KY Bar Constitutional Rights and Liberties 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A city ordinance bans all door-to-door solicitation, including religious canvassing, without a permit issued at the mayor's discretion. A religious group challenges the ordinance. What is the strongest constitutional defect?
- The permit scheme vests unbridled discretion in an official, creating an invalid prior restraint on speech (Correct answer)
- The ordinance violates the Establishment Clause by regulating religious activity
- The ordinance is an ex post facto law
- The ordinance violates the Contracts Clause
Correct answer: The permit scheme vests unbridled discretion in an official, creating an invalid prior restraint on speech
Licensing schemes for speech that give officials unfettered discretion are unconstitutional prior restraints under the First Amendment.
Question 2: A state law provides that only U.S. citizens may work as public school teachers. A lawful permanent resident denied a teaching job sues. Which standard of review applies?
- Rational basis review, because teaching falls within the public function exception to strict scrutiny for alienage classifications (Correct answer)
- Strict scrutiny, because all alienage classifications by states are suspect
- Intermediate scrutiny, because alienage is a quasi-suspect class
- No review, because employment is not a fundamental right
Correct answer: Rational basis review, because teaching falls within the public function exception to strict scrutiny for alienage classifications
Under the political/public function exception, state citizenship requirements for positions involving self-governance, such as teachers and police, receive only rational basis review.
Question 3: Police obtain a warrant to search a home for stolen televisions. While searching a small desk drawer, an officer finds a bag of cocaine and seizes it. Is the seizure valid?
- No, because a television could not fit in the drawer, so the officer exceeded the warrant's scope (Correct answer)
- Yes, under the plain view doctrine, because the officer was lawfully executing a warrant
- Yes, because any contraband found during a warranted search is admissible
- No, because drugs were not named in the warrant, and plain view never applies during warranted searches
Correct answer: No, because a television could not fit in the drawer, so the officer exceeded the warrant's scope
Plain view requires the officer to be lawfully in the place of discovery, and searching a drawer too small to hold the listed items exceeds the warrant's permissible scope.
Question 4: Congress passes a statute stripping federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to a specific pending case and directing the court to enter judgment for the government. What is the most likely constitutional problem?
- It violates separation of powers by directing the outcome of a pending case (Correct answer)
- It violates the Tenth Amendment
- It violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause
- Nothing, because Congress has plenary power over federal court jurisdiction
Correct answer: It violates separation of powers by directing the outcome of a pending case
While Congress may regulate federal jurisdiction, it cannot dictate the rule of decision or outcome in a pending case, which usurps the judicial power under Article III.
Question 5: A state denies unemployment benefits to a worker fired for refusing Saturday shifts due to her sincere Sabbath observance. Under Sherbert v. Verner, the denial is:
- Unconstitutional, because conditioning benefits on violating religious beliefs burdens free exercise without a compelling interest (Correct answer)
- Constitutional, because unemployment benefits are a privilege, not a right
- Constitutional, because the rule is neutral and generally applicable
- Unconstitutional, because it establishes a religion of secularism
Correct answer: Unconstitutional, because conditioning benefits on violating religious beliefs burdens free exercise without a compelling interest
Sherbert held that denying unemployment benefits for religiously motivated refusal to work imposes an unconstitutional burden on free exercise absent a compelling state interest.
Question 6: A public university expels a student for academic dishonesty without any hearing or notice of the charges. The student sues under the Due Process Clause. What result?
- The student wins, because continued enrollment is a protected interest requiring notice and an opportunity to respond (Correct answer)
- The student loses, because education is not a fundamental right
- The student loses, because universities are exempt from due process requirements
- The student wins only if the expulsion was factually erroneous
Correct answer: The student wins, because continued enrollment is a protected interest requiring notice and an opportunity to respond
Students at public institutions have a property or liberty interest in continued enrollment, so disciplinary expulsion requires at least notice and an opportunity to be heard.
Question 7: A state statute criminalizes flag burning done to cause offense. A protester burns a flag at a rally and is convicted. On appeal, the conviction should be:
- Reversed, because flag burning is expressive conduct and the statute targets its communicative impact (Correct answer)
- Affirmed, because conduct is not speech
- Affirmed, because the state has a compelling interest in national symbols
- Reversed, because criminal statutes cannot regulate any conduct at rallies
Correct answer: Reversed, because flag burning is expressive conduct and the statute targets its communicative impact
Texas v. Johnson held that flag burning is protected expressive conduct and laws suppressing it because of its message fail strict scrutiny.
KY Bar Constitutional Rights and Liberties 2
A city ordinance bans all door-to-door solicitation, including religious canvassing, without a permit issued at the mayor's discretion.
A religious group challenges the ordinance.
What is the strongest constitutional defect?