ConLawFinal

United States v. Leon

a Supreme Court case about drugs in which the Supreme Court of the United States created the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule

Maryland v. Craig

a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Sixth Amendment. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, which provides criminal defendants with the right to confront witnesses against them, did not bar the use of one-way closed-circuit television to present testimony by an alleged child sex abuse victim

Craig v. Boren

was the first case in which a majority of the United States Supreme Court determined that statutory or administrative sex classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause

Illinois v. Gates

a Fourth Amendment case. Gates overruled Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108 (1964) and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969), thereby replacing the Aguilar-Spinelli test for probable cause with the "totality of the circumstances" test

Brown v. Board of Education (II)

a Supreme Court case decided in 1955. The year before, the Supreme Court had decided Brown v. Board of Education, which made racial segregation in schools illegal.[1] However, many all-white schools in the United States had not followed this ruling and still had not integrated (allowed black children into) their schools. In Brown II, the Court ordered them to integrate their schools "with all deliberate speed."[2] In Brown II, the Supreme Court also set out rules about what schools needed to do to de-segregate. Finally, it explained how the United States government would make sure the schools did de-segregate

Shapiro v. Thompson

a Supreme Court decision that helped to establish a fundamental "right to travel" in U.S. law. Although the Constitution does not mention the right to travel, it is implied by the other rights given in the Constitution. (Although the right was recognized under the Equal Protection clause in this case, pre-Fourteenth Amendment, the right to travel was understood as protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause (Article IV), as a privilege of citizenship, and therefore might have been applied to the states under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of Amendment XIV, as J. Stewart wanted.)

Meyer v. Nebraska

a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that a 1919 Nebraska law restricting foreign-language education violated the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Sweatt v. Painter

a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education four years later. The case involved a black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas, whose president was Theophilus Painter, on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education

Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton

a U.S. Supreme Court decision which upheld the constitutionality of random drug testing regimen implemented by the local public schools in Vernonia, Oregon. Under that regimen, student athletes were required to submit to random drug testing before being allowed to participate in sports. During the season, 10% of all athletes were selected at random for testing. The Supreme Court held that although the tests were searches under the Fourth Amendment, they were reasonable in light of the schools' interest in preventing teenage drug use

Swain v. Alabama

a case heard before the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the legality of a struck jury

Scott v. Illinois

a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. In Scott, the Court decided whether the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments required Illinois to provide Scott with trial counsel

Saenz v. Roe

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States discussed whether there is a constitutional right to travel from one state to another.

Brigham City v. Stuart

a United States Supreme Court case involving the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. The Court ruled that police may enter a home without a warrant if they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is or is about to be seriously injured. The case involved the arrest of four adults seen restraining a juvenile, who punched one of the adults who was restraining him. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, arguing that the warrantless entry was not supported by exigent circumstances; the Utah Court of Appeals and Utah Supreme Court both affirmed the trial court's ruling. However, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case on May 22, 2006

Planned Parenthood v. Danforth

a United States Supreme Court case on abortion. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a Missouri statute regulating abortion. The Court upheld the right to have an abortion, declaring unconstitutional the statute's requirement of prior written consent from a parent (in the case of a minor) or a spouse (in the case of a married woman).

Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County

a United States Supreme Court case over the issue of gender bias in statutory rape laws. The petitioner argued that the statutory rape law discriminated based on gender and was unconstitutional. The court ruled otherwise. Sexual intercourse entails a higher risk for women than men. Thus, the court found the law just in targeting men as the only possible perpetrators of statutory rape

Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe

a United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of the Connecticut sex offender registration requirement which required public disclosure of information on sex offenders after they had been released from incarceration

Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority

a United States Supreme Court case that considered the application of the Equal Protection Clause on a private business that operates in close relationship to a government to the point that it becomes a "state actor"

Washington v. Davis

a United States Supreme Court case that established that laws that have a racially-discriminatory effect but were not adopted to advance a racially-discriminatory purpose are valid, under the US Constitution

Sheppard v. Maxwell

a United States Supreme Court case that examined the rights of freedom of the press as outlined in the 1st Amendment when weighed against a defendant's right to a fair trial as required by the 6th Amendment and the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. In particular, the court sought to determine whether or not the defendant was denied fair trial for the second-degree murder of his wife, of which he was convicted, because of the trial judge's failure to protect Sheppard sufficiently from the massive, pervasive, and prejudicial publicity that attended his prosecution

Poe v. Ullman

a United States Supreme Court case that held that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge a Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives, and banned doctors from advising their use, because the law had never been enforced. Therefore, any challenge to the law was deemed unripe, because there was no actual threat of injury to anyone who disobeyed the law. The same statute would later be challenged yet again (successfully) in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).

McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents

a United States Supreme Court case that reversed a lower court decision upholding the efforts of the state-supported University of Oklahoma to adhere to the state law requiring African-Americans to be provided graduate or professional education on a segregated basis

Brown v. Mississippi

a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that a defendant's involuntary confession that is extracted by police violence cannot be entered as evidence and violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Bradwell v. Illinois

a United States Supreme Court case that solidified the narrow reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and determined that the right to practice a profession was not among these privileges. The case is also notable for being an early 14th Amendment challenge to sex discrimination in the United States

Stenberg v. Carhart

a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with a Nebraska law which made performing "partial-birth abortion" illegal, without regard for the health of the mother. Nebraska physicians who performed the procedure contrary to the law were subject to having their medical licenses revoked. The Court struck down the law, finding the Nebraska statute criminalizing "partial birth abortion[s]" violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, as interpreted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade. The Court would later uphold a similar, albeit federal statute in Gonzales v. Carhart

Rostker v. Goldberg

a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that the practice of requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional. After extensive hearings, floor debate and committee sessions on the matter, the United States Congress enacted the law, as it had previously been, to apply to men only. Several attorneys, including Robert L. Goldberg, subsequently challenged the gender distinction as unconstitutional. (The named defendant is Bernard D. Rostker, Director of the Selective Service System.) In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that this gender distinction was not a violation of the equal protection component of the due process clause, and that the Act would stand as passed

Berkemer v. McCarty

a decision of the United States Supreme Court which ruled that, in the case of a person stopped for a misdemeanor traffic offense, once they are in custody, the protections of the Fifth Amendment apply to them pursuant to the decision in Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Previously, some courts had been applying Miranda only to serious offenses

Civil Rights Cases

a group of five US Supreme Court constitutional law cases. Against the famous dissent of Justice Harlan, a majority held the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, because Congress lacked authority to regulate private affairs under the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Thirteenth Amendment "merely abolishes slavery". The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had banned race discrimination in access to services offered to the public. The decision was effectively reversed in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court from 1937, and finally by legislation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Mapp v. Ohio

a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in state law criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as in federal criminal law prosecutions in federal courts as had previously been the law. The Supreme Court accomplished this by use of a principle known as selective incorporation; in Mapp this involved the incorporation of the provisions, as interpreted by the Court, of the Fourth Amendment which are applicable only to actions of the federal government into the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause which is applicable to actions of the states

