AP®︎ U.S. Government & Politics: Unit 3 Flashcards

Civil liberties protect freedom from arbitrary government interference; civil rights protect equal treatment and guard against discrimination

Protections against discrimination and guarantees of equal treatment under the law, based on characteristics such as race, national origin, religion, and sex

The first ten amendments, ratified in 1791, that enumerate individual liberties and legal protections and limit government power

Protects religious liberty and the freedoms of speech, press, peaceful assembly, and petition

Protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms while referring to the necessity of a well-regulated militia

Prohibits quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime without consent and permits wartime quartering only as prescribed by law

Protects persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures and establishes warrant requirements

Generally requires a grand-jury indictment for federal capital or infamous crimes, with military exceptions, and protects against double jeopardy, compelled self-incrimination, deprivation without due process, and uncompensated takings

Guarantees criminal defendants a speedy public trial by an impartial local jury, notice of the accusation, confrontation of opposing witnesses, compulsory process for favorable witnesses, and assistance of counsel

Preserves a jury trial in federal civil cases at common law involving more than twenty dollars and limits reexamination of jury-found facts

Prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments

Provides that listing certain constitutional rights must not be interpreted to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people

Reserves powers neither delegated to the United States nor prohibited to the states to the states or the people

The First Amendment restriction on government support for or establishment of religion

The First Amendment protection for religious belief and, subject to constitutional limits, religious practice

Former test requiring a secular purpose, an effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and no excessive government entanglement with religion

Held that public schools may not sponsor an official prayer, even if it is nondenominational and participation is formally voluntary

Held that Wisconsin could not require Amish children to attend school beyond eighth grade because the severe religious burden outweighed the state’s insufficiently justified interest

First Amendment protection against government suppression of expression, especially political expression, subject to limited, defined restrictions

Nonverbal conduct intended to communicate an idea or belief, such as wearing an armband or burning a flag in protest

The Supreme Court protected students' antiwar armbands as symbolic speech because they did not materially and substantially disrupt school

Content-neutral limits on when, where, or how expression occurs; in a traditional public forum, they generally must be narrowly tailored to a significant government interest and leave ample alternative channels

A narrow category of sexually explicit expression that satisfies the Miller test and receives no First Amendment protection

Material is obscene if, under contemporary community standards, it appeals to a prurient interest; depicts legally defined sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

A false statement of fact communicated about another person that harms that person's reputation

Written defamation

Spoken defamation

Knowledge that a defamatory statement was false or reckless disregard for whether it was true, not ordinary hostility or ill will

The Supreme Court required public officials suing over statements about public affairs to prove actual malice

Schenck's historical standard asking whether speech in its circumstances creates a clear and present danger of harms government may prevent

The Supreme Court upheld Schenck's wartime conviction for anti-draft leaflets, ruling that speech creating a clear and present danger could be restricted

Government may punish advocacy of unlawful conduct only when it is directed to producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce it

Government action that prevents expression from being published or distributed, rather than imposing consequences after publication

The doctrine that advance censorship is presumed unconstitutional and the government bears an exceptionally heavy burden to justify it

The Court ruled 6–3 that the government had not met its heavy burden to stop newspapers from publishing the Pentagon Papers, despite claims of national-security harm

Held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, independent of militia service, to possess an operable handgun for lawful self-defense in the home

Held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates the individual Second Amendment right recognized in Heller, making it enforceable against state and local governments

Prohibits punishments that are cruel and unusual, including penalties or sentencing practices the Supreme Court finds impermissible in type, proportionality, application, or administration

Capital punishment, in which government executes a person convicted of a crime, subject to Eighth Amendment limits against cruel and unusual punishment

Invalidated the death sentences before the Court amid concerns that broad, unguided discretion made capital punishment arbitrary, unpredictable, and discriminatory, temporarily halting executions without declaring the death penalty inherently unconstitutional

Upheld a revised death penalty law using separate guilt and sentencing proceedings, aggravating circumstances, and automatic review, allowing executions to resume

Supreme Court doctrine applying most Bill of Rights protections to state and local governments one right at a time through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause

Clause prohibiting states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process; the principal constitutional basis for selective incorporation

Requirement that government use lawful, fair, and nonarbitrary procedures, including notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard, when depriving a person of life, liberty, or property

The principle that government may not unjustifiably restrict a protected liberty, regardless of how fairly it enacts or enforces the restriction

A judicial authorization to search or seize, ordinarily issued by a neutral judge upon probable cause and a particular description of its scope

A fact-based, reasonable basis to believe that a crime occurred or that evidence will be found in the place to be searched

Judicial doctrine generally barring evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search or seizure from use against the person whose Fourth Amendment rights were violated

Applied the exclusionary rule to state criminal prosecutions through the Fourteenth Amendment, making illegally seized evidence inadmissible in state courts

Doctrine generally excluding evidence derived from an unconstitutional search or seizure, subject to exceptions such as attenuation, independent source, and inevitable discovery

Fifth Amendment protection against being forced to provide testimonial evidence against oneself in a criminal case

The Fifth Amendment protection against being placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense

