Civil Liberties Case Study

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Civil Liberties are protections from the power of government. Some of these protections are the First Amendment freedoms of speech, religion and assembly, as well as the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. There have been many headlines lately dealing with some of these civil liberties being encroached by the government. In March of 2006, there were two such cases that made it to the Supreme Court as well as the headlines. First was the case of Georgia v. Randolph, which dealt with a perceived unreasonable search and seizure. Second was the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, which was a First Amendment speech case. GEORGIA v. RANDOLPH 126 S. Ct. 1515, 74 U.S.L.W. 4176 (2006) Procedural History The Defendant…show more content…
Ceballos argued that his statements were protected by the First Amendment. The district court ruled that the D.A.’s office was protected by qualified immunity, but that ruling was reversed by the Ninth Circuit stating that Ceballos’ speech addressed matters of public concern and was thus protected by the First Amendment. Cert was granted and argued before the Supreme Court on October 12,…show more content…
On one hand, several of the justices feel that there is no need for the constitution to resolve this case; rather current state whistle-blower statutes can handle this. On the other hand, Ceballos’ attorney argued that “when civil service employees witness or investigate police brutality, disaster preparedness failings and corruption, they need the full protection of the law so that ‘they should not be required to tell their supervisors only what they want to hear,’ for fear of retaliation.” (Mears). The Supreme Court is expected to rule in this case around
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