Civil rights

Prosecutors have high levels of discretion. Responsibilities of a prosecutor range from appropriate charging decisions to safeguarding principal criminal procedures. Understanding prosecutorial discretion is crucial since most convictions result from guilty pleas. Social scientists have analyzed empirical data on the influence of extra-legal characteristics during initial charging and sentencing stages. However, few have examined the interaction between case law and empirical research regarding a prosecutor’s perception concerning a defendant’s rights throughout case processing. Consequently, not much is known about how prosecutorial discretion impacts a defendant’s constitutional rights under the fifth and fourteenth amendments, specifically the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. This thesis evaluates prosecutorial discretion and provides a comprehensive analysis of how laws shape sociological theories and legal concepts. Implications of these analyses are discussed through the context of case law, theory, and research.

National Security Letters allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records on individuals from corporations without prior judicial intervention or approval. Statutory changes, most significantly those resulting from the passage of the United States Patriot Act in 2001, have substantially altered the four different federal statutes from which National Security Letters originate. In creating these National Security Letters the government intended to protect its citizens from national security threats. This goal has been regarded historically as legitimate, but the legislation potentially limits rights, which raises the question of whether these letters are acceptable. Drawing on relevant case law and scholarly opinion, I argue that use of these letters is unacceptable and may render the Fourth Amendment's protection of person and property from unreasonable searches meaningless in certain federal investigations.

The presence of music, especially in the form of freedom songs, is a notable constant in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Participants sang spirituals and freedom songs everywhere in the South - at mass meetings, demonstrations, and in jails. An engaging and participatory activity, singing unified, empowered, and historicized activists, allowing everyone an opportunity to be included in the action. Without these songs, the African-American communities across the South may not have been able to band together to become such a force for change; while the activists were the facilitators for progress, the songs were the inspiration. Freedom songs democratized the Civil Rights Movement, enabling the participation of ordinary people at a grassroots level, therefore creating a strong mass movement.

Throughout the twentieth century, the Seminole Tribe of Florida has experienced unprecedented changes to their culture, independence, and economic position. They began the century as subsistence based people with few rights to the land, and they ended the century with substantial political power and economically prosperous enterprises while maintaining their tribal status and identity as Seminoles. In the twentieth century, the Seminoles confirmed their historical role from the nineteenth century as having never been defeated, but rather than achieving this image through war acts, as they did in the nineteenth century, they created a new role as being culturally and economically indomitable. This aspect of Seminole history has been largely ignored in the narrative of Florida's history.

Within three months of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which allowed military commanders to establish zones of military importance within which they could remove any person considered dangerous, specifically those of Japanese descent. The Tolan Committee, a House committee examining the logistics of the new wartime economy, was immediately sent to the West Coast in order to evaluate the merit of the President's policy. They were presented with the most complete set of arguments both supporting and opposing internment, and were therefore in a unique position to make a well-informed decision regarding the internment of over 100,000 persons. Despite the strength of the arguments of the opposition, the Committee abdicated their power and submitted to the will of the President and the military. In succumbing to fear, the Committee legitimized the policy of internment without making a truly objective decision.