Civil Liberties and the Constitution: Cases and Commentaries

My first experience with this book was in the Fourth edition (by Lucius J. Barker and Twiley W. Barker, Jr.). The fact that this text is now in the Eighth edition, expanded both in content and in number of contributing authors, speaks to its usefulness and its enduring quality as a good text in the area of Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties. The book is organised into five primary sections. The first section is 'A Framework for Analysis', in two parts: the political-social context of the judiciary system, and the context of federalism for civil rights and liberties. Barker et al. highlights two particular cases as examples, those of Palko v. Connecticut and Duncan v. Louisiana as important. The second section looks at religious liberty, derived from the first amendment guarantee of freedom of religion and the establishment clause. Particular issues here include pariochiaid (the continuing debate over private religious v. public schools regarding funding and resource issues), prayer and religious symbolism in public places, Sunday closing laws, conscientious objector status, and medical treatment issues. The third section examines freedom of expression (speech, among other things), assembly and association, also deriving from the first amendment. Key issues here include freedom of the press v. interests of national security, public speech and demonstrations, commercial speech and honesty, obscenity, and other important areas of concern. The fourth section looks a criminal procedure and due process, derived from the fifth and fourteenth amendments primarily, as well as other amendments in the Bill of Rights specifically tailored to protect citizens. These include the issues of Miranda warnings (named for the case in which the rights of the accused had not been spelled out), issues of right to counsel, the exclusionary rule (illegally obtained evidence must be excluded), rights against self-incrimination (I'll plead the fifth!), and rights of prisoners and death-penalty controversies. The fifth section looks at issues of bias and discrimination. This includes racial discrimination and segregation issues, Affirmative Action, voting rights legislation, and other issues such as age and disability discrimination. Racial discrimination cases include not only African American issues (although that is the primary area of engagement in many cases), but also Native American issues, which has a long and tragic history in American experience. The sixth section looks specifically at gender bias and discriminiation, the issue of the right to privacy and its attendant topics, and the issue of poverty and judicial process and access. Barker et al. include two appendices highlighting particular events - the first discusses the failed confirmation of Robert Bork and what this says about the process of selecting Supreme Court justices, both good and bad. The second dissects in more detail the case Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark c