Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler's History. Now I've been going through Unit 3 of the AP Government Curriculum and in this video it's time to talk about the rights of citizens when they are arrested. So if you're ready to get them brain cows milked with a court-appointed lawyer, then let's get to it.
So in this video here's what we're trying to do. Explain the extent to which states are limited by the Due Process Clause from infringing upon individual rights. So this is going to be a video about three amendments in particular, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth amendments, and all of these have to do with a citizen's civil liberties when they are being arrested and charged with a crime. And the key phrase here is the due process of law, and that comes from the fifth amendment which says in part, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law. This is exceedingly important in a free society because it means the Big Daddy government has to follow all the rules just like us.
A saucy judge just can't throw a guy in jail for whatever reason he wants. Son, you look just like a trucker's elbow. Death penalty!
No, every citizen of the United States is entitled to the due process of law whenever that government seeks to infringe upon his or her life, liberty, or property. But this isn't a video about how the federal government is limited from infringing upon our rights. Remember, it's about how the states are restrained.
And if you remember from the last video, that process is called selective incorporation, which is the process by which the Bill of Rights is applied to the states. And this is done through the 14th Amendment's due process clause. And I know that's confusing.
The Fifth Amendment has due process clause. The Fourteenth Amendment has due process clause. But the point is, the Fifth Amendment is about the federal government.
The Fourteenth Amendment is about state governments. And since this is a video about state infringement upon rights, we're going to look at how the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments protections are applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Okay, so let's start with how the Fourth Amendment has been incorporated to the states. Recall that the Fourth Amendment says this, The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated. So, in a non-required case called Weeks v. United States, the court established what's known as the exclusionary rule.
And this means that any evidence that's gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which is to say, a proper warrant wasn't obtained for the search, will be excluded from a person's trial. And the case that incorporated the exclusionary rule to the states was called Mapp v. Ohio, which again, is not required, but we'll just talk about it for funsies. In this case, police officers got a warrant to search Dahlry Mapp's house for gambling paraphernalia.
When they got there, they didn't find any of that, but they sure did find some other stuff. healthy cat of obscene magazines, which in that day was illegal. Eventually, they prosecuted her for that, but when the appeal came before the Supreme Court, they ruled that since the warrant didn't have the obscene materials in its scope of search, those could not stand as evidence against her.
And so, in ruling thusly, the court incorporated the Fourth Amendment to the state, specifically the exclusionary rule. Now, the Fourth Amendment's protections have been debated ever since then, especially when it comes to more modern applications. The amendment says that we're safe from government prying in our papers and effects, but what about our digital papers and effects? Namely, this little glowy rectangle right here. In another video, I talked about the Patriot Act, which was passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001. This allowed the government to search the metadata of citizens' communication with each other.
And metadata, in case you forgot, is all the information about our communication minus the actual words of the communication itself. But also, the court has ruled on whether state police officers can search your cell phone without a warrant. In the non-required case of Riley v. California, police officers pulled a man over for expired tags and ended up finding guns in his car.
They used that as an excuse to search through his cell phone and found evidence of guns. gang affiliation which they used to prosecute him. So in the Riley case, the court ruled that searching cell phones requires a warrant every bit as much as a physical environment.
Okay, now the case that incorporated the Fifth Amendment to the states is the non-required case Miranda v. Arizona in 1966. It was this case that established the Miranda Rule, which you know if you've ever watched any cop show ever. Upon detaining a suspect, the arresting officer must recite the following script. You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, etc., And the selective incorporation piece is that this now applied the Fifth Amendment's protection against being a witness in your own incrimination to a person being held in state custody, not just federal custody. However, subsequent cases established what's called the public safety exception to the Miranda rights. So if an officer was acting in the name of public safety and took action before reading the Miranda rights, that will not necessarily exclude evidence from court, so long as the the action was taken in defense of public safety. So under normal circumstances, any evidence or admissions gathered from a person before their Miranda rights have been read are not admissible in court.
So for example, if one guy kills another guy and throws his gun away, then when he's arrested, the police can ask him where the gun is before reading his Miranda rights. And that information can still be used in court because the officers are trying to keep the rest of the. public safe from a loaded weapon.
Okay, now let's talk about the selective incorporation of the Sixth Amendment, which says this, In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. In other words, if you get arrested, you have a right to a lawyer. But again, originally this only applied to federal cases, and it was the required case of Gideon v. Wainwright which incorporated this right to the states.
Now as with all your required cases for this course, I've got a whole video going into the details of everything you need to know about it, but for our purposes here, you just need to understand that the defendant, Charles Gideon was arrested and tried in a Florida court. The state did not provide Gideon a lawyer, and he was convicted. And when it wound up before the Supreme Court on appeal, the court incorporated the right to a lawyer to the states.
Okay, thanks for watching. Click here to grab a review packet, which is going to help you get an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. If this video helped you and you would like to selectively incorporate my channel into your YouTube feed, then hit that subscribe button.
I'll see you in the next one. Heimler out.