do the courts go too far in protecting rights of "despicable individuals"? debate...

“The courts have gone too far in protecting the rights of despicable individuals and groups who engage in hate speech.”
For quote… In protecting citizens rights, the Supreme Court has on many occasional dropped charges against obvious criminals or blatant racists. The founding fathers when creating the constitution allowed racist behavior toward African Americans. They ignored the problem of slavery, allowed continuing importation of slaves and denied slaves the right to vote. When the Constitution did give all minorities the right to vote, in many areas, it did not actually take effect for over 100 years. During that time the courts did very little to insure equality among all races. In 1977, in the heavily Jewish suburb, Skokie, Illinois, Jewish residents were enraged that the American Nazi Party planned on marching. Although they ended up calling off the march, in 1978 the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to march in accordance with the first amendment. In Miranda v. Arizona a “mentally disturbed” man who kidnapped and raped an 18-year-old girl had charges dropped because he was informed of rights prior to being interrogated. Many criminal suspects once informed of these rights now, decline to confess to their crimes, increasing the chance that they will escape punishment for crimes of which they are guilty. Many Americans believe burning the flag is despicable and should be a crime. Gregory Lee Johnson, a resident of the state of Texas, was fined $2000 and sentenced to a year in prison for burning a flag during a protest. The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that it was symbolic speech, and therefore not punishable. Later, the Supreme Court again in with a 5 to 4 decision, struck down a proposed constitutional amendment to allow Congress to ban flag-burning. In Mapp v Ohio, again criminal charges were dropped because of what became known as the exclusionary rule, that illegally seized evidence cannot be used to convict the defendant.
Against quote… Contrary to this quote, there are still incidents that have occurred recently in which the courts have not gone far enough protecting the rights of individuals who were for some reason suspected criminals or those supposed hate groups. The Patriot Act in one great example of this. Under the Patriot Act, the government claimed the right to detain or investigate anyone they suspected a terrorist or supported terrorist activities. In doing so it allowed searches without a warrant, seizing records of email, voice mail and internet activity, gave access to personal records and holding the detainees indefinitely. In the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, 660 men from over 40 countries were held for 2 years or more without formal charges or access to families or lawyers. In the Miranda v. Arizona case, although Miranda was let go this case established the Miranda rights which have become very important to insuring the right to an attorney and a fair trial among other rights. Again protecting the general public rather than the so called despicable individuals the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that states could ban cross burnings that are designed to intimidate. Also in 1982, the Supreme Court held that child pornography was not protected by freedom of speech in any way. Although you would think with our society aging and becoming much more civilized than in the past, we would have less criminals, this is not the case at all. Overcrowded jails continue to be a problem and demand an incredible amount of state and federal funding. In June, 2002, the American Prison population topped 2 million people. So despite all the protection of criminals rights a huge number still find their way to jail. In 2004, according to Hate Crime Statistics 2004, there were 7,649 criminal incidents “motivated by a bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnicity or sexual orientation,” reported by law enforcement agencies. This suggests that those involved in hate speech are not getting off scotch free anymore.