Dickerson v. United States

upheld the requirement that the Miranda warning be read to criminal suspects and struck down a federal statute that purported to overrule Miranda v. Arizona (1966). The Court noted that neither party in the case advocated on behalf of the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 3501, the specific statute at issue in the case. Accordingly, it invited Paul Cassell, a former law clerk to Antonin Scalia and Warren E. Burger, to argue that perspective. Cassell was then a professor at the University of Utah law school; he was later appointed to, and subsequently resigned from, a federal district court judgeship in that state

Douglas v. California

a case before the United States Supreme Court

Michigan v. Bryant

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered a criminal defendant's Confrontation Clause right regarding statements made by a deceased declarant

Doe v. Reed

a United States Supreme Court case which holds that the disclosure of signatures on a referendum does not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health

a case in which the United States Supreme Court affirmed its abortion rights jurisprudence. The case struck down several provisions of an Ohio abortion law.

Barker v. Wingo

a United States Supreme Court case involving the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, specifically the right of defendants in criminal cases to a speedy trial. The Court the held that determinations of whether or not the right to a speedy trial has been violated must be made on a case-by-case basis, and set forth four factors to be considered in the determination

Olmsted v. United States

a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court reviewed whether the use of wiretapped private telephone conversations, obtained by federal agents without judicial approval and subsequently used as evidence, constituted a violation of the defendant's rights provided by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that neither the Fourth Amendment nor the Fifth Amendment rights of the defendant were violated. This decision was later overturned by Katz v. United States in 1967.

Ricci v. DeStefano

a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court on unlawful discrimination through disparate impact under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Eighteen city firefighters at the New Haven Fire Department,[1] seventeen white and one Hispanic, claimed discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after they had passed the test for promotions to management positions and the city declined to promote them. New Haven officials invalidated the test results because none of the black firefighters scored high enough to be considered for the positions. City officials stated that they feared a lawsuit over the test's disproportionate exclusion of certain racial groups from promotion under "disparate impact" head of liability.[2][3] The Supreme Court held 5-4 that New Haven's decision to ignore the test results violated Title VII because the city did not have a "strong basis in evidence" that it would have subjected itself to disparate impact liability if it had promoted the white and Hispanic firefighters instead of the black firefighters. Because the plaintiffs won under their Title VII claim, the Court did not consider the plaintiffs' argument that New Haven violated the constitutional right to equal protection

Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell

a United States Supreme Court case "hasten[ing] the end of federal court desegregation orders."[1] The Court held that a federal desegregation order should be ended even though it meant that schools would become re-segregated since the Oklahoma schools had been arranged into a unitary system.

Solem v. Helm

a United States Supreme Court case concerned with the scope of the Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment. Mr. Helm, who had written a check from a fictitious account and had reached his seventh nonviolent felony conviction since 1964, received a mandatory sentence, under South Dakota law at that time, to life in prison with no parole. Petitioner Mr. Solem was the warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary at the time. The Court overturned the sentence on the grounds that it was "cruel and unusual". Justice Powell wrote for the five-member majority, while Chief Justice Burger wrote for the four-member dissent. Justice Powell reasoned that Helm had "received the penultimate sentence for relatively minor criminal conduct." Chief Justice Burger's concerns reflected his strict constructionist attitude: "Suppose several states punish severely a crime that the Court views as trivial or petty? I can see no limiting principle in the Court's holding." The language of the opinion, however, refrained from striking down state statutes setting minimum sentencing guidelines for recidivism. The majority opinion only called for exceptions to the statutes protecting the constitutional freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. In addition, the Court sought to use this particular case to clarify the Proportionality Doctrine previously proposed in Enmund v. Florida (1982) by setting precise guidelines for deciding whether a punishment is proportional to the specific crime committed. The Court ruled that all courts must do three things to decide whether a sentence is proportional to a specific crime:[1][2] Compare the nature and gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty, Compare the sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction; i.e., whether more serious crimes are subject to the same penalty or to less serious penalties, and Compare the sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions

City of Ontario, California v. Quon

a United States Supreme Court case concerning the extent to which the right to privacy applies to electronic communications in a government workplace. It was an appeal by the city of Ontario, California, from a Ninth Circuit decision holding that it had violated the Fourth Amendment rights of two of its police officers when it disciplined them following an audit of pager text messages that discovered many of those messages were personal in nature, some sexually explicit. The Court unanimously held that the audit was work-related and thus did not violate the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Ontario police sergeant Jeff Quon, along with other officers and those they were exchanging messages with, had sued the city, their superiors and the pager service provider in federal court. They had alleged a violation of not only their constitutional rights but federal telecommunications privacy laws. Their defense was that a superior officer had promised the pager messages themselves would not be audited if the officers reimbursed the city for fees it incurred when they exceeded a monthly character limit. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion signed by seven of his fellow justices. It decided the case purely on the reasonableness of the pager audit, explicitly refusing to consider "far-reaching issues" it raised on the grounds that modern communications technology and its role in society was still evolving. He nevertheless discussed those issues at some length in explaining why the Court chose not to rule on them, in addition to responding, for argument's sake, more directly to issues raised by the respondents. John Paul Stevens wrote a separate concurring opinion, as did Antonin Scalia, who would have used a different test he had proposed in an earlier case to reach the same result. Outside commentators mostly praised the justices for this display of restraint, but Scalia criticized it harshly in his concurrence, calling it vague. He considered his fellow justices in "disregard of duty" for their refusal to address the Fourth Amendment issues. A month after the court handed down its decision, an appellate court in Georgia similarly criticized it for "a marked lack of clarity" as it narrowed an earlier ruling to remove a finding that there was no expectation of privacy in the contents of email.[1] A New York Times article later summarized this criticism, and its "faux unanimity", as emblematic of what some judges and lawyers have found an increasingly frustrating trend in Roberts Court opinions

Katz v. United States

a United States Supreme Court case discussing the nature of the "right to privacy" and the legal definition of a "search". The Court's ruling refined previous interpretations of the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment to count immaterial intrusion with technology as a search, overruling Olmstead v. United States and Goldman v. United States. Katz also extended Fourth Amendment protection to all areas where a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy"

Escobedo v. Illinois

a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. The case was decided a year after the court held in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) that indigent criminal defendants had a right to be provided counsel at trial

Kimbrough v. United States

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court confirmed that federal district judges have discretion to impose sentences outside the range dictated by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, in cases involving conduct related to possession, distribution, and manufacture of crack cocaine

Graham v. Richardson

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court determined that state restrictions on welfare benefits for legal aliens but not for citizens violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court invalidated an Arizona law that required citizenship or 15 years of residence to receive welfare benefits. The 9-0 decision was written by Harry A. Blackmun.[1] The state argued that rational basis review should apply, which would require the non-citizen to prove that the law served no conceivable legitimate state interest, or alternatively that the law was not rationally related to the government's purpose. However, the court applied the strict scrutiny standard, holding, "Aliens as a class are a prime example of a 'discrete and insular' minority for whom such heightened judicial solicitude is appropriate."

