The Citizen's Playbook
Welcome to “The Citizen’s Playbook,” an 18-part audio journey created to transform
civics from a passive subject into an active tool. This series is a user manual for our
democracy, specifically tailored for the citizens of Georgia. We believe that understanding the rules of the game is the first and most critical step toward making a meaningful impact. It’s the difference between feeling frustrated by a problem and feeling empowered to help solve it.
The Citizen's Playbook
Your Basic Freedoms
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Last week, we discussed the Constitution as the government’s instruction
manual. But many founders worried it didn’t do enough to protect the people from that government. The solution was the Bill of Rights.
This episode's goal is to present the Bill of Rights as a powerful shield of explicit limitations on government to protect citizens.
Here is this week's assignment: Pick one of the first ten amendments and find a recent Georgia news story or court case about it. Take notice if the case is in a state or federal court.
Our Featured Guest for Episode Four is Judge Stephen Knights Jr., Judge, Henry County State Court.
🎙️ Citizen's Playbook is produced by Henry Chamber Media, bringing you conversations that connect business, community, and leadership throughout Henry County.
Well, last week we discussed the U.S. Constitution as the government's core instruction manual, but during the ratification process, many of the founders worried that the manual didn't do enough to explicitly protect the people. The solution of the grand compromise. Welcome back to the Citizens Playbook. I'm your host, Joseph Henning, CEO of the Henry County Chamber of Commerce. Usually I'm joined by my regular co-host for these conversations, but today we're doing something a little different. We're moving him from the co-host chair right into the guest spotlight because there is truly no one better equipped to handle this topic. He is a sitting state court judge, a legal scholar, and someone who interacts with these principles every single day from the bench. Welcome to the guest microphone. That's Stephen Knights Jr.
SPEAKER_00Yes, sir. Joe, thank you very much. Bit of a shift here sitting on this side of the desk, but you know, as always, I'm here ready to do this. Uh we're talking about the Bill of Rights, and as we know, the ultimate grand bargain necessary to get our Constitution ratified. It was a promise made by the anti-federalists who fiercely feared a runaway central government. From my vantage point in the judiciary, these first 10 amendments aren't ancient history. They're active boundaries of our daily justice system. We use it every day, Joe.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And I think that's recently in the news and that we've seen a lot more talk about them. So I think this is a good uh place to dive right in. Um let's start with the First Amendment. And basically the five freedoms freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition. In your career on the bench and in the legal field, you see these abstract ideals hit reality. And so how do these federal promises translate into concrete limits on what Georgia's state, county, and even local municipal governments can do to a regular citizen?
SPEAKER_00And Joe, thank you very much. That's a critical point. Uh sometimes people may often forget that the Bill of Rights were actually written in a series of negatives, and that is to say, uh, it's a list of things that the government cannot do. And the first 10 amendments, right? The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law. And through the 14th Amendment, that shield extends to protect you from state and local actions as well. So literally the 14th extends through the states uh as well to kind of honing in as you mentioned. But also, a county, for example, for Georgian uh here, it means a city council, for example, cannot pass a city ordinance banning a peaceful protest just because that city council may not like the message. Also, for example, a county commissioner in a respective county in Georgia cannot favor one religious group over another in public spaces, right? And then also, it sets an absolute perimeter around your individual mind and voice, telling the state, hey, you, the state, cannot cross this line.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And and I and I think more and more people are finding their voice. And so I'm excited with this podcast to help give everybody a little bit more of a playbook, a manual to speak their piece. And with the rapid technology changing, controversies are about free speech, especially on the internet, the algorithms that get our social media feeds, and even local government officials blocking critics on social media channels. From both a business and a civic perspective, Judge, how is the First Amendment adapting to protect Georgia's speech online?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's a that's a great question. And certainly when it comes to the amendments and relating specifically to speech, it's one of the most dynamic areas uh of the law. The venue for public public disclosure has shifted, as we know, from maybe back in time with the physical town square, and now everything's digital. Everyone has a phone or an iPad or some type of device readily accessible. So now that platform for uh maybe protest or disagreement or just voicing an opinion is now digital. It's the internet. Uh and with that, courts uh across the nation, federal and state have looked at this issue time and time over. For example, when a government official creates a public post on a social media page, for example, to discuss official business, interact with constituents, or announce policy, that digital space has now become a designated public forum. So it's kind of like a town hall but online. So it's a public forum. So that means the official can't legally delete comments or maybe block users simply because they express critical or dissenting viewpoints. That's going to happen, much like in a physical town hall, someone may not agree or someone may agree. So it's the same thing. So viewer or viewpoint discrimination by the government is unconstitutional. And whether it happens on a sidewalk outside or the public square, as we mentioned, outside of the courthouse, for example, or the comments come from a Facebook or other social media or internet feed.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. Let's let's pivot to a set of amendments that are absolutely foundational to the day-to-day operations of our courtrooms, but are often heavily misunderstood by the public. And those would be amendments four, five, six, and eight. So let's start with the fourth amendment and their protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. In a practical sense, how does this shield function when a regular citizen interacts with law enforcement on a Georgia street or inside their own home?
