Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 153

Article I of the Constitution contains several specific rights of the criminally accused. For example, it provides for the writ of habeas corpus, a court order that allows a judge to release a prisoner who is being detained illegally. It also prohibits bills of attainder (laws that allow someone to be punished without a trial) and ex post facto laws (laws that make an action illegal retroactively). But most of the rights that we associate with the criminally accused are found in the Bill of Rights. Originally, of course, guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights applied only to federal criminal prosecutions. Incorporation made most of these guarantees applicable to the states as well, which, since most criminal trials take place at the state level, has had a profound effect on our criminal justice system.