Gonzales v. Oregon

a decision of the US Supreme Court, which ruled that the US Attorney General cannot enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act against physicians who prescribed drugs, in compliance with Oregon state law, to terminally ill patients seeking to end their lives, often referred to as medical aid in dying. It was the first major case heard under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Wolf v. Colorado

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held 6-3 that, while the Fourth Amendment was applicable to the states, the exclusionary rule was not a necessary ingredient of the Fourth Amendment's right against warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures. In Weeks v. United States 232 U.S. 383 (1914) the Court held that as a matter of judicial implication the exclusionary rule was enforceable in federal courts but not derived from the explicit requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The Wolf Court decided not to incorporate the exclusionary rule as part of the Fourth Amendment in large part because the States which had rejected the Weeks Doctrine (the exclusionary rule) had not left the right to privacy without other means of protection (i.e. the States had their own rules to deter police officers from conducting warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures). However, because most of the States' rules proved to be ineffective in deterrence, the Court overruled Wolf in Mapp v. Ohio 367 U.S. 643 (1961). This landmark case made the exclusionary rule enforceable against the States through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the same extent that it applied against the federal government

Kansas v. Marsh

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a Kansas death penalty statute was consistent with the United States Constitution. The statute in question provided for a death sentence when the aggravating factors and mitigating factors were of equal weight

Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a strip search of a middle schooler violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution where the school lacked reasons to suspect either that the drugs (Ibuprofen) presented a danger or that they were concealed in her underwear. The court also held, however, that because this was not clearly established law prior to the court's decision, the officials involved were shielded from liability by qualified immunity

Hudson v. Michigan

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a violation of the Fourth Amendment requirement that police officers knock, announce their presence, and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering a private residence (the knock-and-announce requirement) does not require suppression of the evidence obtained in the ensuing search

Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that it was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation for a prosecutor to submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the person who performed the test.[1] While the court ruled that the then-common practice[2] of submitting these reports without testimony was unconstitutional, it also held that so called "notice-and-demand" statutes are constitutional. A state would not violate the Constitution through a "notice-and-demand" statute by both putting the defendant on notice that the prosecution would submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the scientist and also giving the defendant sufficient time to raise an objection

Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that officials may strip-search individuals who have been arrested for any crime before admitting the individuals to jail, even if there is no reason to suspect that the individual is carrying contraband

Apodaca v. Oregon

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that state juries may convict a defendant by less than unanimity even though federal law required that federal juries must reach criminal verdicts unanimously. The four-justice plurality opinion of the court, written by Justice White, affirmed the judgment of the Oregon Court of Appeals, and held that there was no constitutional right to a unanimous verdict. Thus Oregon's law did not violate due process. Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion, argued that there was such a constitutional right in the Sixth Amendment, but that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause does not incorporate that right as applied to the states. This case is part of a line of cases interpreting if and how the Sixth Amendment is applied against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment for the purposes of incorporation doctrine, although the division of opinions prevented a clear-cut answer to that question in this case. Arguing the case for the state of Oregon were Jacob Tanzer and Lee Johnson; both would later serve on the Oregon Court of Appeals

Williams v. Florida

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Fifth Amendment does not entitle a defendant in a criminal trial to refuse to provide details of his alibi witnesses to the prosecution, and that the Sixth Amendment does not require a jury to have 12 members

Kansas v. Hendricks

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court set forth procedures for the indefinite civil commitment of prisoners convicted of a sex offense whom the state deems dangerous due to a mental abnormality

Weeks v. United States

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously held that the warrantless seizure of items from a private residence constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment.[1] It also prevented local officers from securing evidence by means prohibited under the federal exclusionary rule and giving it to their federal colleagues. It was not until the case of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), that the exclusionary rule was deemed to apply to state courts as well.

Alabama v. Shelton

a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that counsel (a lawyer) must be provided for the accused in order to impose a suspended prison sentence

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey

a United States Supreme Court case in which the constitutionality of several Pennsylvania state statutory provisions regarding abortion was challenged. The Court's plurality opinion reaffirmed the central holding of Roe v. Wade[1] stating that "matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment."[2] The Court's plurality opinion upheld the constitutional right to have an abortion while altering the standard for analyzing restrictions on that right, crafting the "undue burden" standard for abortion restrictions. Planned Parenthood v. Casey differs from Roe, however, because under Roe the state could not regulate abortions in the first trimester whereas under Planned Parenthood v. Casey the state can regulate abortions in the first trimester, or any point before the point of viability, and beyond as long as that regulation does not pose an undue burden on women's fundamental right to an abortion. Applying this new standard of review, the Court upheld four regulations and invalidated the requirement of spousal notification

Gonzales v. Carhart

a United States Supreme Court case that upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The case reached the high court after U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appealed a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in favor of LeRoy Carhart that struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Also before the Supreme Court was the consolidated appeal of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which had struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The Supreme Court's decision upheld Congress's ban and held that it did not impose an undue burden on the due process right of women to obtain an abortion, "under precedents we here assume to be controlling," such as the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In a legal sense, the case distinguished but did not overrule Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), in which the Court dealt with related issues. However, Gonzales was widely interpreted as signaling a shift in Supreme Court jurisprudence toward a restriction of abortion rights, occasioned in part by the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor and her replacement by Samuel Alito. The court found that there is "uncertainty [in the medical community] over whether the barred procedure is ever necessary to preserve a woman's health"; and in the past the court "has given state and federal legislatures wide discretion to pass legislation in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty."

United States v. Jones

a United States Supreme Court case which held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. In 2004 defendant Jones was suspected of drug trafficking. Police investigators asked for and received a warrant to attach a GPS tracking device to the underside of the defendant's car but then exceeded the warrant's scope in both geography and length of time. The Supreme Court justices voted unanimously that this was a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, although they were split 5-4 as to the fundamental reasons behind that conclusion. The majority held that by physically installing the GPS device on the defendant's car, the police had committed a trespass against Jones' "personal effects" - this trespass, in an attempt to obtain information, constituted a search per se.

