INTRODUCTION.

You have dozens of Constitutional Rights which the government may not impair, restrict, or deny to you.  This blog will outline the development of those rights since they were first adopted after 1791.

As you will note through these essays, each of these rights may turn out to be broader than the clear language of the original and enduring guarantees you were given with each right. 

You may also note that that each of these rights may turn out to be narrower than the clear language of the original and enduring guarantees you were given with each right.

Each legal case that a person brings to assert, defend, or define a constitutional right is different from every other such case.  They differ from each other based on the facts of the dispute, the language of the guarantee, the development of the law by court decisions

Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea of the Minnesota Supreme Court, like every American judge, is sworn to defend your rights under the federal and Minnesota Constitutions.  

Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea is also bound to uphold the federal and state laws which comply with those constitutions.  She generally applies a "strict construction" to the language of those statutes because they reflect the law-making authority of the people's elected representatives.  Legislators write the laws, and judges are authorized only to interpret them and to apply them to the facts of specific cases which affect your rights.

Finally, Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea is bound to apply prior court decisions based on very similar cases, unless the law has changed or the prior decisions are no longer valid.  This respect for prior decisions allows people to rely on earlier decisions to shape their knowledge and their actions.  This concept is known as "stare decisis" (which is pronounced as "starry dee-sy-siss."

Judges are discouraged from making general statements about broad concepts in the law on topics such as gun rights, free speech, or abortion, because such pre-judgment statements might disqualify them from deciding future cases on those topics.

But these essays on a series of your constitutional rights may help you to understand what the courts, the legislatures, and the agencies of the federal and state executive branches have held about your rights.  The essays may help you to understand some of the many factors which judges must consider when your constitutional rights are being decided in future cases.

As you look at the following 27 essays, please note that you may have many more constitutional rights than those which are specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution) or in subsequent amendments.

Some of these non-explicit rights are protected in the Ninth Amendment, which preserves all rights of the people from federal restrictions beyond those powers granted to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution.

Other powers are reserved for the states in the Tenth Amendment, which bars the federal government from claiming powers that are not granted to the central government in the U.S. Constitution.

Further, you have many rights that have been defined by the courts as "extensions" of explicit rights that are defined in the constitution.  Many of these rights, along with others that may be identified by later courts, are said to be found in the "shadow" or "penumbra" of other explicit rights.  These include your right to privacy, travel between states, and forms of intellectual property which will be made possible by future technologies.

No person can claim to have a full understanding or ability to describe all of your constitutional rights in a limited space.  But I hope these essays will give you a fuller and fair appreciation of issues which affect your rights.