Constitutional Protections and Landmark Cases

This capstone unit examines procedural and substantive constitutional protections, focusing on Fourth and Fifth Amendment safeguards, and studies landmark Supreme Court decisions affecting governmental structure and individual rights. Students will synthesize case law and apply doctrines to realistic public-service scenarios, preparing for capstone assessments and careers in law and justice.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze Fourth Amendment principles by distinguishing reasonable from unreasonable searches and seizures and applying exclusionary-rule doctrine and common exceptions (consent, exigent circumstances, plain view, search-incident-to-arrest, automobile) to factual scenarios.
• Apply Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and the Miranda framework to evaluate waiver, invocation, and admissibility issues in custodial-interrogation case studies.
• Demonstrate understanding of ten landmark governmental-structure cases by summarizing facts, holdings, and their effects on separation of powers, federalism, and judicial review.
• Evaluate thirteen major individual-rights decisions (ten core plus three supplemental) by critiquing judicial reasoning, tracing doctrinal development, and relating precedents to contemporary public-service policies and ethical practices.