McCleskey v. Kemp

a United States Supreme Court case, in which the death penalty sentencing of Warren McCleskey for armed robbery and murder was upheld. The Court said the "racially disproportionate impact" in the Georgia death penalty indicated by a comprehensive scientific study was not enough to overturn the guilty verdict without showing a "racially discriminatory purpose."[2] McCleskey has been described as the "most far-reaching post-Gregg challenge to capital sentencing."[3] McCleskey was named one of the worst Supreme Court decisions since World War II by a Los Angeles Times survey among legal scholars.[4] In a New York Times comment eight days after the decision, Anthony Lewis charged that the Supreme Court had "effectively condoned the expression of racism in a profound aspect of our law."[5] Anthony G. Amsterdam called it "the Dred Scott decision of our time."[6] Justice Lewis Powell, when asked by his biographer if he wanted to change his vote in any case, replied, "Yes, McCleskey v. Kemp."

Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 & Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education

a United States Supreme Court case. At issue were voluntary school desegregation/integration efforts in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky. Both school districts voluntarily used individualized racial classifications to achieve diversity and/or avoid racial isolation through student assignment. The Court recognized that seeking diversity and avoiding racial isolation are compelling state interests.[1] However, the Court struck down both school districts' assignment plans, finding that the plans were not sufficiently "narrowly tailored"; a legal term that essentially suggests that the means or method being employed (in this case, a student assignment plan based on individualized racial classifications) is closely and narrowly tied to the ends (the stated goals of achieving diversity and/or avoiding racial isolation).[1] The Parents Involved decision was a "split decision"—the Court broke 4-1-4 on key aspects of the case, with Justice Kennedy writing the swing vote opinion. Kennedy agreed with four Justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) that the programs used by Seattle and Louisville did not pass constitutional muster (because the districts failed to demonstrate that their plans were sufficiently narrowly tailored); but Kennedy also found, along with four Justices (Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg), that compelling interests exist in avoiding racial isolation and promoting diversity. With respect to avoiding racial isolation, Kennedy wrote that, "[a] compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue."[2] He went on to say that, "[w]hat the government is not permitted to do, absent a showing of necessity not made here, is to classify every student on the basis of race and to assign each of them to schools based on that classification."[2] According to Justice Kennedy, "The cases here were argued upon the assumption, and come to us on the premise, that the discrimination in question did not result from de jure actions." This point was challenged in Justice Breyer's dissent (joined by Stevens, Souter and Ginsberg). Justice Breyer questioned the utility "of looking simply to whether earlier school segregation was de jure or de facto in order to draw firm lines separating the constitutionally permissible from the constitutionally forbidden use of 'race-conscious' criteria."[3] Justice Breyer notes, "No one here disputes that Louisville's segregation was de jure" and cites a 1956 a memo where the Seattle School Board admitted its schools were de jure segregated as well.[3] All of the dissenting Justices acknowledged that "the Constitution does not impose a duty to desegregate upon districts," if the districts have not practiced racial discrimination. However, the dissenters argued that the Constitution permits such desegregation, even though it does not require it.[citation needed] The 4-1-4 split makes PICS somewhat similar to the 1978 Bakke case, which held that affirmative action was unconstitutional in the case directly before the Court; but, nonetheless, Bakke was used to uphold the validity of affirmative action programs that fostered diversity in higher education for a quarter of a century. To this end, in 2011, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice jointly issued Guidance on the Voluntary Use of Race to Achieve Diversity and Avoid Racial Isolation in Elementary and Secondary Schools, acknowledging the flexibility that school districts have in taking proactive steps to meet the compelling interests of promoting diversity and avoiding racial isolation within the parameters of current law

United States v. Booker

a United States Supreme Court decision concerning criminal sentencing. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial requires that, other than a prior conviction, only facts admitted by a defendant or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury may be used to calculate a sentence exceeding the prescribed statutory maximum sentence, whether the defendant has pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. The maximum sentence a judge may impose is a sentence based upon the facts admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In a split but majority ruling, the Court struck down the provision of the federal sentencing statute that required federal district judges to impose a sentence within the Federal Guidelines range, along with the provision that deprived federal appeals courts of the power to review sentences imposed outside the Guidelines range. The Court instructed federal district judges to impose a sentence with reference to a wider range of sentencing factors set forth in the federal sentencing statute, and directed federal appeals courts to review criminal sentences for "reasonableness," which the Court left undefined. This ruling was the direct consequence of the Court's ruling six months earlier in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), in which the Court had imposed the same requirement on a guidelines sentencing scheme employed in the State of Washington. The Blakely decision arose out of Apprendi v. New Jersey in which the Court held that, except for the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the defendant's punishment above the statutory maximum punishment had to be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt

Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada

a United States Supreme Court decision holding that states that provided a school to white students had to provide in-state education to blacks as well. States could satisfy this requirement by allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for blacks

Arizona v. Gant

a United States Supreme Court decision holding that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires law enforcement officers to demonstrate an actual and continuing threat to their safety posed by an arrestee, or a need to preserve evidence related to the crime of arrest from tampering by the arrestee, in order to justify a warrantless vehicular search incident to arrest conducted after the vehicle's recent occupants have been arrested and secured.

Argersinger v. Hamlin

a United States Supreme Court decision holding that the accused cannot be subjected to actual imprisonment unless provided with counsel. Gideon v. Wainwright made the right to counsel provided in the Sixth Amendment applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

a United States Supreme Court decision on upholding a Missouri law that imposed restrictions on the use of state funds, facilities, and employees in performing, assisting with, or counseling on abortions. The Supreme Court in Webster allowed for states to legislate in an aspect that had previously been thought to be forbidden under Roe v. Wade (1973)

Ferguson v. City of Charleston

a United States Supreme Court decision that found Medical University of South Carolina's policy regarding involuntary drug testing of pregnant women to violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that the search in question was unreasonable

Stanley v. Georgia

a United States Supreme Court decision that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law, in the form of mere possession of obscene materials. The Georgia home of Robert Eli Stanley, a suspected and previously convicted bookmaker, was searched by police with a federal warrant to seize betting paraphernalia. They found none, but instead seized three reels of pornographic material from a desk drawer in an upstairs bedroom, and later charged Mr. Stanley with the possession of obscene materials, a crime under Georgia law. The conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Georgia. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, per Justice Marshall, unanimously overturned the earlier decision and invalidated all state laws that forbade the private possession of materials judged obscene, on the grounds of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Justices Stewart, Brennan, and White, contributed a joint concurring opinion. Justice Hugo Black also concurred, with a separate opinion having to do with the Fourth Amendment search and seizure provision. The case also established an implied right to pornography. The right to privacy to pornography is not absolute, however. For example, in Osborne v. Ohio (1990) the Supreme Court upheld a law which criminalized the mere possession of child pornography.

