A Nation of Laws

Starting with the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. It states that it is illegal for law enforcement to gather evidence of a possible crime against us by searching our “persons, houses, papers, and effects” without a warrant issued by a judge authorizing that search. Evidence obtained without a warrant is not admissible in court, and that warrant must clearly identify “the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Also, judges can issue warrants only if they are convinced there is “probable cause,” meaning a high probability a crime has been committed.

Next is the Fifth Amendment, which says we cannot “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against [ourselves], nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law … ” That is, we can’t be forced to testify against ourselves, and we can’t be convicted or punished without going through the legal process.

It is that legal “due process” protection that is particularly problematic for the government in seeking to convict us of a crime. As explained in the Sixth Amendment, it means we are entitled to “a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury …”; that we are “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation” against us; we are “to be confronted with the witnesses against [us] … ”; and we are “to have the assistance of counsel” in our defense.

This means we are entitled to know in advance the charges against us so we can prepare a defense. We are to be assisted in that defense by “counsel” (a licensed attorney), the jury judging us must be shown to have no prior prejudices for or against us, and we (meaning our counsel) get to confront — to question the veracity of — the testimony of the witnesses against us.

Finally, according to America’s legal tradition, we are “innocent until proven guilty,” and our guilt must be proven “beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

What prompts this lesson of gratitude is my recent reading of a book on the Soviet Union’s infamous dictator, Josef Stalin, who in the late 1930s had millions of innocent people incarcerated and murdered after they underwent show trials, or usually no trials, in which the “nature and cause of the accusation” against them were such specifically identified and legally provable crimes as being “foreign agents,” “counterrevolutionaries,” “enemies of the people” or “enemies of the state.”