Constitutional law attorneys handle cases involving the construction and interpretation of federal and state constitutions, including individual rights and governmental powers. Constitutional law cases can involve issues like First Amendment rights -- such as freedom of speech, press, and religion -- and the checks and balances on authority among different branches of government. Most of the federal constitutional rights are found in the Bill of Rights, that was created originally as a limitation on the action by the federal government, but many of those rights are also applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Whittier was a small town, founded in 1881 by Clark Whittier when he purchased 60,000 acres (240 km²) of land in the area, and is now an unincorporated community in western North Carolina. It was incorporated as a town from 1887 to 1933, when the Great Depression took the lumber industry boom (which began in the 1900s) down with it. The town was located on the railroad and the Tuckasegee River, between Bryson City downstream to the west, and Dillsboro upstream to the southeast. It straddles the county line between Jackson County to its east and Swain County to the west.