Can I waive my constitutional rights? e.g. in the EPL (Eclipse Public License) the last statement reads like this. Each party waives its rights to a jury trial in any resulting litigation. Can I waive my fundamental constitutional rights? If that be the case, wouldn't it be possible for a legal entity to coerce or cheat a person into a contract that violates his/her constitutional right/s? Isn't the law of the land above all (including contracts)? Can the law through due process come to conclusion that a person be denied his constitutional rights because he signed a contract that was illegal/unconstitutional in the first place? This is not a duplicate of these questions Can I waive my statutory rights? How can felons be denied Constitutional rights?
Actually, the concept "right" means that it can be waived: you may exercise the right, but do not have to. If it is an obligation, you can't "waive" the obligation; but the right to free speech does not mean that you must speak, and the right to bear arms does not mean that you must bear arms. You may decline to exercise, or waive, a right. Sternlight 16 Ohio St. J. On Disp. Resol. 669 (2001) in "Mandatory Binding Arbitration and the Demise of the Seventh Amendment Right to a Jury Trial" partially addresses this (the focus though is on binding arbitration). One thing to note is that the Seventh Amendment does not appear to apply to issues in state court (it is a separate and fascinating question to wonder what parts of The Constitution are incorporated against states, and why). All is not lost for the constitutional question, we just need a different constitution. By the agreement terms, "This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of New York". Therefore, New York's Constitution (Article 1 Sect 2) is also applicable: Trial by jury in all cases in which it has heretofore been guaranteed by constitutional provision shall remain inviolate forever; but a jury trial may be waived by the parties in all civil cases in the manner to be prescribed by law. Thus, the right may be waived. Waiver of a right to jury trial is not the same as waiver of the right to trial: what the agreement says is that litigants would have a civil bench trial, where the judge determines whether there was a breach. In New York, NY CPLR § 4102 allows parties to waive civil trial by jury (and unlike California), such waiver terms have been upheld, but the courts have recognized that there is a problem, so it's not always obvious whether such waivers in contracts are legal.
This is largely congruent with* the doctrine of laches. The basic idea, under common law, is that you can lose rights by failing to assert them. This is generally important for many reasons, but specifically in the case of appeals: The argument should have been brought before the trial court. Justice is not a game, but it's important to recognize that the party trying to raise the argument had an opportunity to do so already. They have given up their right to raise this argument, and extending them the privilege of doing so is (for the following reasons) not good for the system. Courts of appeals are typically not well-equipped to evaluate factual evidence. It is not their area of expertise. Witnesses or evidence may be less available. It's just not practical to try to adjudicate factual issues on appeal, most of the time. If anyone could get an appeal by bringing new factual arguments, then everyone would do that. You'd bring your strongest argument before the district court, and then if that fails, bring the second strongest before the circuit court. That way, you get an extra trial. This is inefficient. Allowing factual arguments on appeal would encourage attorneys and their clients to strategically bring different facts before different courts. This kind of forum-shopping is harmful because it has little to do with who has the stronger overall case, and more to do with who has the better lawyer. * "Congruent with" is not the same as "an instance of"; this rule is not formally an application of laches. It just happens to share the same justification.
Speaking strictly from a legal standpoint, what can be said on the issue? Strictly speaking, the Constitutional Court is the top authority on the legality of anything. One can speculate as much as they want on whether the Court was biased, pre-determined, corrupt, defiant, flagrantly blatant or ridiculously unjust. These speculations would be pure politics. They do not change the fact that whatever the Court has decided is legal just by definition.
You are courting seduction by the sovereign citizen doctrine. This is a crackpot legal theory that will get you nowhere. Run away as fast as you can. See, for example, Can a natural US person hold citizenship while remaining non-juridical?. See also "Mercedes-Benz Financial (DCFS Canada Corp.) v. Kovacevic, 2009", CanLII. This person fared particularly poorly because his argument relied in part on the UCC, which is a United States model code, but he was arguing in a Canadian court. Still, even in a US court, he would have lost. See What are &quot;freemen of the land&quot; or &quot;sovereign citizen&quot; theories and do they hold any water?.
