Rabbit Holes ad Infinitum: Musings and Research

Caught by Confession : The Supreme Court, The Fifth Amendment, and  Miranda vs. Arizona. J.M. Rogers . . .             In 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States passed a historic ruling in the case of  Miranda vs. Arizona  that re-established the inexorable Fifth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. While not the only trial to challenge the manipulative tactics practiced by U.S. police forces,  Miranda vs. Arizona  represented renewed efforts by the SCOTUS to ensure that all American citizens understood their Constitutional rights before the law, and therefore, received fair legal treatment. Investigations into the various infractions committed by contemporary law enforcement agencies revealed systemic abuses of the rights of criminal suspects, most notably those who were under-educated or indigent. These two social categories saw their rights altered or withheld entirely. At the same time, th...

Dirty Dealers: The Discrimination and Exclusion of African Americans from New Deal Policy. J.M. Rogers . . .             As the Great Depression spread across the United States, the neglectful policies of President Hoover’s administration did little, if anything, to curb the suffering of American citizens. With a presidential election on the horizon in 1932, the issues of record levels of national unemployment, environmental collapse throughout large swathes of America’s farmland, and a lack of legislative consensus on how to reorder American business, were front and center in the public forum. Through his reformative efforts, the newly elected President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, instituted a litany of relief programs that sought to put American men back to work, as well as providing them with the first tax-related benefits of the Social Security Act. Unfortunately, the access to benefits provided by these relief programs ...