SPEAKER_00And that's that's a great point, Joe. And just to bring it back home, you mentioned your excitement about this podcast. I'm excited about it too. And this is this is one of my areas. This is how relative the Bill of Rights are, right? And the Fourth Amendment happens every day. So we have arraignments in court. And I have this video that I played that outlines someone's constitutional rights. And the Fourth Amendment applies every day from, as you mentioned, the initial interaction with someone and a law enforcement officer. We'll get into those. The Fourth Amendment is quite literally your privacy shield. It dictates that a person, home, papers, and effects cannot be searched by the state, meaning law enforcement or any state or government actor without probable cause, usually backed by a warrant signed by a judge, such as myself or another judge, usually a magistrate court judge, for example. So the example I was starting to give there, on a Georgia street, it means a law enforcement officer cannot just pull someone over, search their vehicle on a mere hunch. They must have articulable, reasonable suspicion to initially encounter someone with a one-on-one encounter. Some people may remember from high school Terry versus Ohio. There's a case, uh seminal case, where there's a pat down or outside of the body, pat down and searched. That's articulable, reasonable suspicion. And I'll give a deeper example. An officer is patrolling a subdivision, for example, and they encounter someone wearing all black. It's 2 a.m. and they're wandering around in the subdivision. Shortly after there's a call that comes in and says, suspicious-looking character walking around in subdivision. The officer encounters that person, for example, and then that person says, I live at 123 Main Street. There's no 123 Main Street. The officer sees a bulging part of the pocket area, and the officer now may think, Well, let me do a pat down outside. And then it reveals that's a crowbar, a burglary too, right? So that's articulable, reasonable suspicion. Hey, I patrol this neighborhood, I've been an officer for eight years, et cetera. The probable cause is where arrest comes in. And so your home has the highest level of protection. The protections there are at the absolute peak or pinnacle. Your home is your castle. And without narrow emergency exceptions, and in the courtroom we call it exigent circumstances. Without these exigent or emergency exceptions, the state cannot just come to a person's door and the state meaning law enforcement and enter just as they please without a judge signed or approved warrant. If the government breaks these rules, the evidence, they may find man may be thrown out. And again, that's another legal term, maybe called fruit of the poisonous tree if it's gained illegally. Whatever fruit was gained from that illegal search seizure isn't thrown away, just like you would the bad apples in the in the bag from the grocery store. So these um protections that the Fourth Amendment offers enforces operational discipline on the state, Joe. And I know that's a long answer, but I'm excited. No, no, no. I'm excited about this.
SPEAKER_01No, I appreciate that because I think it's it's going right to the heart of it and and and throwing out that evidence. And I think a lot of times people mistakenly look at these safeguards and think they're just legal loopholes. Um, you know, maybe to help the guilty people bypass the system. But as a judge, you protect the integrity of the process itself. And can you explain how the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process then and the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment exists fundamentally to preserve that human dignity and protect the NSN?
SPEAKER_00Well, Joe, you're absolutely right. Uh the system is fair for everyone. As a judge, I'm fair and impartial to both sides, and it has to be fair for everyone involved, both the person accused and of course to the state. Due process under the Fifth Amendment means the government cannot just uh slide into put someone, for example, into a jail cell or seize someone's property through a hidden or arbitrary process. It guarantees a level playing field. Uh notice of charges, for example, the right to an open hearing, public, speedy trial, for example, as comes later on. But also the right for a person to remain silent, right? That's the Fifth Amendment. No self-incrimination. So a person can't be forced to incriminate themselves. And the right, of course, to a fair trial, as I mentioned before, an impartial jury of a fair cross-section of the county the person resides in, of their peers in that county.
SPEAKER_01Before we hit the Eighth Amendment, let me follow up on that Fifth Amendment. And understanding, you know, that everybody has the right to not self-incriminate, but how what does that do to the legal process then for like charging and things like that, if it kind of slows down the process a bit, I would think.
