Browse Results

Adamson v. California 

Adamson v. California Admiral Dewey Adamson, a poor, illiterate black man, had twice served time for robbery. He had, however, been out of prison for seventeen years when police arrested him for the . . .

Afroyim v. Rusk 

Afroyim v. Rusk Beys Afroyim was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States in 1912; he became a naturalized citizen in 1926. In 1950 he went to Israel and voted in an Israeli election the fo . . .

American Communications Association v. Douds 

American Communications Association v. Douds The Court's record in reviewing the loyalty cases that came before it during the McCarthy era shows that the judiciary, like the other branches of governm . . .

Baker v. Carr 

Baker v. Carr The Constitution is clear that each state is to have two senators and that members of the House of Representatives are to be apportioned according to the state's share of the population . . .

Barenblatt v. United States 

Barenblatt v. United States Lloyd Barenblatt, a former college teacher, was called as a witness before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) looking into alleged comm . . .

Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics 

Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics Federal narcotics agents entered Bivens's apartment without a warrant, manacled him in front of his wife and children, threatened to . . .

Bolling v. Sharpe 

Bolling v. Sharpe Argued together and decided with the state school desegregation cases in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), this case dealt with segregated schools in the D . . .

Brandenburg v. Ohio 

Brandenburg v. Ohio The Supreme Court reached the position it had been searching for regarding “subversive speech” in the final term of the Warren Court. In a per curiam decision, it did . . .

Bridges v. Wixon 

Bridges v. Wixon Harry Bridges was a permanent alien in the United States. A leader of the longshoreman's union, he was also allegedly affiliated with the Communist Party. The government had been try . . .

Brown v. Board of Education 

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas In June 1952 the Court announced that it would hear arguments in cases challenging school segregation in laws in Delaware (Gebhart v. Belton ), Virginia . . .

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Brown II) 

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Brown II) Chief Justice Warren's strategy in Brown I, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), assumed that the states would accept the inevitability of school desegregatio . . .

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire 

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire Walter Chaplinsky was a Jehovah's Witness. While preaching, he created a public disturbance, and the police came to escort him away. Chaplinsky protested his removal and c . . .

Colegrove v. Green 

Colegrove v. Green Three Illinois voters petitioned an Illinois district court to require the state to change the sizes and shapes of its congressional voting districts. The petitioners claimed that . . .

Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist 

Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist The New York legislature appropriated funds for the maintenance and repair of religiously affiliated schools, tuition reimbursement grant . . .

Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board 

Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board Congress passed the Subversive Activities Control Act, commonly known as the McCarran Act, in the spring of 1950. The statu . . .

Cooper v. Aaron 

Cooper v. Aaron The implementation of a Supreme Court decision is not based on the proverbial sword or purse, but rather on the moral authority the Court commands. Naturally, assistance from Congress . . .

Dennis v. United States 

Dennis v. United States In this case the Court pondered the constitutionality of the Smith Act as applied to eleven leaders of the Communist Party. They were indicted on two counts. The first was con . . .

Engel v. Vitale 

Engel v. Vitale The New York Board of Regents had prepared for use in public schools a “nondenominational” prayer that read: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, . . .

Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville 

Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville A Florida statute prohibited drive-in movie theaters from showing films containing nudity if the screen was visible from a street or public place. Richard Erznoznik, . . .

Escobedo v. Illinois 

Escobedo v. Illinois Danny Escobedo was taken into custody and interrogated about the fatal shooting of his brother-in-law. He repeatedly asked to see his attorney, who was in the station house, and . . .

Estes v. Texas 

Estes v. Texas On the day his trial for swindling began, Billy Sol Estes asked the judge to exclude television and radio broadcasters from the courtroom during the trial. The judge denied his motion. . . .

Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township 

Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township Observers assumed that when the Court incorporated the Free Exercise Clause during World War II, the Establishment Clause would also apply to the state . . .

Flast v. Cohen 

Flast v. Cohen The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 provided massive amounts of federal aid to public, private, and parochial schools. Florence Flast and other taxpayers filed suit in N . . .

Flood v. Kuhn 

Flood v. Kuhn, decided by a 5-3 vote, June 19, 1972. Blackmun wrote the opinion; Powell did not participate; Douglas, Brennan and Marshall dissented. Professional baseball remains exempt from federal . . .

Frontiero v. Richardson 

Frontiero v. Richardson Sharon Frontiero, a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, challenged a federal statute that provided an extra housing allowance and extra medical benefits to all married men in th . . .

Furman v. Georgia 

Furman v. Georgia This case involved three appeals from death penalty convictions, one for murder and two for rape. The cases came from Georgia and Texas. The majority held that the death penalty, as . . .

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. 

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. Elmer Gertz, a Chicago lawyer, represented the family of a young boy named Nelson, who had been shot by Nuccio, a Chicago police officer. Nuccio was eventually convicted o . . .

