ABSTRACT
The Constitution strongly emphasizes the protection of the rights of defendants in the criminal process. The Bill of Rights places an even greater stress on criminal procedure. Of the twenty-three separate rights enumerated in the first eight amendments, thirteen relate to the treatment of criminal defendants. Through a series of decisions, the Supreme Court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates most of the criminal procedural guarantees of the Bill of Rights and has applied them equally to the states as to the federal government. The chapter outlines the development and current legal status of the major criminal procedural protections of the original Constitution and Amendments Four through Eight. Fourth Amendment rights, like other criminal procedural rights, can be waived by the individual. The Fifth Amendment provides that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.".
