The 14th Amendment And The Bill Of Rights

The 14th Amendment and the Bill of Rights John Barron was a business owner of a wharf that was located on the Baltimore’s harbor in the deepest part. In 1815, the city of Baltimore decided to do improvements to their streets, which in turn diverted streams this caused the soil in front of Barron’s wharf to build up. In a little over 6 years the soil build up made it where ships could no longer tie up at the wharf. John Barron had to go out of business. In return, John sued the city of Baltimore in state court for the ruin of his wharf business. John’s argument in court was that the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights protected him against private property being taken or reduced in value for public use without being justly compensated for …show more content…
In Madison’s proposal he prohibited states from infringing on the rights of conscience, freedom of the press, and trial by jury in criminal cases. Madison’s proposed amendment passed through The House, however the Senate rejected it. The reasoning behind the rejection was that the states already had their own bills of rights. After the Civil War when members of Congress discussed the 14th Amendment they barely discussed if the amendment applied the Bill of Rights to all the states. The amendment’s due process clause was a key provision, but did the due process clause apply the Bill of rights to all states? Later in 1873, the Supreme Court interpreted the meaning of the 14th Amendment for the first time, but they did not interpret the due process clause. The justices did, in 1897, decide that the due process clause mandated that state and local government must give just compensation for taking or reduced in value in private property for public reasons. The Bill of Rights was first applied to the states in 1925 in the Supreme Court in the Gitlow v. New York case. In this case Benjamin Gitlow was a Socialist Party member and he was convicted of writing some revolutionary pamphlets in defiance of the New York’s Criminal Anarchy Act. Gitlow’s argument was that New York’s law violated the First Amendment which protects citizen’s freedom of speech. The Supreme Court …show more content…
One case that is connected to the due process clause is the Mapp v. Ohio case. In this case that took place in Cleveland, Ohio police officers received information that a suspect in a bombing case could be find in Dollree Mapp’s home. Officers went to Ms. Mapps’s home and asked to come in and search her home, but Ms. Mapp refused to let the officers in without a search warrant. One officer left the premises and a few other offices stayed behind. Later, the officers returned showing Ms. Mapp a piece of paper and broke down her door. Ms. Mapp asked to be able to read the warrant and took it from the officers and hiding it in her dress. The officers struggled with Ms. Mapp to get the warrant back and they succeeded. The officers then arrested Ms. Mapp for being belligerent. In the search of Ms. Mapp’s house the officer did not find the bombing suspect but they did find some pornographic material that was hidden in a suitcase under Ms. Mapp’s bed. Ms. Mapp was then charged and found guilty with possession of pornographic material. Ms. Mapp’s argued that her rights under the Fourth Amendment were violated by the search, and she took her appeal to the Supreme Court. In a 5 – 3 vote the Supreme Court voted in favor of Ms. Mapp (United States Courts, 2016). The standards for searches and seizures by law enforcement are set by the 4th Amendment, and the 14th Amendment obligates