Gideon v. Wainwright 

Gideon v. Wainwright Although the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was not nationalized in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), that case made effective counsel an essential ingredie . . .

Gomillion v. Lightfoot 

Gomillion v. Lightfoot Black voters in Tuskegee, Alabama, charged that the state had drawn the city's boundaries so as to exclude all but a handful of African American voters without eliminating a si . . .

Gravel v. U.S., U.S. v. Gravel 

Gravel v. U.S., U.S. v. Gravel, decided by a 5-4 vote, June 29, 1972. White wrote the opinion; Douglas, Stewart, Brennan and Marshall dissented. The constitutional immunity of members of Congress ext . . .

Griswold v. Connecticut 

Griswold v. Connecticut In the spring of 1965 the Supreme Court decided one of a handful of cases that can truly be said to have established a new area of constitutional law. In Griswo . . .

Haupt v. United States 

Haupt v. United States Hans Max Haupt was convicted of treason against the United States. A military tribunal had earlier convicted Haupt's son Herbert of performing sabotage and spy work for the Ger . . .

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States The Civil Rights Act of 1964 consisted of eleven titles—or subsections—covering education, public accommodations, expanded powers for the attorney . . .

Hirabayashi v. United States 

Hirabayashi v. United States The first of the Japanese internment cases, which include Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), and Ex parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944), grew out of Executive O . . .

In re Gault 

In re Gault An enduring reform of the Progressive Era was the establishment of juvenile courts where minors were tried under rules far different from those of a regular criminal court and judges had . . .

In re Winship 

In re Winship When a juvenile is legally judged to be a delinquent, the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause requires that he be provided with a hearing. In In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 . . .

Jacobellis v. Ohio 

Jacobellis v. Ohio During the 1960s the Warren Court struggled valiantly to deal with the problem of obscenity. Because obscenity was held to be outside the protection of the First Amendment, the iss . . .

Katzenbach v. McClung 

Katzenbach v. McClung Black, Douglas, and Goldberg opinions are found in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964). . . .

Katzenbach v. Morgan 

Katzenbach v. Morgan Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided that no person who had successfully completed the sixth grade in Puerto Rico in which the language of instruction was other . . .

Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York 

Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York Harry Keyishian and others were teachers at the University of Buffalo, a private school that merged with State University of N . . .

King v. Smith 

King v. Smith Alabama, like every other state and U.S. territory, participated in the federal government's Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program (AFDC). The state's Department of Pensions a . . .

Korematsu v. United States 

Korematsu v. United States In the second of the Japanese internment cases—the first was Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943)—the Court was unable to evade the larger constitut . . .

Laird v. Tatum 

Laird v. Tatum, decided by a 5-4 vote, June 26, 1972. Burger wrote the opinion; Douglas, Brennan, Stewart and Marshall dissented. Persons who cannot claim that their own activities have been affected . . .

Lemon v. Kurtzman 

Lemon v. Kurtzman The Court decided three cases—Lemon v. Kurtzman from Pennsylvania and Earley v. DiCenso and Robinson v. DiCenso from Rhode Island and developed a test, known as the Lemon tes . . .

Loving v. Virginia 

Loving v. Virginia State laws regulating private conduct obviously constituted state action. Nearly all of the southern states had on their books laws prohibiting sexual relations, cohabitation, or m . . .

Mapp v. Ohio 

Mapp v. Ohio Mapp v. Ohio initially seemed to be a First Amendment case. Seven police officers attempted to gain entrance to the Cleveland home of Dollree Mapp, claiming they had informat . . .

Miller v. California 

Miller v. California In this case, the Supreme Court tried to resolve the conflict between the efforts of communities to regulate obscene material and the freedom of expression and of adults to read . . .

Miranda v. Arizona 

Miranda v. Arizona Ernesto Miranda, an indigent and semiliterate twenty-three-year-old, was arrested at his home and taken to a police station. There, he was identified by the victim of a rape-kidnap . . .

Monroe v. Pape 

Monroe v. Pape The civil rights movement affected not only school desegregation, public accommodations, and voting rights; it also touched all areas of modern life in which people are discriminated a . . .

Morissette v. United States 

Morissette v. United States Joseph Morissette, a Michigan farmer, was convicted of stealing government property from a rural forest area where he hunted. The land was used by the United States as a p . . .

New York Times Co. v. United States 

New York Times v. United States The case collectively known as the Pentagon Papers Case —New York Times Company v. United States and United States v. The Washington Post Company —was prof . . .

New York Times v. Sullivan 

New York Times v. Sullivan As late as 1942, in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, a unanimous Court had confidently listed “fighting words,” obscenity, and libel as examples of ex . . .

Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton 

Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton The state of Georgia sought to enjoin the proprietor of an adult film emporium from exhibiting two movies alleged to be obscene. The Georgia Supreme Court held that th . . .

Powell v. McCormack 

Powell v. McCormack Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a member of Congress from Harlem, was reelected to the House in 1966. Although he met the age, citizenship, and residency requirements for membership spel . . .

