American Law Quiz

Definition: includes the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, Bill of Rights and other constitutional amendments, federal statutes, state statutes, local laws, and uniform laws

• sources of American law

• civil law

• common law

• types of law

Definition: to ensure consistency, judges in common law must follow decisions of previous cases involving similar fact patterns; previous decisions

• judicial review

• stare decisis

• legal system

• precedent

Definition: local laws; local governments, city councils or county boards, can also pass laws; aimed at addressing local matters

• common law

• civil law

• ordinances

• law

If you're arrested, you have a right to have your trial pretty soon, and the government can't keep you in jail without trying you. The trial has to be public, so everyone knows what is happening. The case has to be decided by a jury of ordinary people from your area. You have the right to know what you are accused of, to see and hear the people who are witnesses against you, to have the government help you get witnesses on your side, and you have the right to a lawyer to help you.

• second amendment

• sixth amendment

• fourth amendment

• eighth amendment

Nobody can search your body, or your house, or your papers and things, unless they can prove to a judge that they have a good reason to think you have committed a crime.

• fourth amendment

• fifth amendment

• sixth amendment

• first amendment

The notion that judges must make decisions consistent with precedent; this principle is designed to promote certainty and consistency among courts and case law; judges must follow their own decisions or the decisions of their own court; courts only overturn prior decisions only when the previous decision (precedent) clearly violates the principles of justice and fairness.

• legal system

• stare decisis

• precedent

• judicial review

You can't be tried for any serious crime without a Grand Jury meeting first to decide whether there's enough evidence for a trial. And if the jury decides you are innocent, the government can't try again with another jury. You don't have to say anything at your trial. You can't be killed, or put in jail, or fined, unless you were convicted of a crime by a jury. And the government can't take your house or your farm or anything that is yours, unless the government pays for it.

• sixth amendment

• fifth amendment

• fourth amendment

• first amendment

Just because these rights are listed in the Constitution doesn't mean that you don't have other rights too.

• ninth amendment

• fourth amendment

• first amendment

• fourth amendment

Every state has three branches of government as well as a state constitution, and every state has some autonomy to govern its citizens; 10th amendment gives power to states that federal government can't have; can't violate supremacy clause.

• bill of rights

• states' constitutions and statutes

• stare decisis

• origins of law

Interpreted to mean that state constitutions and statutes cannot violate the federal constitution or federal law.

• supremacy clause

• precedent

• equal protection

• judicial review