The Importance Of The Bill Of Rights In The United States

On December 15th, 1971 the Bill of Rights was incorporated into the United States Constitution. The Bill of Rights is where one can find most of the procedural or due process rights given to criminal suspects in the United States of America (Bohm & Haley 2012). The United States Constitution is the foundation of which America was built on and is what grants Americans freedom. When I joined the United States Military I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic and it is something I would die for. The fourth, fifth, sixth and, eighth amendment are very important to each United States citizen including criminals.
The Fourth Amendment establishes a right that assures the security of the people in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unconstrained governmental searches and seizures (GRAY 2016). This means that an officer must develop probable cause that a crime has been committed and therefore must acquire a search warrant to conduct a search of a person, houses, papers, and effects. The government must also possess probable cause to seize any person or property. There is a rule that helps discourage the government from violating peoples fourth amendment rights called the exclusionary rule (Bohm & Haley 2012). This rule

came into effect by the Supreme Court in 1914 in a case of Weeks v. United States where the Supreme Court held that evidence that was obtained illegally must be excluded from trials in federal court (Bohm & Haley 2012).
The Fifth Amendment protects the American people against, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law (Bohm & Haley 2012).

According to (Khan 2016), when an individual’s Fifth Amendment right has been violated on double jeopardy, a flaw exists in the criminal justice system. The Fifth Amendment also guarantees that a criminal or defendant does not have to testify against himself therefore, self-incriminating himself. In the Supreme Court case, Miranda v. Arizona (1966) the government increased the protection against self-incrimination that mainly was focused on police interrogations (Bohm & Haley

2012).
The Sixth Amendment assures criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial, the right to a lawyer, the right to impartial jury, the right to face your accuser and know the evidence against you as well as the nature of the charges (Bohm & Haley 2012). The Speedy Trial act of 1974 which is regulated by the Federal courts states there are two different time limits: the period between the arrest and charging, and the period between the charging and the trial (Bohm & Haley 2012). Criminal defendants also have the right to an unbiased jury as well as a jury trial (Bohm & Haley 2012).
Finally, the Eighth Amendment protects criminals or defendants in so that there will be no excessive bails and fines placed upon them as well as protects them from cruel and unusual punishments (Bohm & Haley 2012). There are fines imposed on different types of crimes depending on the severity. A large fine will not be placed on somebody that committed the smallest of crime. Basically, cruel and unusual punishment, excluding capital punishment, would be considered anything of a malicious nature and is prohibited. Capital punishment is still utilized for the most heinous crimes and in my opinion should be used more often.
There are a vast number of procedural rights for people that are accused of crimes in America. The most important reason the America has so many procedural rights is to protect the innocent people from being arrested, charged, convicted, or punished for crimes they possibly did not commit (Bohm & Haley 2012).