Maryland Constitution
The current Constitution of the State of Maryland, which was ratified by the people of the state on September 18, 1867, forms the basic law for the U.S. state of Maryland. It replaced the short-lived Maryland Constitution of 1864 and is the fourth constitution under which the state has been governed. It was amended in 2012. At approximately 47,000 words (including annotations), the Maryland Constitution is much longer than the average length of a state constitution in the United States, which is about 26,000 words (the United States Constitution is about 8,700 words long). Background, drafting, and ratification The state's 1864 constitution was written during the Civil War, while the Unionists temporarily controlled Maryland. Approved by a bare majority (50.31%) of the state's eligible voters, including Maryland men who were serving in the Union army outside the state, it temporarily disfranchised the approximately 25,000 men in Maryland who had fought for the Confederacy or in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Great Seal Of Maryland Reverse
Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born 1981), American actor Other uses * Great (1975 film), ''Great'' (1975 film), a British animated short about Isambard Kingdom Brunel * Great (2013 film), ''Great'' (2013 film), a German short film * Great (supermarket), a supermarket in Hong Kong * GReAT, Graph Rewriting and Transformation, a Model Transformation Language * Gang Resistance Education and Training, or GREAT, a school-based and police officer-instructed program * Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), a Kaspersky Lab#Malware_discovery, cybersecurity team at Kaspersky Lab *''Great! (EP), Great!'', a 2018 EP by Momoland *The Great (TV series), ''The Great'' (TV series), an American comedy-drama See also * * * {{disambig ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ex Post Facto Law
An ''ex post facto'' law (from ) is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may Criminalization, criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed. Conversely, a form of ''ex post facto'' law commonly called an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts. (Alternatively, rather than redefining the relevant acts as non-criminal, it may simply prohibit prosecution; or it may enact that there is to be no punishment, but leave the underlying conviction technically unaltered.) A pardon has a similar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a new policy or specific law, or the referendum may be only advisory. In some countries, it is synonymous with or commonly known by other names including plebiscite, votation, popular consultation, ballot question, ballot measure, or proposition. Some definitions of 'plebiscite' suggest it is a type of vote to change the constitution or government of a country. The word, 'referendum' is often a catchall, used for both legislative referrals and initiatives. Etymology 'Referendum' is the gerundive form of the Latin verb , literally "to carry back" (from the verb , "to bear, bring, carry" plus the inseparable prefix , here meaning "back"Marchant & Charles, Cassell's Latin Dictionary, 1928, p. 469.). As a gerundive is an adjective,A gerundiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constitutional Amendment
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions (codicils), thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document. Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation. Examples of such special procedures include supermajorities in the legislature, or direct approval by the electorate in a referendum, or even a combination of two or more different special procedures. A referendum to amend the constitution may also be triggered in some jurisdictions by popular initiative. Australia and Ireland provide examples of constitutions requiring that all amendments are first pas ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Supreme Court Of Maryland
The Supreme Court of Maryland is the state supreme court, highest court of the U.S. state of Maryland. Its name was changed on December 14, 2022, from the Maryland Court of Appeals, after a voter-approved change to the state constitution. The court, which is composed of one chief justice and six associate justices, meets in the Robert C. Murphy (judge), Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal Building in the state capital, Annapolis, Maryland, Annapolis. The term of the Court begins the second Monday of September. The Court is unique among American courts in that the justices wear red robes. Functions As Maryland's highest court, the Supreme Court of Maryland reviews cases of both major and minor importance. Throughout the year, the Supreme Court of Maryland holds hearings on the adoption or amendment of rules of practice and procedure. It also supervises the Attorney Grievance Commission and State Board of Law Examiners in attorney disciplinary and admission matters. The Chief Justice ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Separation Of Powers
Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary, which is sometimes called the model. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems where there can be overlap in membership and functions between different branches, especially the executive and legislative, although in most non-authoritarian jurisdictions, the judiciary almost never overlaps with the other branches, whether powers in the jurisdiction are separated or fused. The intention behind a system of separated powers is to prevent the concentration of power by providing for checks and balances. The separation of powers model is often imprecisely and metonymically used interchangeably with the ' principl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as ''Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954) regarding racial segregation, ''Roe v. Wade'' (1973) regarding abortion ( overturned in 2022), ''Bush v. Gore'' (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and ''Obergefell v. Hodges'' (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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First Amendment To The United States Constitution
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was proposed to assuage Anti-Federalist opposition to Constitutional ratification. Initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with ''Gitlow v. New York'' (1925), the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In '' Everson v. Board of Education'' (1947), the Court drew on Thomas ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Second Amendment To The United States Constitution
The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the Right to keep and bear arms in the United States, right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, along with nine other articles of the United States Bill of Rights, Bill of Rights. In ''District of Columbia v. Heller'' (2008), the Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the right belongs to individuals, for self-defense in the home, while also including, as ''dicta'', that the right is not unlimited and does not preclude the existence of certain long-standing prohibitions such as those forbidding "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill" or restrictions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons". In ''McDonald v. City of Chicago'' (2010) the Supreme Court ruled that State governments of the United States, state and Local government in the United States, local governments are Incorporation of the Bill of Rig ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Right To Arms
The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, including security against tyranny, as well as hunting and sporting activities. Countries that guarantee the right to keep and bear arms include the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United States, and Yemen. Background The Bill of Rights 1689 allowed Protestant citizens of England to "have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law" and restricted the ability of the English Crown to have a standing army or to interfere with Protestants' right to bear arms "when Papists were both Armed and Imployed contrary to Law" and established that Parliament, not the Crown, could regulate the right to bear arms. Sir William Blackstone wrote in the 18th century that the right to have arms was auxiliary to the "natur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel; or, historically, to members of a warrior-nobility class (e.g. knights or samurai). Generally unable to hold ground against regular forces, militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. Local civilian laws often limit militias to serve only in their home region, and to serve only for a limited time; this further reduces their use in long military campaigns. Beginning in the late 20th century, some militias (in particular officially recognized and sanctioned militias of a government) act as professional forces, while still being "part-time" or "on-call" organizations. For instan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |