History of the United States Term Paper

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Powell was followed by the Court's decision in Brown v. Mississippi which threw out the coerced confession of a defendant in a state criminal case and was a harbinger of what would occur in the early 1960's by the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren (Brown v. Mississippi, 1936).

The Warren Court began to exercise its influence on the area of Constitutional Law in the late 50's as they began applying what became known as the doctrine of "selective incorporation." Under this doctrine, the Court began to apply the rights contained in the Bill of Rights to the states on a case by case basis until nearly all such rights were applied to the states on the same basis as they applied to the federal government.

The breakthrough case for this approach came in the case of Mapp v. Ohio (Mapp v. Ohio, 1961). In Mapp, the majority of the Court ruled that the full Fourth Amendment and the exclusionary rule forbidding the use of illegally seized evidence applied to the states via the due process clause. Once Mapp was decided, the Supreme Court began to issue a series of decisions that gradually applied the remaining amendments that constituted in the Bill of Rights to the states. In Robinson v. California (Robinson v. Calfornia, 1962), the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), in Gideon v Wainwright (Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963), the Sixth Amendment (assistance of counsel), in Malloy v. Hogan (Malloy v.
Hogan, 1964) the Fifth Amendment (self-incrimination), and in Pointer v. Texas (Pointer v. Texas, 1965) the Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine witnesses was applied to all state actions. By the time that the Warren Court had completed its term, the only rights contained in the Bill of Rights that had not been extended to the states by the Supreme Court were the provisions of the Second and Third Amendments and limited provisions of the Fifth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments.

Of historical interest is the fact that when James Madison originally proposed the Bill of Rights he suggested that they be applied to the states as well but Congress rejected Madison's suggestion (Rakove, 1985). In the early years of the Republic the Supreme Court did not address, in any substantial way the application of the Bill of Rights to the states but the passage of the 14th Amendment following the Civil War offered the Supreme Court the opportunity to apply begin addressing the issue. The process began slowly but once it began the Court wasted little time ensuring that the Bill or Rights were guaranteed to everyone in both state and federal actions. In essence, the 14th Amendment has been transformed by the Court into a second, unofficial Bill or Rights......

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