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Defending the Constitution
Britain and America. The recent enlargement of these rights by Federal
courts has caused much controversy. The right of assistance of counsel,
for example, has been extended backward from the time of trial to the
time the defendant is first questioned as a suspect, and forward to the
appeals stage of the process. Under the so-called ‘‘Miranda’’ rule, police
must read to a suspect his ‘‘Miranda’’ rights before interrogation. Only if
a suspect waives his rights may any statement or confession obtained be
used against him in a trial. Otherwise the suspect is said to have been
denied ‘‘assistance of counsel.’’
The Sixth Amendment also specifies that criminal trials must be
‘‘speedy.’’ Because of the great backload of cases in our courts, this requirement is sometimes loosely applied today. Yet, as one jurist has put
the matter, ‘‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’’
The Seventh Amendment: Trial by Jury in Civil Cases
This guarantee of jury trial in civil suits at common law ‘‘where the
value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars’’ (a much bigger sum
of money in 1789 than now) was included in the Bill of Rights chiefly because several of the States’ ratifying conventions had recommended it. It
applies only to Federal cases, of course, and it may be waived. The primary purpose of the Amendment was to preserve the historic line separating the jury, which decides the facts, from the judge, who applies the
law. It applies only to suits at common law, meaning ‘‘rights and remedies peculiarly legal in their nature.’’ It does not apply to cases in equity
or admiralty law, where juries are not used. In recent years, increasingly
large monetary awards to plaintiffs by juries in civil cases have brought
the jury system somewhat into disrepute.
The Eighth Amendment:
Bail and Cruel and Unusual Punishments
How much bail, fixed by a court as a requirement to assure that a defendant will appear in court at the assigned time, is ‘‘excessive’’? What
punishments are ‘‘cruel and unusual’’? The monetary sums for bail have