On May 1st, we celebrate the rule of law and the role of the law and legal processes, including the court system, in promoting democracy and freedom through our celebration of Law Day. First envisioned by the American Bar Association’s then-president, Charles S. Rhyne, in 1957, National Law Day was established as a day of national dedication to the principles of government under law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958, and May 1st was designated as the official date of celebration by a joint resolution of Congress in 1961.
The topic of this year’s Law Day is the Fourteenth Amendment. Consisting of five sections, it is the following language from Section 1 which is a cornerstone of the Amendment’s extension of federal guarantees of equal protection and due process to all citizens:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 there was no provision in the federal Constitution or federal law to prevent the States from enacting laws that “denied to their own citizens the equal protection of laws or deprived them of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law.” Westel Woodbury Willoughby, The Constitutional Law of the United States at 177-78 (1910).
Representative John Bingham of Ohio played an important role both in drafting crucial language of the Amendment and ensuring its passage in Congress and ratification, was called by Justice Hugo Black “the Madison … of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
For a more detailed analysis please see the section on the 14th Amendment in Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation available at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ – the Federal Digital System.
in two volunteer attorneys, Jennifer L. Wazenski and David Mitchell, who were able to help 4 people to determine if their charges could be removed from their record and prepare the paperwork if they were. (A fifth person had a question about a Virginia criminal charge. We were able to direct her to information for Virginia at 
app allows Anne Arundel County citizens to report non-emergency incidents or problem requests digitally through their mobile devices. The 311 app has geo functions and is tied to both the AA County web and Facebook pages. The app allows citizens to track their reported incidents via the web or their mobile devices until such time as the incidents are closed. The app has a clean interface and is easy to navigate. Currently, the app enables Anne Arundel County users to report service requests such as:
AACPLL Blog: Law Library News 