Also known as: rights of the people · people's right · collective right · popular right
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional phrase identifying individual rights retained by citizens that government may not abridge without justification.
Rajesh Rao organized a peaceful rally outside city hall to protest a new tax. City officials denied the permit citing traffic concerns. Rao sued, claiming the denial violated the right of the people to assemble and petition for redress. The court held that the officials had impermissibly burdened an individual right protected by the First Amendment.
Regina Robinson kept business records in a padlocked shed on her hemp farm. Officers entered without a warrant and cut the lock during a compliance check. Robinson moved to suppress the seized documents. The court ruled that the forced entry violated her right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment.
Rhea Reynolds kept a handgun in her apartment for self-defense. A city ordinance banned all handgun possession in residences and required other firearms to remain disassembled. Reynolds challenged the ordinance. The court struck it down because the law destroyed the core individual right of the people to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes.
Robert Rivera faced a murder charge in state court without a grand jury indictment. He argued that due process required the same procedural protections available in federal court. The court rejected the claim, explaining that the right of the people to make their own laws allows states to adopt different but fundamentally fair procedures.
Joseph Hurtado was charged by an information filed in the Superior Court of Sacramento County with the murder of Jose Antonio Estuardo. The information was in the usual form and charged the crime with technical precision and in due legal language. It was filed after the defendant had been examined and committed by a magistrate, as required by the statute. The Constitution of California, adopted in 1879, provides that offenses heretofore required to be prosecuted by indictment shall be prosecuted by information, after examination and commitment by a magistrate, or by indictment. The Penal Code of the State, adopted in 1872 and in force at the time, contained provisions authorizing every person to be proceeded against criminally by indictment or by information, and specifying that an information is an accusation in writing presented by the district attorney after preliminary examination or waiver. Hurtado moved to set aside the information on the ground that it was not found or presented by a grand jury. The motion was overruled. He was arraigned, pleaded not guilty, and was put upon his trial. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, and judgment was pronounced sentencing him to be hanged. From this judgment Hurtado appealed to the Supreme Court of the State of California, which affirmed it. He then sued out a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States.
View caseRachel Ramirez and her husband received counseling from a state clinic that reported their private medical information. They sued, asserting a constitutional privacy interest. The court recognized that the right of the people, reflected in the Fourth Amendment and other provisions, creates zones of privacy that government may not invade without justification.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
View caseRavi Reddy's apartment was searched by federal agents without a warrant or probable cause. Agents seized personal papers and effects. Reddy sued the agents individually for damages. The court held that the violation of the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches supports a damages action under federal law.
On the morning of November 26, 1965, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics entered Webster Bivens's apartment in the Bronx. The agents broke open the door, handcuffed Bivens in front of his wife and young children, and thoroughly searched the apartment. They then transported Bivens to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he was interrogated, booked, and subjected to a visual strip search. Several days later Bivens was released on his own recognizance, and he was never indicted or prosecuted for any offense. Bivens filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the six agents in their individual capacities. His complaint sought fifteen thousand dollars in damages from each agent and alleged that the arrest and search were effected without a warrant, that unreasonable force was employed, and that the arrest was made without probable cause. Bivens claimed to have suffered great humiliation, embarrassment, and mental suffering as a result of the agents' conduct. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the judgment.
View caseThe phrase refers to individual rights. Each constitutional use of the term unambiguously identifies personal liberties belonging to all citizens rather than rights exercisable only through a corporate or governmental body.
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The right protects an individual's ability to keep and bear arms for self-defense in the home. Regulations that categorically ban common arms or render all firearms inoperable for immediate use violate this individual right.
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The right protects an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy in personal files even when stored on employer-owned equipment. Password protection and company policies permitting personal use can preserve that expectation against warrantless government access.
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The right requires a judicial warrant supported by probable cause before officers may search a locked dorm room for evidence of crime. Administrative approval by university officials does not substitute for the particularized judicial determination demanded by the Fourth Amendment.
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…opinion) (slip op., at 8–10) (citations and footnotes omitted). III Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences. It will be used to vilify Americans who are…