# Which amendments do these statements describe?



## hexstar (Sep 4, 2007)

* This amendment was created because of the shenanigans of Aaron Burr who tried to steal the presidency from Thomas Jefferson

* This amendment was made largely as a result of the Civil Rights movement led by African-Americans in the 1960s

* This amendment enabled the residents of Washington, D.C. to choose between Johnson and Goldwater in the election of 1964

* Because of this amendment, you only have to be 14 years old in Michigan to get a leaner's permit but in California, you must be 15

* Which one of these amendments was the subject of a movie starring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones? What was the name of the movie?


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## Rhisiart (Sep 4, 2007)

Are these amendments important?


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## Giaguara (Sep 4, 2007)

For the Americans, yes. And for the rest I guess for the common knowledge. Or for hte citizenship test.


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## Greg Reez (Sep 4, 2007)

1. 12th Amendment - says that a presidential candidate can choose his own running mate, rather than the second place vote getter becoming Vice President, as was the case in 1800 with Jefferson & Burr.

2. 24th Amendment - forbids states to add a poll tax to voting. Poll taxing made it harder for African Americans to vote in the poor and impoverished southern states. 

3. 10th Amendment - says that states can pass certain laws within that state (learner's permit is an example, same sex marriage and divorce is another), and the federal govenment can't swallow up the states with nation wide laws. This amendment is called "Powers Retained by the States & the People."

4. 5th Amendiment - says that a person cannot be convicted of the same crime twice (basically if I killed you, I cannot be convicted of killing you again in two separate court precedings.) This is most common among someone who kills someone, goes to court, then kills someone else again, and goes to court again. Those are two different court precedings and the past murder can't be brought up in the next court since it has already been to court and convicted before. Ashley Judd was convicted of killing her husband, goes to court, is sentenced to prison, gets released, finds out her husband is still alive, and decides to find him and kill him after being convinced by a prison mate. This amendment says that she will not be convicted of this crime again since she can't be convicted of it twice.

COOL QUESTIONS... but I'm not actually sure if you can post it here since its a Mac site... I know we Mac users are geniuses in our own right, and we are glad we can help, but please, check out Yahoo! Answers for questions of this nature...


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## fryke (Sep 4, 2007)

Bob's Place is perfect for such threads, because the Mac stuff should be filed in the appropriate _other_ forums.


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## lurk (Sep 4, 2007)

Re: the Ashley Judd 5th amendment thing.  That would not actually have worked since it is not that you cannot be tired for the same thing twice but rather for the same instance of a crime.  If she had been a pickpocket and taken his wallet on two separate occasions she could not get out of it based on the "I already was tried for picking his pocket defense" because they were two separate crimes.

What would have happened would be that she could have appealed here first conviction and won only to be convicted on the second murder.

A better way to thing of this is that in criminal proceedings the government does not get any "do overs".


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## hexstar (Sep 4, 2007)

Greg Reez said:


> 1. 12th Amendment - says that a presidential candidate can choose his own running mate, rather than the second place vote getter becoming Vice President, as was the case in 1800 with Jefferson & Burr.
> 
> 2. 24th Amendment - forbids states to add a poll tax to voting. Poll taxing made it harder for African Americans to vote in the poor and impoverished southern states.
> 
> ...


Thanks, those really stumped me!


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## PGTips (Sep 5, 2007)

lurk said:


> What would have happened would be that she could have appealed here first conviction and won only to be convicted on the second murder.
> 
> A better way to thing of this is that in criminal proceedings the government does not get any "do overs".



I agree if we're talking about instances of pick pocketing and such, which are repeatable crimes. I don't know much about law, but wasn't it the fact that she was tried and found guilty of murder and had already carried out her sentence? There would be no need to appeal her first conviction, since there would be no point in appealing a verdict that you've already served? 

So if she was already found guilty of murder and paid her dues, how could she be guilty of murdering the same person again?


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## lurk (Sep 6, 2007)

Nope, the first time she was convicted it was a miscarriage of justice.  She was convicted for a crime that she did not commit, and in this case did not really happen.  There are lots of people in this country that have been sent to prison for murders they did not commit and been found to have been innocent after they have served their time.  Should each of them get a "Kill someone free" card?

The whole "debt to society" thing is very one way when you think about it.   If you are sent to prison for something you did not do and are paying off the debt, then are found to be innocent the state will not say "Sorry, my bad.  Here is a big check to make up for it."  It just sucks to be you.

That is an important  part of why we have the protections for the accused we do in the US, because it is not possible to go back and fix the damage when a mistake is made.


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## lurk (Sep 6, 2007)

Oh yeah,  even in the movie you mentioned she did not actually get to kill her husband in cold blood.  Rather the writers set up a situation where his killing was a justifiable act of self-defense.  This helped work with the interesting premise for the story to balance the need for justice for the crime committed against Ms. Judd and the moral repugnance of her just shooting him.  No matter how you parse the legality of the action it is still morally a murder.


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