Reed v. Reed 

Reed v. Reed When Richard Lynn Reed, a minor, died without a will, both of his parents petitioned to be appointed the administrator of his estate. At the time Sally Reed and Cecil Reed were legally s . . .

Reid v. Covert 

Reid v. Covert Clarice Covert killed her husband, a sergeant in the United States Air Force, at an air base in England. She was tried by court-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ . . .

Reynolds v. Sims 

Reynolds v. Sims The Court's decision in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), led many state legislatures to redistrict voluntarily. In other states, however, reformers had to sue in st . . .

Roe v. Wade 

Roe v. Wade Jane Roe, a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, an unmarried pregnant woman in Dallas, Texas, wanted to terminate the pregnancy and brought suit in 1970 to prevent the Dallas County prosecutor, . . .

Roth v. United States 

Roth v. United States Obscenity, like libel, was long considered outside First Amendment protection and subject to state control. The Supreme Court's first encounter with obscenity came in a little n . . .

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez 

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez This case stemmed from a class action suit brought in 1968 by parents “on behalf of schoolchildren throughout the State [of Texas] who are m . . .

Schlesinger v. Reservists to Stop the War 

Schlesinger v. Reservists to Stop the War Members of the Reservists Committee sued to enjoin certain members of Congress from holding positions in the army reserves on the grounds that Article I, Sec . . .

Shelley v. Kraemer 

Shelley v. Kraemer The Court in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), voided local residence ordinances enforcing racial segregation as a deprivation of property rights in violation of the Fourteen . . .

Sierra Club v. Morton 

Sierra Club v. Morton This case involved the standing of an environmental advocacy organization to sue to prevent environmental damage that does not specifically harm any members of th . . .

South Carolina v. Katzenbach 

South Carolina v. Katzenbach The 1965 Voting Rights Act authorized the attorney general to send federal registrars into any county he suspected of practicing racial discrimination, in particular thos . . .

State of Louisiana ex. rel. Francis v. Resweber 

State of Louisiana ex. rel. Francis v. Resweber Petitioner Willie Francis was a convicted murderer sentenced to death by electrocution. Strapped into the electric chair, Francis received an electrica . . .

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education 

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education More than a decade after the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), many of the schools in the South rem . . .

Terry v. Ohio 

Terry v. Ohio Officer Martin McFadden, dressed in plainclothes, was patrolling a section of downtown Cleveland one afternoon when he noticed two men who, he explained later, “didn't look right . . .

Thornhill v. Alabama 

Thornhill v. Alabama Byron Thornhill was arrested while picketing Brown Wood Preserving Company and convicted for violating an Alabama statute that prohibited loitering or picketing around places of . . .

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District 

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District On December 16, 1965, Mary Beth Tinker, her brother John, and another student, Christopher Eckhardt, were sent home and then suspended from . . .

Trop v. Dulles 

Trop v. Dulles Albert L. Trop, while serving as a private in the U.S. Army stationed in French Morocco, caused some discipline problems within his unit and was confined to barracks. He escaped and be . . .

United States v. Nixon 

United States v. Nixon This case was one of the most dramatic decisions in American constitutional history. It had the immediate consequence of forcing President Richard Nixon to release secretly mad . . .

Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York 

Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York Frederick Walz, an owner of real estate in New York City, sued to enjoin the city's tax commission from granting a tax exemption to religious organizati . . .

Warth v. Seldin 

Warth v. Seldin Warth and other petitioners, described as low income, Hispanic, and African American residents of Rochester, New York, sued the suburban town of Penfield for a determination that cert . . .

Watkins v. United States 

Watkins v. United States John Watkins, a labor organizer, was summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He freely answered questions about himself and his activiti . . .

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette Following the decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940), in which the Court rejected a claim by Jehovah's Witnesses th . . .

Wickard v. Filburn 

Wickard v. Filburn No case better exemplified the antagonism of conservatives on the Supreme Court to the New Deal than United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936), in which the majority struck down t . . .

Williams v. Florida 

Williams v. Florida In this case and the companion case, Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66 (1970), the Supreme Court dealt with issues involving the fairness of criminal prosecutions. B . . .

Wisconsin v. Constantineau 

Wisconsin v. Constantineau, decided by a 6-3 vote, Jan. 19, 1971. Douglas wrote the opinion; Burger, Black and Blackmun dissented. Due process bars states from posting the names of excessive drinkers . . .

Wisconsin v. Yoder 

Wisconsin v. Yoder Members of the Amish Mennonite Church, sometimes know as the Old Order Amish, regularly withdrew their children from public school at age fourteen, in violation of state law that r . . .

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer 

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer In the spring of 1952 the United Steel Workers threatened to strike after the Wage Stabilization Board failed to negotiate a settlement between the union and the . . .

Zorach v. Clauson 

Zorach v. Clauson A New York City program allowed public schools to release students during the school day to receive religious education. A student could be released only on written request of his o . . .