Crawford v. Washington

a United States Supreme Court decision that reformulated the standard for determining when the admission of hearsay statements in criminal cases is permitted under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that cross-examination is required to admit prior testimonial statements of witnesses who have since become unavailable

Bowers v. Harwick

a United States Supreme Court decision, overturned in 2003, that upheld, in a 5-4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy.[1] The majority opinion, written by Justice Byron White, reasoned that the Constitution did not confer "a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy".[1] A concurring opinion by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger cited the "ancient roots" of prohibitions against homosexual sex, quoting William Blackstone's description of homosexual sex as an "infamous crime against nature", worse than rape, and "a crime not fit to be named". Burger concluded: "To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."[2] Justice Lewis F. Powell later said he regretted joining the majority, but thought the case of little importance at the time. The senior dissent, authored by Justice Harry Blackmun, framed the issue as revolving around the right to privacy. Blackmun's dissent accused the Court of an "almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity" and an "overall refusal to consider the broad principles that have informed our treatment of privacy in specific cases". In response to invocations of religious taboos against homosexuality, Blackmun wrote: "That certain, but by no means all, religious groups condemn the behavior at issue gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine."[3] Seventeen years after Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court directly overruled its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), and held that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional

United States v. Salerno

a United States Supreme Court decision. It determined that the Bail Reform Act of 1984, which permitted the federal courts to detain an arrestee prior to trial if the government could prove that the individual was potentially dangerous to other people in the community, did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, nor the Excessive Bail Clause of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The case was brought up when Mafia member Anthony Salerno was arrested and indicted for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act)

Chandler v. Miller

a case before the United States Supreme Court concerning the Constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment of a state statute requiring drug tests of all candidates for certain state offices. The case is notable as being the only one in recent years where the Supreme Court has upheld a challenge to a ballot access restriction from members of a third party, in this case the Libertarian Party of Georgia

Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan

a case decided 5-4 by the Supreme Court of the United States. The court held that the single-sex admissions policy of the Mississippi University for Women violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Davis v. Washington

a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that hearsay statements made in a 911 call asking for aid were not "testimonial" in nature and thus their introduction at trial did not violate the Confrontation Clause as defined in Crawford v. Washington

Herring v. United States

a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on January 14, 2009. The court decided that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies when a police officer makes an arrest based on an outstanding warrant in another jurisdiction, but the information regarding that warrant is later found to be incorrect because of a negligent error by that agency

Metro Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission

a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that intermediate scrutiny should be applied to equal protection challenges to federal statutes using benign racial classifications.[1] The Court distinguished the previous year's decision City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Company, 488 U.S. 469 (1989), by noting that it applied only to actions by state and local governments.[2] Metro Broadcasting was overruled by Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200 (1995), which held that strict scrutiny should be applied to federal laws that use benign racial classifications

Griffin v. Prince Edward County School District

a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia's decision to close all local, public schools and provide vouchers to attend private schools were constitutionally impermissible as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Turner v. Rogers

a case decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 20, 2011, that held that a state must provide safeguards to reduce the risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty in civil contempt cases such as child support cases. The decision, however, stopped short of requiring that a state provide counsel to indigent defendants in civil contempt child support cases in all cases

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that San Antonio Independent School District's financing system, which was based on local property taxes, was not an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. The majority opinion, reversing the District Court, stated that the appellees did not sufficiently prove a textual basis, within the US Constitution, supporting the principle that education is a fundamental right. Urging that the school financing system led to wealth-based discrimination, the plaintiffs had argued that the fundamental right to education should be applied to the States, through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court found that there was no such fundamental right and that the unequal school financing system was not subject to strict scrutiny.

Harris v. McCrae

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that States that participated in Medicaid were not required to fund medically necessary abortions for which federal reimbursement was unavailable as a result of the Hyde Amendment, which restricted the use of federal funds for abortion. The Court also held that the funding restrictions of the Hyde Amendment did not violate either the Fifth Amendment or the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Halbert v. Michigan

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Michigan law, which denied public counsel for defendants appealing a conviction on a plea, violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[1] In a majority opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court affirmed that "a State is required to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant's first-tier appeal as of right."

J.E.B. v. Alabama ex. rel. T.B.

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that making peremptory challenges based solely on a prospective juror's sex is unconstitutional. J.E.B. extended the court's existing precedent in Batson v. Kentucky (1986), which found race-based peremptory challenges in criminal trials unconstitutional, and Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company (1991), which extended that principle to civil trials. As in Batson, the court found that sex-based challenges violate the Equal Protection Clause

Atkins v. Virginia

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6-3 that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments, but states can define who has intellectual disability.[1] Twelve years later in Hall v. Florida the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the discretion under which U.S. states can designate an individual convicted of murder as too intellectually incapacitated to be executed

Plyler v. Doe

a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a state statute denying funding for education to illegal immigrant children and simultaneously struck down a municipal school district's attempt to charge illegal immigrants an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each illegal alien student to compensate for the lost state funding.[1] The Court found that where states limit the rights afforded to people (specifically children) based on their status as immigrants, this limitation must be examined under an intermediate scrutiny standard to determine whether it furthers a "substantial" state interest. The application of Plyler v. Doe has been limited to K-12 schooling. Other court cases and legislation such as Toll v. Moreno 441 U.S. 458 (1979) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996[2] have allowed some states to pass statutes that deny illegal alien students eligibility for in-state tuition, scholarships, or even bar them from enrollment at public colleges and universities

Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections

a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eleven southern states established poll taxes as part of their disenfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1964) prohibited poll taxes in federal elections; five states continued to require poll taxes for voters in state elections. By this ruling, the Supreme Court banned the use of poll taxes in state elections

Fullilove v. Klutznick

a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the U.S. Congress could constitutionally use its spending power to remedy past discrimination. The case arose as a suit against the enforcement of provisions in a 1977 spending bill that required 10% of federal funds going towards public works programs to go to minority-owned companies

City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co.

a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the city of Richmond's minority set-aside program, which gave preference to minority business enterprises (MBE) in the awarding of municipal contracts, was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court found that the city failed to identify both the need for remedial action and that other non-discriminatory remedies would be insufficient. Croson involved a minority set-aside program in the awarding of municipal contracts. Richmond, Virginia, with a black population of just over 50 percent had set a 30 percent goal in the awarding of city construction contracts, based on its findings that local, state, and national patterns of discrimination had resulted in all but complete lack of access for minority-owned businesses. The Supreme Court stated: "We, therefore, hold that the city has failed to demonstrate a compelling interest in apportioning public contracting opportunities on the basis of race. To accept Richmond's claim that past societal discrimination alone can serve as the basis for rigid racial preferences would be to open the door to competing claims for "remedial relief" for every disadvantaged group. The dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs. [Citing Regents of the University of California v. Bakke]. Courts would be asked to evaluate the extent of the prejudice and consequent harm suffered by various minority groups. Those whose societal injury is thought to exceed some arbitrary level of tolerability then would be entitled to preferential classification. We think such a result would be contrary to both the letter and the spirit of a constitutional provision whose central command is equality."