If I want to protest for or against President Trump and decide to wear a Trump mask, isn't that speech protected by the first amendment? Probably. The matter of intent, in any event, is for a court to decide (if the prosecutor determines that the question should even be presented to a court). For example, someone seeking to rob a bank in a mask would probably fall afoul of this law, and it's not likely that using a mask of a political figure would enable a successful first-amendment defense. For a political protestor, it could be easy to show that the intent was to make a political statement and not to conceal identity, in which case it would not be necessary to consider the constitutional question, for a critical element of the crime would be missing. That is, if you say "I wasn't trying to hide my identity," and the court believes you, then you haven't violated the statute. That is a separate question from whether the statute is constitutional. For the law itself to be unconstitutional, it would have to be unconstitutional in every application, generally. If some applications of the law are unconstitutional, the law could stand, but prosecutions for the unconstitutional application would not succeed.
Although the constitution doesn't explicitly require your vote to be equal in strength, surely the founders intended with the word 'vote' that you at least get to choose who you vote for. Quite the contrary. The founders specifically intended that smaller states should have disproportionate strength - they knew exactly what they were doing. This was one of the major design goals of the Constitution and is reflected in several other areas (e.g. the structure of the Senate); the smaller states wouldn't have agreed to join the Union if such concessions hadn't been made. There's a general principle in law that "the specific overrides the general". You're not going to get anywhere by trying to read into the word "vote" when there is explicit text saying something different. If the founders intended the word "vote" to imply "equal power for everyone", then why would they have specified, in great detail, a system which does exactly the opposite? For that matter, the founders didn't particularly intend that the people be able to vote for president at all! Article II, Section 1 says only that "each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..." There is no requirement that the state should hold an election to determine the appointment of the electors. According to Wikipedia, five states initially had the electors chosen by the state legislature, without having the people vote at all, and South Carolina continued to use this system until 1860. The 14th Amendment, section 2, appears to require that all eligible voters (male and 21 at the time, since modified by the 19th and 26th Amendments) be allowed to vote for their electors, but even there the wording is "any election" which appears to leave open the possibility of having no election at all. (It hasn't been tested as far as I know.) I think that your proposed lawsuit would be quickly dismissed, possibly as "frivolous".
I suspect that you would not be convicted in the present case, because the jury would be sympathetic to the plight of the person being dragged out and unsympathetic to the behavior of the draggers. However, we should set aside the emotional elements of a jury trial and focus on legal principles. The basic question is whether a person has the right to use force to defend against an unlawful battery: "a person is privileged to use such force as reasonably appears necessary to defend him or herself against an apparent threat of unlawful and immediate violence from another". This right to defense also extends to defense of others. But it has to appear to be to unlawful, which is to say, you have to reasonably believe that the force used against the victim is unlawful. If a couple of thugs try to drag a person away, then an observer probably has a reasonable belief that this is an unlawful battery. But if a couple of police officers are observed dragging a person away (arresting him), apparently acting officially, the force used (up to a point) is apparently lawful and would not constitute battery of the victim. For defensive force against police to be lawful, the forced used by the police must be excessive. The outcome then depends on what a reasonable person would conclude (this is where the jury or judge makes a rather subjective decision). If a reasonable person would conclude that the assailants are acting lawfully in arresting the person, then a higher bar must be clear to justifiably use force in defense of others. Wearing a jacket that says "Police" favors the "appears lawful" side (though if you happened to know for a fact that the person wearing the jacket is not a police officer, then the "police exception" would not be applicable). In the relevant case, the facts point to the appearance of a lawful arrest (even if were to turn out to be judged unlawful). In the case that this is an apparent arrest, it would have to be the case that a reasonable person would find the force used to be excessive. Generally speaking, force used by officers is held to be reasonable, except in some cases where it is not. See for example the matter of Eric Garner, where the officers involved were not indicted. On the third hand, in this case, it might matter what the actual legal status of the "officers" is (they are not Chicago police).
Amendments to the US Constitution are part of the US Constitution, and this includes the so-called Bill of Rights. The doctrine of applying parts of the US Constitution to states, known as incorporation, comes from the 14th amendment: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The scope of the doctrine of incorporation is logically limited to amendments because the original articles of the constitution state how the federal government is run, and does not guarantee any rights or privileges to individuals. Amendments 1,2,4,8 are fully incorporated against states, 5 and 6 are partially incorporated, third and 7th are not incorporated, and for 9th and 10th there is no ruling. This arrangement derives from decisions by the Supreme Court, interpreting the 14th Amendment and the concept of &quot;due process&quot;. If a state were to passe a law forbidding criticism of the governor (violating the First Amendment), an individual could sue to have the law found unconstitutional. Because, under the 14th Amendment, &quot;The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article&quot;, Congress can and has passed a law prohibiting violation of civil rights: 42 USC 1983. Since the state in this hypothetical scenario has violated federal law, the federal government (Dept. of Justice) has standing to sue the state for violating federal law.