief is to get more arguments, in order to provide more for the court to think about. It is not even a tiny bit unusual for non-parties to submit briefs, and it would be incredibly unusual for the US to not submit one here. The Supreme Court cannot do something like jury nullification*. That's not their role in the world. No Supreme Court decision can say "well, this is the law, and it's clear, but we don't like it and are doing it another way." Their duty is to apply the actual law, not what they want the law to be. What they can do, though, is stretch words and make arguments to fit what they think it should be. Often, in cases they don't want to handle, they end up finding some technical point to avoid setting broad precedent. But they don't get to simply not apply the law because they disagree. * Technically, if they do that, they can't be overturned; however, it's just something that is not done.
There are a number of specific limitation on what can be made criminal in US law, derived from constitutional protection. Specific Rights Expressions of free speech, for example, cannot be made criminal, although there can be laws which regulate or impact speech to a degree. Similarly, the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibits a law requiring people to attend a particular church, and he free Exercise clause prohibits any criminal penalties for any religious practice or lack of practice. Most of the other provisions of the Bill of right would impose similar limitations. The legislature cannot criminalize what people have a constitutional right to do. Thre are also specific limitations not in the bill of rights, such as the prohibition of Ex Post Facto laws, the right to trial by jury, and the constitutional limitation of Treason laws. Rational Basis Beyond that the Due Process clause of the 5th and the parallel clause of the 14th impose limits on criminal law generally. Criminal laws must have (at least) a rational basis. The legislature cannot just prohibit picking up papers because they felt like it, they must have articulated a problem and a plausible reason why a given law would address it. If they don't the law may be overturned as unconstitutional. If a law is challenged as being unconstitutional, it will currently either be subject to rational basis analysis, or to one of the stricter levels. However a law which cannot pass rational basis analysis will not survive intermediate scrutiny or strict scrutiny either. Laws which appear to invade one of the enumerated rights, or a right that the Court has deemed &quot;fundamental&quot; are normally tested under either strict or intermediate scrutiny. According to the the Wikipedia article: Courts applying rational basis review seek to determine whether a law is &quot;rationally related&quot; to a &quot;legitimate&quot; government interest, whether real or hypothetical. The higher levels of scrutiny are intermediate scrutiny and strict scrutiny. ... laws implicating unenumerated rights that the Supreme Court has not recognized as fundamental receive rational basis review. ... In modern constitutional law, the rational basis test is applied to constitutional challenges of both federal law and state law (via the Fourteenth Amendment). This test also applies to both legislative and executive action whether those actions be of a substantive or procedural nature. The rational basis test prohibits the government from imposing restrictions on liberty that are irrational or arbitrary, or drawing distinctions between persons in a manner that serves no constitutionally legitimate end. ... A court applying rational basis review will virtually always uphold a challenged law unless every conceivable justification for it is a grossly illogical non sequitur. (See Killian, Johnny H., George A. Costello, &amp; Kenneth R. Thomas, co-eds., The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation: Analysis of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 28, 2002, by Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress (Senate Document No. 108-17, 108th Congress, 2d Session) and specifically Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996) at 635) Rational Basis analysis became accepted after the demise of &quot;substantive Due Process&quot;, mostly in a civil, rather than criminal context. A version of it was suggested in Lochner v. New York 198 U.S. 45 (1905), in the dissent by Justice Holmes. It was adopted as governing in [*Nebbia v. New York * In United States Department of Agriculture v. Moreno 413 U.S. 528 (1973) The Court overturned, on a rational basis scrutiny, a law excluding households consisting of unrelated people from the Federal Food Stamp program, writing: [A] bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest. Specific cases In Eisenstadt v. Baird 405 U.S. 438 (1972) a law that criminalized the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried persons was overturned on a rational basis review. Similar cases are now generally treated with intermediate scrutiny. In James v. Strange 407 U.S. 128 (1972). a Kansas law reclaiming payments for public defenders was overturens on rational basis review as “an impermissible burden on the right to counsel established in Gideon v. Wainwright.&quot; In Bowers v. Hardwick 478 U.S. 186 (1986), rational basis analysis was employed to sustain a statute criminalizing homosexual activity. However, this was later overturned.. Vagueness Also under Due Process, vague laws are prohibited. If a reasonable person cannot tell from the law what is or is not illegal, the law can be overturned for vagueness. Procedural protections Then there are procedural limits, also largely derived from the Due Process clause(s). A law cannot automatically convict people without a genuine hearing, in which a person can present a defense to an independent, impartial judge or jury. A law cannot impose duties which are flatly impossible to perform. A law cannot impose punishments which are considered unreasonable for the seriousness of the crime (as evaluated by judges). Other Limits There are other limits as well, it would take a book to list them all in detail. But those are some of the more frequently applied ones.
I don’t believe there is an aggravated violation due to his disability, but it is quite likely that a court will find that to be a violation of his rights. Florida’s stop and frisk law 901.151(2) would indicate the original stop and temporary detention was valid, but once the item in his back pocket had been identified, 901.151(3) requires that the detention be immediately terminated. After the identification, he was no longer being legally detained, it was thus either an illegal detention and a violation of his 4th amendment rights or a consensual encounter under Florida law, and if consensual no requirement to Id. But just because it was a violation of his rights doesn’t mean that he will automatically win a lawsuit if he brings one. Jones v. State, 584 So.2d 190 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) holds that you can’t be charged with resisting arrest without violence (aka 843.01), when the arrest itself is unlawful. I suppose Hodges could be charged with “obstructing” which is covered by the same statue, but more ambiguous than “arrest”.
