the supreme court applies the bill of rights at the state level through a process known as incorporation.
the supreme court applies the bill of rights at the state level through a process known as?
incorporation
the bill of rights had little judicial impact for the first 150 years of its existence; in the words of gordon s. wood, "after ratification, most americans promptly forgot about the first ten amendments to the constitution." the court made no important decisions protecting free speech rights, for example, until 1931. historian richard labunski attributes the bill's long legal dormancy to three factors: first, it took time for a "culture of tolerance" to develop that would support the bill's provisions with judicial and popular will; second, the supreme court spent much of the 19th century focused on issues relating to intergovernmental balances of power; and third, the bill initially only applied to the federal government, a restriction affirmed by "barron v. baltimore" (1833). in the twentieth century, however, most of the bill's provisions were applied to the states via the fourteenth amendment—a process known as incorporation—beginning with the freedom of speech clause, in "gitlow v. new york" (1925). in "talton v. mayes" (1896), the court ruled that constitutional protections, including the provisions of the bill of rights, do not apply to the actions of american indian tribal governments. through the incorporation process the united states supreme court succeeded in extending to the states almost all of the protections in the bill of rights, as well as other, unenumerated rights. the bill of rights thus imposes legal limits on the powers of governments and acts as an anti-majoritarian/minoritarian safeguard by providing deeply entrenched legal protection for various civil liberties and fundamental rights. the supreme court for example concluded in the "west virginia state board of education v. barnette" (1943) case that the founders intended the bill of rights to put some rights out of reach from majorities, ensuring that some liberties would endure beyond political majorities. as the court noted, the idea of the bill of rights "was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts." this is why "fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."
united states bill of rights
sex offender registration and community notification laws have been challenged on a number of constitutional and other bases, generating substantial amount of case law. those challenging the statutes have claimed violations of ex post facto, due process, cruel and unusual punishment, equal protection and search and seizure. the supreme court of the united states has upheld the laws. in 2002, in "connecticut dept. of public safety v. doe" the u.s. supreme court affirmed public disclosure of sex offender information and in 2003, in smith v. doe, the supreme court upheld alaska's registration statute, reasoning that sex offender registration is civil measure reasonably designed to protect public safety, not a punishment, which can be applied ex post facto. however, law scholars argue that even if the registration schemes were initially constitutional they have, in their current form, become unconstitutionally burdensome and unmoored from their constitutional grounds. a study published in fall 2015 found that statistics cited by justice kennedy in two u.s. supreme court cases commonly cited in decisions upholding constitutionality of sex offender policies were unfounded. several challenges to state level sex offender laws have been honored after hearing at the state level. however, in 2017 the pennsylvania supreme court determined that sorna violates ex post facto when retroactively applied.
sex offender registries in the united states