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Hello, everybody, and welcome to
this series of online videos that

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will help you understand the content
of this first semester of legal

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English for L3 students.

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Now, before we get into the actual
content of today's class,

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I'd like to take a moment to make
sure you understand what role these

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videos will play.

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The most important thing for you
to realize is that these videos

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do absolutely not contain all the
information that you will need

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in order to pass the test at the
end of the semester,

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or even to be able to do the homework
that will that will be given to

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you every week, each and every week.

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My colleagues and I will post a
document called Facts that does

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indeed contain the knowledge that
you will need to acquire and that

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corresponds to what your classmates
will learn during actual physical

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classes.

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These videos, which will also be
posted every week, are a sort of

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summary of these facts sections.

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But I really want you to understand
that the videos alone are not enough.

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You will need to read the facts
section as well every week.

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Okay.

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Now that this has been said,
let's start talking about the actual

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content of this semester.

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You are now in  L3   which means
that you are in the middle of a

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two year process that is supposed
to give you a deeper understanding

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of the American Constitution,
which, as you know, was written

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in 1787 and is still in use today.

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The way this process was designed
is pretty easy to understand.

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The American Constitution is basically
made of two different parts.

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The articles (there are seven of
them) and the amendments (27 in total).

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Last year in L2 , you studied the
articles of the American Constitution

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and this year in  L3  you will
study the amendments to the American

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Constitution.

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And because of that,
the first thing we need to do is

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to establish the difference between
these two parts of the Constitution,

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the articles and the amendments.

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As you already know,
the articles of the American

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Constitution designed the political
and institutional system that the

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US still operates on today.

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Article one created the legislative
power and gave it to Congress.

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Article two gave birth to the executive
power and gave its responsibility

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to a President of the United States.

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And Article three established the
Supreme Court and more generally,

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the federal judiciary.

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That is basically what you studied
in L2.

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What about this year, L3?

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As I already told you,
we are going to study the amendments

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to the American Constitution.

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The first thing I want you to know
is that we are not going to study

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the 27 amendments.

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We will actually pay attention
to six of them.

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The First, the Fourth,
the Fifth, the Sixth,

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the Eighth and the Fourteenth Amendment.

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In other words, we are mainly going
to study the Bill of Rights,

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which is the name given to the
first ten amendments to the American

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Constitution, which were adopted
simultaneously in 1791.

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Now, what are these amendments about?

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What is their role in the Constitution?

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If the articles established the
political system and the different

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branches of government,
the amendments that we are going

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to study were supposed to protect
the fundamental rights of American

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citizens.

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The objective was pretty clear,
and I really want you to pay attention

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to it because this is a sentence
that we are going to be repeating

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a lot during this semester.

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The Founding Fathers,
the people who wrote the American

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Constitution, wanted to make sure
that the United States would always

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remain a democracy and that the
federal government would never

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be able to turn America into a
dictatorship by confiscating the

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fundamental rights of American
citizens.

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That is the main common point between
all the rights that we are going

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to study: freedom of speech,
freedom of religion,

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freedom of the press,
the right to an attorney,

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the right to privacy,
to a public trial, and to be judged

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by a jury.

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All of these were supposed to protect
the democratic nature of the US

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political system and make sure
that US citizens would always be free.

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The next thing I would like to
focus on today is the way we are

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going to study these amendments.

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In other words, the way this semester
will be

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organized.

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There are basically two different
methods that you can use to study

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the amendments to the Constitution
in general and the Bill of Rights

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in particular.

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The first way you can do that is
the most obvious one,

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which is to go through the amendments
in numerical order.

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So you start by studying the First
Amendment, then the Second,

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then the Third, the Fourth,

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ETC.

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This way of studying the amendments
seems to be the most logical one

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because you're basically following
the order of the amendments.

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However, this is not the approach
that we will adopt during this

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semester.

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The reason for that is that many
of you are future lawyers and judges.

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And in any case, all of you are
law students.

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And because of that,
in order to make it easier for

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you to understand these amendments,
we decided to organize this semester

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around the trial.