Vacco v. Quill

a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the right to die. It ruled 9-0 that a New York ban on physician-assisted suicide was constitutional, and preventing doctors from assisting their patients, even those terminally ill and/or in great pain, was a legitimate state interest that was well within the authority of the state to regulate. In brief, this decision established that, as a matter of law, there was no constitutional guarantee of a "right to die."

Batson v. Kentucky

a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenge in a criminal case—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race. The Court ruled that this practice violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case gave rise to the term Batson challenge, an objection to a peremptory challenge based on the standard established by the Supreme Court's decision in this case. Subsequent jurisprudence has resulted in the extension of Batson to civil cases (Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company) and cases where jurors are excluded on the basis of sex (J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B.). The principle had been established previously by several state courts, including the California Supreme Court in 1978, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1979 and the Florida Supreme Court in 1984

United Steelworkers of America v. Weber

a case regarding affirmative action in which the United States Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1964[1] did not bar employers from favoring women and minorities. The Court's decision reversed lower courts' rulings in favor of Brian Weber whose lawsuit beginning in 1974 challenged his employer's hiring practices

Furman v. Georgia

a criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court struck down all death penalty schemes in the United States in a 5-4 decision, with each member of the majority writing a separate opinion.[1]:467-8 Following Furman, to reinstate the death penalty, States had to at least remove arbitrary and discriminatory effects, to possibly satisfy the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[1]:468 The decision ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. This case led to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment throughout the United States, which came to an end when Gregg v. Georgia was decided in 1976 to allow the death penalty. The Supreme Court consolidated Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas with the Furman decision, and thus also invalidated the death penalty for rape (this ruling was confirmed post-Gregg in Coker v. Georgia). The Court had also intended to include the case of Aikens v. California, but between the time Aikens had been heard in oral argument and a decision was to be issued, the Supreme Court of California decided in California v. Anderson that the death penalty violated the state constitution. The Aikens case was dismissed as moot since all death sentences in California were reduced to life imprisonment

Missouri v. Seibert

a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that struck down the police practice of first obtaining an inadmissible confession without giving Miranda warnings, then issuing the warnings, and then obtaining a second confession. Justice David Souter announced the judgment of the Court and wrote for a plurality of four justices that the second confession was admissible only if the intermediate Miranda warnings were "effective enough to accomplish their object." Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in a concurring opinion that the second confession should be inadmissible only if "the two-step interrogation technique was used in a calculated way to undermine the Miranda warning."

Brewer v. Williams

a decision by the United States Supreme Court that clarifies what constitutes "waiver" of the right to counsel for the purposes of the Sixth Amendment. Under Miranda v. Arizona, evidence obtained by police during interrogation of a suspect before he has been read his Miranda rights is inadmissible. Here, however, the defendant had been indicted in court, and thus his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had automatically attached. At issue was whether a voluntary admission of incriminating facts in response to police statements constituted a waiver of this right to counsel

Carroll v. United States

a decision by the United States Supreme Court that upheld the warrantless search of an automobile, which is known as the automobile exception. The case has also been used to increase the scope of warrantless searches

Terry v. Ohio

a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous."[1] For their own protection, after a person has been stopped, police may perform a quick surface search of the person's outer clothing for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is armed. This reasonable suspicion must be based on "specific and articulable facts" and not merely upon an officer's hunch. This permitted police action has subsequently been referred to in short as a "stop and frisk," or simply a "Terry frisk". The Terry standard was later extended to temporary detentions of persons in vehicles, known as traffic stops; see Terry stop for a summary of subsequent jurisprudence. The rationale behind the Supreme Court decision revolves around the understanding that, as the opinion notes, "the exclusionary rule has its limitations." The meaning of the rule is to protect persons from unreasonable searches and seizures aimed at gathering evidence, not searches and seizures for other purposes (like prevention of crime or personal protection of police officers)

Vermont v. Brillon

a decision by the United States Supreme Court which ruled that when appointed counsel is responsible for delays in criminal proceedings, these delays are ordinarily attributable to the defendants they represent when conducting speedy trial analysis under Barker v. Wingo

Ashe v. Swenson

a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that "when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit." The Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a state from relitigating a question already decided in favor of a defendant at a previous trial. Here, the guarantee against double jeopardy enforceable through the Fifth Amendment provided that the government could not prosecute the criminal defendant in a second trial as it related to a different victim but the same robbery the criminal defendant was acquitted of in the first trial

Baze v. Rees

a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the constitutionality of a particular method of lethal injection used for capital punishment

Cooper v. Aaron

a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that the states are bound by the Court's decisions and must enforce them even if the states disagreed with them

Lochner v. New York

a landmark US labor law case in the US Supreme Court, holding that limits to working time violated the Fourteenth Amendment. A majority of five judges held that a New York law, that bakery employee hours had to be under 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week, violated the due process clause, which in their view contained a right of "freedom of contract". They said there was "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract." Four dissenting judges rejected this view, and Oliver Wendell Holmes's dissent in particular became one of the most famous opinions in US legal history. Lochner is one of the most controversial decisions in the Supreme Court's history, giving its name to what is known as the Lochner era. During this time, the Supreme Court issued several decisions invalidating federal and state statutes that sought to regulate working conditions during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. This period ended with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of minimum wage legislation enacted by the State of Washington.[1]

Frontiero v. Richardson

a landmark United States Supreme Court case [1] which decided that benefits given by the United States military to the family of service members cannot be given out differently because of sex

Romer v. Evans

a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), when the Court had held that laws criminalizing sodomy were constitutional.[1] The Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that a state constitutional amendment in Colorado preventing protected status based upon homosexuality or bisexuality did not satisfy the Equal Protection Clause.[2] The majority opinion in Romer stated that the amendment lacked "a rational relationship to legitimate state interests", and the dissent stated that the majority "evidently agrees that 'rational basis'—the normal test for compliance with the Equal Protection Clause—is the governing standard".[2][3] The state constitutional amendment failed rational basis review.[4][5][6][7] The decision in Romer set the stage for Lawrence v. Texas (2003), where the Court overruled its decision in Bowers,[1] for the Supreme Court ruling striking down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor (2013), and for the Court's ruling striking down state bans on same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Justice Anthony Kennedy authored all four opinions, and was joined by Justices Breyer and Ginsburg in every one