SPEAKER_00Well, it is perspective, right? And so that perspective may come from someone who may be the state, right? A law enforcement officer. But the individual may not think so. Yeah? The individual, because so from a perspective of being from both sides as a former law enforcement officer and prosecutor, and then a former defense attorney, you have to look at it from both perspectives. And that's where the court or the judge comes in. Both sides come in on an even playing field. So it may not slow down the process because that person may be asked preliminary investigative questions. What's your name? What's your address? What's your date of birth? Just so the officer can engage information and find out who that person is. But when it comes down to questioning that person, that's different. So it's a simple math formula. I'll make it quick. Custody, it's one plus one equals two. Everyone knows this one. One plus one equals two. So one is custody. And custody means that person is not free to leave, right? Not detained, but can't leave. You're now under arrest. And usually the person will know they're in custody because you're under arrest. Those words may be set outright, or you're in handcuffs and we're driving that person or law enforcement is driving that person to be booked in. The second is the plus one, that's one. The other one is interrogation. An interrogation about the particular offense or offenses that they're in custody for. So if you have custody and then questioning or interrogation about the offense or offenses you're in custody for, then that equals two. And the two for this example is Fifth Amendment rights. Miranda can't self-incriminate. And that's just a new formula to think about it.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Okay, I appreciate that. Let's cover the uh cruel and unusual punishment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the Eighth Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment and ensures that even when a person may be convicted, the state does not lose its humanity. The amendments aren't loopholes, uh, as may some folks may think, but they're structural guardrails that prevent the raw power of the state from essentially crushing a person or individual. They protect the person or citizen by ensuring the government must meet the highest standards of proof and conduct themselves in a way before it can restrict a citizen's liberty or freedom. So cruel and unusual punishment, not allowed, and we know that it can come, most people think of it in the form of capital punishment, right? As in the death penalty and the different forms that they have that may come in. But there's no cruel and unusual punishment even before only thinking about capital offenses. It could be treatment of that person while they're in custody.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Let's specifically look at the tail end, the 10th Amendment, and and that creates the structural framework of federalism. Uh the 10th Amendment reserves all powers not explicitly given to the federal government, back to the states or to the people. How does this power dynamic play out when states or local county ordinance are challenged for infringing upon those fundamental human liberties?
SPEAKER_00Well, Joe, the 10th Amendment is actually, as you mentioned, a structural anchor for our dual uh sovereign system. It ensures that Georgia retains the power to manage its own internal affairs, such as things like education, public safety, local business uh health, and how that is played out here in Georgia, tailored to the needs of our residents, specifically, is what the Tenth Amendment uh ensures. However, federalism has a strict hierarchy. While the state can pass its own laws and ordinances under its reserve powers, it can never pass a law that provides less protection than the federal bill of rights. The United States Constitution uh is the floor, if you will, not the ceiling. Georgia can grant its citizens more rights through our state constitution, but it can never fall below the baseline protections of the federal shield jail.
SPEAKER_01All right, thank you, thank you. And Judge, you see these principles in action every time you gamble a session into order. What's what's the single biggest lesson you want a regular Georgian to take away about their personal responsibility in order to keep these Bill of Rights alive, active, and working? How do you prevent these rights from becoming static?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's that's great, uh Joe. The Bill of Rights is not self-executing. It doesn't defend itself. Or those Bill of Rights or amendments do not defend themselves. It only stays alive when citizens know what their rights are, exercise those rights, respect the rights of others, and hold the state accountable when the state may overstep in certain situations. If if citizens ignore the system or let our civic knowledge slide or not learn about it, then the shield may rust, Joe. True citizenship means keeping that shield polished through constant awareness and active participation in the process.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. Thank you for uh switching microphones today and give us an incredible jurisdiction at our essential freedoms. I think that's a perfect note to come for the call, call to action in that. And so the key takeaway is unmistakable. It's a personal shield, but it has to be actively defended. This week, we want you, the listener, to pick just one of the first 10 amendments that interest you. Go to your favorite search engine and look up a recent news story or a court case from right here in Georgia that involves that specific amendment.
SPEAKER_00And here's your highlight prompt for this week. As you read through that local news story or that legal case, notice which court is handling the matter. Is it a Georgia state court, such as the state court of Georgia that I'm in, or in Henry County, or a superior court in Georgia that my colleagues who are superior court judges are in, or is it a federal district court? Paying attention to that detail will give you a real-world practical sense of how federalism and our judicial boundaries actually function right in your own backyard in your particular county.
SPEAKER_01Join us next week as we return to our regular formatting to explore the dynamic relationship of the federal government in the three branches of balancing act. That wraps up this special episode. A tremendous thank you to our guest today and my regular partner, State Judge Stephen Nice Jr., for sharing his profound legal expertise and demonstrating the everyday power of the judicial branch. Uh, if today's look at your basic freedoms empowered you, pass it on, share the audio journey on social feeds, or text it to a neighbor so more Georgians can learn how to effectively wield their shields. Thank you for listening to the Citizens Playbook. We want to take a quick moment to extend a special thank you to Georgia Power for their generous support of this entire series. Georgia Power's commitment to our communities goes far beyond delivering reliable energy. They are actively investing in an informed, engaged, and empowered Georgia. Their partnership is what helps us bring these critical civic conversations right to your headphones. We are incredibly grateful for their support.
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