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We will basically try to answer
three questions: What amendments

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protect the rights of American
citizens before the trial?

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So when somebody is arrested by
the police, for instance.

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What amendments protect them during
the trial?

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And finally, what amendments create
rules that apply during the sentencing

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phase of the trial?

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This is how our semester will be
organized.

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Pre-trial, trial and post-trial.

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Now, this way of studying the
amendments comes with its share

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of difficulties because some amendments
will have to be studied several

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times rather than just once.

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For instance, the Fifth Amendment
to the Constitution guarantees

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the protection of certain rights
before the trial, during the trial

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and after the trial.

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And because of that,
we will need to study it three

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different times.

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But it is still the best way to
teach the Bill of Rights to law

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students such as yourselves,
because it corresponds to the way

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your brain is used to processing
information by using the trial

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as the center of all your reasonings.

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By the way, this method of studying
the amendments also helps explain

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why we chose certain amendments
for you to study.

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Remember, even though the Constitution
has 27 amendments, you are only

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going to study six of them.

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So immediately the question becomes
why these six amendments and not

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others?

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An easy and intuitive answer to
this question would be to say that

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we want you to study these amendments
because they are the most important

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ones, historically speaking,
but it's actually not necessarily

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the case.

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Some of the most important amendments
in the history of the United States

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will not be studied during this
semester.

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For instance, the 13th Amendment
adopted in 1865, which put an end

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to slavery.

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The 15th Amendment, which gave
black men the right to vote,

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or the 19th Amendment,
which gave women the right to vote.

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Even if we focus exclusively on
the Bill of Rights, the Second

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Amendment, which protects the right
of every American citizen to own guns,

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is not part of our semester.

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These are some of the most important
amendments to the Constitution,

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and yet we will not study them.

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The reason for this is that the
amendments we want you to study

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are the ones that lawyers will
have to use the most when defending

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their clients.

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As important as the abolition of
slavery was,

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it is hard to imagine a case where
a lawyer will have to use the 13th

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Amendment as a defense for their
client.

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However, the right to freedom of
speech or freedom of religion protected

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by the First Amendment,
the protection against

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self-incrimination contained in
the Fifth Amendment,

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the protection against cruel and
unusual punishment contained in

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the Eighth Amendment;

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all of these rights are often used
in court by lawyers,

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judges and juries,

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and that is the reason why we want
you to study them.

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This is what makes this semester
so interesting.

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As teachers, we often tell you
that the US Constitution was written

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in 1787 and that it is the oldest
written constitution still in use

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in the world today.

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That is absolutely true,

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but the problem is that it often
leads you to think that the US

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Constitution is a dead document
that has no influence on today's

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world and on the way the judicial
system works in 2021.

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Nothing could be further from the
truth.

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The Constitution still plays a
role in many cases throughout the

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country, and its interpretation
still has

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significant consequences on the
everyday lives of American citizens.

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For instance, the only reason gay
couples can get married across

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the United States is because the
Supreme Court interpreted the 14th

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Amendment, which we will study
together, as protecting gay couples

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against discrimination by the
government.

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The only reason women have the
right to an abortion in all 50 states,

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even though as of the filming of
this video, Texas almost became

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an exception to this rule is because
the Supreme Court interpreted the

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Fourth Amendment, which we will
also study together, as protecting

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the private lives of American citizens.

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We will often talk about the past,
but you should never forget that

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everything we will study still
applies today and that in 2021,

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the US Constitution is still the
supreme law of the land.

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Now, obviously there will be a
lot of differences between the

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various amendments that we will
study and no one class will sound

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like the previous one.

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But throughout this semester I
would really like you to remember

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this fundamental common point between
all the amendments we are going

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to study, and that could really
be described as a one sentence

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summary of the entire semester.

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The objective of the Founding Fathers
when they wrote these amendments

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and more generally when they wrote
the American Constitution,

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was to make sure that the democratic
rights of the citizens would always

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be protected and that the government
could never take them away from

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the people and turn the US into
a dictatorship.

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The preservation of democracy is
the common goal of all the amendments

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we are going to study.

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Thank you.

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Goodbye.