Sixth Amendment right to legal assistance at critical stages of a criminal prosecution, preventing an accused person from confronting the government without representation

Unanimously held that states must provide attorneys to indigent felony defendants because the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is fundamental and applies through the Fourteenth Amendment

Sixth Amendment right to a prompt criminal trial ordinarily open to public observation, protecting defendants from indefinite accusation and secret or arbitrary prosecution

Sixth Amendment right to jurors who have not prejudged the case and decide guilt fairly from evidence presented through the legal process

Before custodial interrogation, police must warn a suspect of the rights to remain silent and to counsel, that statements may be used in court, and that counsel will be appointed if needed; unwarned statements ordinarily cannot be used as direct evidence

Allows an unwarned response to be admitted when police questioning is reasonably prompted by an immediate threat to officers or the public

Held that police generally need a warrant to search a cell phone’s digital contents after an arrest, though they may secure the phone and respond to an actual emergency

Post-9/11 law that expanded federal investigative and surveillance authority, with Section 215 associated with large-scale NSA collection of telephone metadata

Limited bulk telephone-metadata collection by ending the NSA’s prior direct bulk holding program and shifting toward provider retention and targeted government access under legal supervision

Large-scale government collection of non-content communications records such as phone numbers, dates, times, and durations, expanded under the PATRIOT Act and limited by the USA FREEDOM Act

Rights retained by the people even though they are not expressly listed in the constitutional text

An unenumerated right protecting certain intimate personal and family decisions from unjustified government interference

Struck down Connecticut’s contraceptive ban and recognized constitutional protection for marital privacy and married couples’ use of contraception

Held that Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process protected a qualified right to choose abortion; Dobbs overruled the decision in 2022

Overruled Roe and Casey, held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, and returned primary abortion-policy authority to elected lawmakers

Fourteenth Amendment provision barring states from denying any person equal protection of the laws; the main basis for challenging unjustified government classifications

The 1865 amendment that permanently abolished slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide, except as punishment for a crime, and authorized congressional enforcement

Constitutional amendment that bars states from denying any person due process or equal protection and authorizes Congress to enforce those guarantees

The 1870 amendment prohibiting denial or abridgment of voting rights because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude and authorizing congressional enforcement

The 1920 amendment prohibiting denial or abridgment of voting rights on account of sex and authorizing congressional enforcement

Review applied to racial and national-origin classifications, requiring a narrowly tailored means of serving a compelling governmental interest

Review applied to sex classifications, requiring them to be substantially related to an important governmental interest

Review under which most classifications survive if they are rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest

Movement of the 1950s and 1960s that sought to end racial segregation and discrimination through equal-protection litigation, nonviolent action, voter registration, and lobbying

Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 defense of nonviolent direct action and open civil disobedience against unjust laws rather than waiting indefinitely for justice

Women’s rights organization founded in 1966 that uses lobbying, litigation, demonstrations, and public education to secure and enforce sex equality

Proposed amendment that would prohibit denial of equal rights on account of sex; Congress proposed it in 1972, but it was not ratified by the required number of states by the deadline

Movement using equality and liberty claims to challenge government disadvantages based on sexual orientation or gender identity

The 2015 Supreme Court decision holding that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex

Competing abortion-policy movements: pro-life advocacy emphasizes protecting prenatal life, while pro-choice advocacy emphasizes liberty, privacy, bodily autonomy, and women’s equality

Lincoln’s 1863 wartime order freeing enslaved people in areas still rebelling against the United States; it made emancipation a Union war aim but did not abolish slavery nationwide

State and local laws that imposed racial segregation in schools, transportation, businesses, and other areas of public life after Reconstruction

The doctrine that government-mandated racial separation could satisfy equal protection if purportedly equal facilities were provided

The Supreme Court upheld state-required racial segregation under “separate but equal,” permitting Louisiana to mandate separate railroad accommodations by race

1954 unanimous ruling that state-mandated racial segregation in public schools violated equal protection because separate educational facilities are inherently unequal

De jure segregation is required or enforced by law; de facto segregation results from residential, economic, or private patterns without an identified government requirement

Federal law prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations, promoting school and public-facility integration, barring employment discrimination, and restricting discrimination in federally funded programs

Federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in voting and creating enforcement mechanisms such as bans on literacy tests, federal supervision, and originally preclearance

Federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance

An electoral district in which a racial or ethnic minority makes up a majority of the relevant population or electorate, potentially enabling it to elect a preferred candidate

Drawing electoral districts predominantly on the basis of race; such districting is subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause

The Supreme Court held that voters stated an equal protection claim against an extremely irregular district allegedly drawn predominantly by race, making such districting subject to strict scrutiny

Policies that deliberately seek to reduce education or employment disparities associated with race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or age, rather than merely prohibiting discrimination

Invalidated a medical school's fixed racial set-aside but allowed, at the time, limited consideration of race as one factor in individualized admissions

Upheld a law school's individualized use of race because student-body diversity was accepted as a compelling interest and the policy was narrowly tailored

Held both race-conscious admissions programs unlawful; race itself may not provide an admissions advantage, though an applicant’s race-related experiences may be considered for what they show about character or accomplishments