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools.[1] The Court held that busing was an appropriate remedy for the problem of racial imbalance in schools, even when the imbalance resulted from the selection of students based on geographic proximity to the school rather than from deliberate assignment based on race. This was done to ensure the schools would be "properly" integrated and that all students would receive equal educational opportunities regardless of their race. Judge John J. Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, like many in the South, interpreted Brown as a charge not to segregate rather than an order to integrate. In 1963, the Court ruled in McNeese v. Board of Education and Goss v. Board of Education in favor of integration, and showed impatience with efforts to end segregation. In 1968 the Warren Court ruled in Green v. County School Board that freedom of choice plans were insufficient to eliminate segregation, thus it was necessary to take proactive steps to integrate schools. In United States v. Montgomery County Board of Education (1969), Judge Frank Johnson's desegregation order for teachers was upheld, allowing an approximate ratio of the races to be established by a district judge

Brown v. Board of Education (I)

a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9-0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the Civil Rights Movement,[1] and a model for many future impact litigation cases.[2] However, the decision's fourteen pages did not spell out any sort of method for ending racial segregation in schools, and the Court's second decision in Brown II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955) only ordered states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed"

Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health

a landmark United States Supreme Court case involving a young adult incompetent. The first "right to die" case ever heard by the Court, Cruzan was argued on December 6, 1989 and decided on June 25, 1990. In a 5-4 decision, the Court affirmed the earlier ruling of the Supreme Court of Missouri and ruled in favor of the State of Missouri, finding it was acceptable to require "clear and convincing evidence" of a patient's wishes for removal of life support. A significant outcome of the case was the creation of advance health directives.

Betts v. Brady

a landmark United States Supreme Court case that denied counsel to indigent defendants when prosecuted by a state. It was famously overruled by Gideon v. Wainwright

Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña

a landmark United States Supreme Court case which held that racial classifications, imposed by the federal government, must be analyzed under a standard of "strict scrutiny," the most stringent level of review which requires that racial classifications be narrowly tailored to further compelling governmental interests. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority opinion of the Court, which effectively overturned Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547 (1990), in which the Court had created a two tiered system for analyzing racial classifications. Adarand held the federal government to the same standards as the state and local governments through a process of "reverse incorporation," in which the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause was held to bind the federal government to the same standards as state and local governments are bound under the 14th Amendment

Gideon v. Wainwright

a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are required under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases to represent defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by ruling that this right imposed those requirements upon the states as well

Griswold v. Connecticut

a landmark case in the United States in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution, through the Bill of Rights, implies a fundamental right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as a right to "protect[ion] from governmental intrusion." Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy", Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority that the right was to be found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional protections, such as the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion in which he used the Ninth Amendment in support of the Supreme Court's ruling. Justice Byron White and Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote concurring opinions in which they argued that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

United States v. Virginia

a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Virginia Military Institute (VMI)'s long-standing male-only admission policy in a 7-1 decision. (Justice Clarence Thomas, whose son was enrolled at VMI at the time, recused himself

Washington v. Glucksburg

a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously held that a right to assisted suicide in the United States was not protected by the Due Process Clause.

Grutter v. Bollinger

a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority in a 5-4 decision and joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, ruled that the University of Michigan Law School had a compelling interest in promoting class diversity. The court held that a race-conscious admissions process that may favor "underrepresented minority groups," but that also took into account many other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant, did not amount to a quota system that would have been unconstitutional under Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer concurred in judgment, but stated that they did not subscribe to the Court's belief that the affirmative measures in question would be unnecessary in 25 years. Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas, dissented, arguing that the University's "plus" system was, in fact, a thinly veiled and unconstitutional quota system. Chief Justice Rehnquist cited the fact that the percentage of African American applicants closely mirrored the percentage of African American applicants that were accepted. Justice Kennedy also dissented separately, arguing that the Court failed to apply, in fact, strict scrutiny as required by Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke. Both Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas also dissented separately

Loving v. Virginia

a landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Supreme Court's unanimous decision determined that this prohibition was unconstitutional, overruling Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. The decision was followed by an increase in interracial marriages in the U.S., and is remembered annually on Loving Day, June 12. It has been the subject of several songs and three movies, including the 2016 film Loving. Beginning in 2013, it was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States unconstitutional, including in the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges

Plessy v. Ferguson

a landmark constitutional law case of the US Supreme Court. It upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal".[1] The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.[2] After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), which had brought the suit and had arranged for Homer Plessy's arrest in an act of civil disobedience to challenge Louisiana's segregation law, stated, "We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is sacred."

Kennedy v. Louisiana

a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause did not permit a state to punish the crime of rape of a child with the death penalty

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. However, the court ruled that specific racial quotas, such as the 16 out of 100 seats set aside for minority students by the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, were impermissible. Although the Supreme Court had outlawed segregation in schools, and had even ordered school districts to take steps to assure integration, the question of the legality of voluntary affirmative action programs initiated by universities was unresolved. Proponents deemed such programs necessary to make up for past discrimination, while opponents believed they were illegal and a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. An earlier case that the Supreme Court had taken in an attempt to address the issue, DeFunis v. Odegaard (1974), was dismissed on procedural grounds. Allan P. Bakke, an engineer and former United States Marine Corps officer, sought admission to medical school, but was rejected for admission by several, in part because, in his early thirties, he was considered too old. After twice being rejected by the University of California, Davis, he brought suit in state court. The California Supreme Court struck down the program as violative of the rights of white applicants and ordered Bakke admitted. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case amid wide public attention. The case fractured the court; the nine justices issued a total of six opinions. The judgment of the court was written by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.; two different blocs of four justices joined various parts of Powell's opinion. Finding diversity in the classroom to be a compelling state interest, Powell opined that affirmative action in general was allowed under the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nevertheless, UC Davis's program went too far for a majority of justices, and it was struck down and Bakke admitted. The practical effect of Bakke was that most affirmative action programs continued without change. Questions about whether the Bakke case was merely a plurality opinion or binding precedent were answered in 2003 when the court upheld Powell's position in a majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger

Scott v. Sandford

a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on US labor law and constitutional law. It held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves",[2][3] whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court,[4][5] and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved man of "the negro African race"[6] who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the court denied Scott's request. The decision was only the second time that the Supreme Court had ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.[7] Although Taney hoped that his ruling would finally settle the slavery question, the decision immediately spurred vehement dissent from anti-slavery elements in the North, especially Republicans. Many contemporary lawyers, and most modern legal scholars, consider the ruling regarding slavery in the territories to be dictum, not binding precedent. The decision proved to be an indirect catalyst for the American Civil War. It was functionally superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1868, which gave African Americans full citizenship. The Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford is unanimously denounced by scholars. Bernard Schwartz says it "stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions—Chief Justice C.E. Hughes called it the Court's greatest self-inflicted wound".[8] Junius P. Rodriguez says it is "universally condemned as the U.S. Supreme Court's worst decision".[9] Historian David Thomas Konig says it was "unquestionably, our court's worst decision ever"

Roe v. Wade

a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. It was decided simultaneously with a companion case, Doe v. Bolton. The Court ruled 7-2 that a right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that this right must be balanced against the state's interests in regulating abortions: protecting women's health and protecting the potentiality of human life. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the third trimester of pregnancy. Later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court rejected Roe's trimester framework while affirming its central holding that a woman has a right to abortion until fetal viability. The Roe decision defined "viable" as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid." Justices in Casey acknowledged that viability may occur at 23 or 24 weeks, or sometimes even earlier, in light of medical advances. In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States, Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today about issues including whether, and to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-abortion and anti-abortion camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides.

