Constitutional Criminal Justice System

Chapter five of the textbook, Constitutional Law and the Criminal Justice System by J. Scott Harr, Karen M. Hess, Christine Orthmann, and Jonathon Kingsbury, goes into extensive detail on the first amendment of the United States Constitution. To quickly explain, one of the principle items within the first amendment is that it forbids the United States Congress from endorsing any one religion over any others, as well as not restricting any individual, or group of from practicing their own religion (Harr, Hess, Orthmann, & Kingsbury, 2015, p. 121-162). That being said, according to one article, public schools were sanctioned to allow their students to read the Christian Bible, as well as practice this religion inside the walls of the schools. Unfortunately, as of late, the United States Congress has ruled that students in public schools cannot practice the Christian religion and to do so would be considered unconstitutional (Sneed, 2014). …show more content…
This ‘letter’ cautioned all school personnel that the United States Congress had passed a law expressing that schools were no longer able to instruct or permit any type of religious atmosphere while on school property, it was deemed to be unconstitutional (Sneed, 2014). Numerous people believe that this so called ‘law’ was passed due to the fact that some individuals, who have dissimilar religious convictions other than Christianity, were offended that their religious beliefs were not being fairly represented in schools (Sneed, 2014). However, as indicated by law making officials, this new bill, at this present time, in no way takes away a student’s religious freedom, which is covered under the first amendment (Sneed,