Are there any underlying reasons behind the nonsensical structure of U.S.C. titles? Is it simply a case of "This is how it's been for awhile, don't fix what isn't broken." or is there more to it than that? First of all, the United States Code is generally not designed to be used by non-lawyers. Second, one of the main ways to research case law interpreting a statute is by doing a boolean search on the code section of that statute. Every time you change a title or section number, you impair the ability of people doing legal research (both judges and lawyers) to find previous case law interpreting the meaning of the statute. Third, you make it much harder to determine when the substance of the provision was originally enacted (e.g. if you want legislative history or to determine which of two conflicting statutory provisions was enacted first) since an annotated statute will often show when the current section was enacted but will not explain what it was derived from. Fourth, the location of a statute within the context of other statutory sections often informs its meaning. Machine gun may have one definition in two or three laws, and a different one in two or three other laws, and there may be yet other laws where machine gun is an undefined term. Moving a statutory section from one part of the code to another could influence the default definition that one uses for an undefined term changing substantive law. Fifth, usually a new codification will also involve some drafting standards, for example, to add gender neutrality or to avoid notoriously ambiguous constructions (like 250 word sentences). But, it isn't at all uncommon for very slight changes like the position of a comma or the formatting of a section with multiple indents, to result in a change of the likely meaning of a somewhat ambiguous statute and it is pretty much impossible to know a priori when a statutory section is ambiguous until you are confronted with a fact pattern that makes the ambiguity in that context clear. This isn't confined to obscure laws of little importance. For example, the question of whether Obamacare applied in states that hadn't set up their own exchanges hinged on these kinds of issues. None of this is to say that you should never recodify the statutes. But, a basically aesthetic motivation that mostly matters to people who make up a tiny portion of the main users of the product (non-lawyers) that poses multiple threats to how statutes will be located using legal research tools, and how it will be interpreted once located, means that reorganizing statutes is not something to be done lightly. In short, there are a lot of serious, substantive costs that can accompany a recodification of a law. As a result, re-codification is most often done only as part of an overall omnibus reform of an area of law on the merits where the interest in being able to track prior interpretive caselaw and determine the original meaning of a statute enacted long ago is at its lowest. Barring the even more ridiculous case of Congress repealing everything and passing the exact same laws again, just under different Titles/Chapters/etc, This is not so ridiculous. Most states have done exactly that one or two times in their history (sometimes more for older states). Also, many newly admitted to the union states also do something similar. For example, the basic template for the statutes in Colorado was the statutes of the state of Illinois. Basically, the first time around, somebody started with an Illinois statute book, eliminated Illinois specific laws and laws that they didn't like, rearranged them and adopted them as the original statutes of the State of Colorado (it may have actually been version 2.0 after a stopgap set of statutes, I don't recall which). Also, most states completely repeal and readopt all of their statutes in codified form on the recommendation of the codifier to a legislative committee, to reflect the acts passed in the previous session, every year. This doesn't involve overhauls really, but in principle is a complete repeal and reenactment. While the federal government has never overhauled the entire U.S. Code in this manner, it has been done at the level of individual titles of the U.S. Code. For example, the most recent major reorganization and overhaul of the structure of the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26) was in 1986. The copyright laws were overhauled in the late 1970s. Both of those accompanied major substantive changes in those areas of law. Another major recodification of many parts of the U.S. Code took place following 9-11 in connection with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which reorganized both the bureaucracy and the associated U.S. Code language associated with dozens of federal agencies. would it be possible for Congress to arbitrarily merge, combine, and delete Titles, and to rearrange the location of laws, definitions, etc? Are there laws/regulations governing this? Yes. Congress can do so any time it wants by passing a bill (it would be the longest bill ever - dozens of volumes long) doing so, and getting the President to sign it. The legislative process would be exactly the same as any other bill.
This happened recently in Washington state, when the state Supreme Court ordered the state government to comply with a constitutional funding mandate (McCleary v. Washington, 2012). The state did not comply for 6 years and was fined ($100,000 per day) for 3 years. I don't recall that the state paid a penny, and the courts did not demand payment of fines for that period. Public opinion did not have any obvious effect, but you could take this to Politics SE to get a lot of opinions as to whether public opinion mattered. The federal government can't get involved, unless they (the federal government) first make a federal issue out of it, perhaps because of some law suit. Power of enforcement is essential non-existent, given a sufficiently non-cooperative state government. I should point out that the court's order was a bit vague, that is, it was not &quot;release Smith from custody instantly&quot;, it required the government to act to the satisfaction of the court.
As mentioned in a comment by @Dancrumb, the exact policies of each local police department will be different, and there are thousands of them. There is a relevant requirement at the Federal level according the Department of Justice, but it is not clear to me to what extent this applies to peers and not just supervisors: An officer who purposefully allows a fellow officer to violate a victim's Constitutional rights may be prosecuted for failure to intervene to stop the Constitutional violation. To prosecute such an officer, the government must show that the defendant officer was aware of the Constitutional violation, had an opportunity to intervene, and chose not to do so. This charge is often appropriate for supervisory officers who observe uses of excessive force without stopping them, or who actively encourage uses of excessive force but do not directly participate in them.