Lawrence v. Texas

a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. The Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas in a 6-3 decision and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. The Court, with a five-justice majority, overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy. Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the 14th Amendment. Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants.[1] The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs were filed. Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates, and set the stage for further reconsiderations of standing law, including the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges which recognized same-sex marriage as a fundamental right.

Roper v. Simmons

a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18. The 5-4 decision overruled the Court's prior ruling upholding such sentences on offenders above or at the age of 16, in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), overturning statutes in 25 states that had the penalty set lower

Sell v. United States

a landmark decision in which the United States Supreme Court imposed stringent limits on the right of a lower court to order the forcible administration of antipsychotic medication to a criminal defendant who had been determined to be incompetent to stand trial for the sole purpose of making them competent and able to be tried. Specifically, the court held that lower courts could do so only under limited circumstances in which specified criteria had been met. In the case of Charles Sell, since the lower court had failed to determine that all the appropriate criteria for court-ordered forcible treatment had been met, the order to forcibly medicate the defendant was reversed. Previously, in Washington v. Harper 494 U.S. 210 (1990), the Supreme Court made clear that the forced medication of inmates with mental disorders could be ordered only when the inmate was a danger to themselves or others and when the medication is in the inmate's own best interests. In addition, courts must first consider "alternative, less intrusive means" before resorting to the involuntary administration of psychotropic medication.[1][2] Using the framework set forth in Riggins v. Nevada 504 U.S. 127 (1992), the Court emphasized that an individual has a constitutionally protected "interest in avoiding involuntary administration of antipsychotic drugs" and this interest is one that only an "essential" or "overriding" state interest might overcome

Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc.

a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the First Amendment and the ability of the government to outlaw certain forms of expressive conduct. It ruled that the state has the constitutional authority to ban public nudity, even as part of expressive conduct such as dancing, because it furthers a substantial government interest in protecting the morality and order of society. This case is perhaps best summarized by a sentence in Justice Souter's concurring opinion, which is often paraphrased as "Nudity itself is not inherently expressive conduct."

Miranda v. Arizona

a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 majority, the Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to interrogation by a defendant in police custody will be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant was informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights, but voluntarily waived them. This has a significant impact on law enforcement in the United States, by making what became known as the Miranda rights part of routine police procedure to ensure that suspects were informed of their rights. The Supreme Court decided Miranda with three other consolidated cases: Westover v. United States, Vignera v. New York, and California v. Stewart. The Miranda warning (often shortened to "Miranda", or "Mirandizing" a suspect) is the name of the formal warning that is required to be given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial situation) before they are interrogated, in accordance with the Miranda ruling. Its purpose is to ensure the accused are aware of, and reminded of, these rights under the U.S. Constitution, and that they know they can invoke them at any time during the interview. The circumstances triggering the Miranda safeguards, i.e., Miranda rights, are "custody" and "interrogation". Custody means formal arrest or the deprivation of freedom to an extent associated with formal arrest. Interrogation means explicit questioning or actions that are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. Per the U.S. Supreme Court decision Berghuis v. Thompkins (June 1, 2010), criminal suspects who are aware of their right to silence and to an attorney, but choose not to "unambiguously" invoke them, may find any subsequent voluntary statements treated as an implied waiver of their rights, and used in evidence. At least one scholar has argued that Thompkins effectively gutted Miranda

Shelley v. Kraemer

a landmark[1] United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate

Reed v. Reed

an Equal Protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes

Green v. School Board of New Kent County

an important United States Supreme Court case dealing with the freedom of choice plans created to avoid compliance with the Court's mandate in Brown II.[1] The Court held that New Kent County's freedom of choice plan did not constitute adequate compliance with the school board's responsibility to determine a system of admission to public schools on a non-racial basis. The Supreme Court mandated that the school board must formulate new plans and steps towards realistically converting to a desegregated system

Kyllo v. United States

held that the use of a thermal imaging, or FLIR, device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant

Ewing v. California

one of two cases upholding a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law against a challenge that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. As in its prior decision in Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), the United States Supreme Court could not agree on the precise reasoning to uphold the sentence. But, with the decision in Ewing and the companion case Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), the Court effectively foreclosed criminal defendants from arguing that their non-capital sentences were disproportional to the crime they had committed. Ewing was represented in the Court by Quin Denvir. The Attorney General of California argued for the State of California. Michael Chertoff argued on behalf of the United States as amicus curiae

Gregg v. Georgia

reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. Referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases[1] and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg, the Supreme Court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishments". The decision essentially ended the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238 (1972)

Spano v. New York

represented the Supreme Court's movement away from the amorphous voluntariness standard for determining whether police violated due process standards when eliciting confessions and towards the modern rule in Miranda v. Arizona. In Spano, the Court focused less on factors such as meals provided to the accused and more on whether the accused had access to legal counsel

Powell v. Alabama

the United States Supreme Court reversed the convictions of nine young black men for allegedly raping two white women on a freight train near Scottsboro, Alabama. The majority of the Court reasoned that the right to retain and be represented by a lawyer was fundamental to a fair trial and that at least in some circumstances, the trial judge must inform a defendant of this right. In addition, if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the court must appoint one sufficiently far in advance of trial to permit the lawyer to prepare adequately for the trial. Powell was the first time the Court had reversed a state criminal conviction for a violation of a criminal procedural provision of the United States Bill of Rights.[1] In effect, it held that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause included at least part of the right to counsel referred to in the Sixth Amendment, making that much of the Bill of Rights binding on the states as well as the federal government. Before Powell, the Court had reversed state criminal convictions only for racial discrimination in jury selection — a practice that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Slaughterhouse Cases

the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted. It was a pivotal case in early civil rights law and held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the privileges or immunities of citizenship of the United States, not privileges and immunities of citizenship of a state. However, federal rights of citizenship were then few, such as the right to travel between states and to use navigable rivers; the amendment did not protect the far broader range of rights covered by state citizenship. In effect, the amendment was interpreted to convey limited protection pertinent to a small minority of rights

Yick Wo v. Hopkins

the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that is race-neutral on its face, but is administered in a prejudicial manner, is an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution