Case Decided: February 24, 1803 Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the Constitution as the supreme law of the United States, asserting the Court’s power of judicial review. The Supreme Court found that federal courts have the power to invalidate acts of other branches of government when they violate the Constitution. It’s one of the “checks and balances” central to the function of the federal government. In 1800, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson defeated Federalist John Adams to become the third president. Just before he left office, Adams created a slew of new judicial positions and appointed his political allies to fill them. When Jefferson took office, his Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver the commissions that would allow the judges to assume their duties. Some of the appointees, including William Marbury, petitioned the Supreme Court to force him to deliver the documents. Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for a unanimous court, ruled that while it was illegal for Madison to withhold the commissions, the Court did not have the authority to force Madison to deliver them. The ruling struck down as unconstitutional a part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 granting the Court power to issue an order known as a writ of mandamus. Over 50 years will pass before the Supreme Court uses its power of judicial review again in the Dred Scott case.
Case Decided: March 6, 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) denied blacks citizenship under the Constitution and invalidated the Missouri Compromise, Congress’ effort to balance slave and free states. The Court’s 7-2 ruling held that a black man—no matter free or slave—could never be a U.S. citizen or sue in federal courts. Born a slave, Dred Scott traveled with his owner, army doctor John Emerson, from the slave state of Missouri to Illinois and Wisconsin (a free state and territory) before returning to St. Louis. Three years after Dr. Emerson died in 1843, Scott sued to win his freedom. He asserted that he became free once he set foot on free soil. Chief Justice Roger Taney, in his opinion for the Supreme Court, stated that Scott’s race barred him from citizenship and legal recourse. The Chief Justice further concluded that it was unconstitutional for an act of Congress to designate free territories. Taney intended his decision to solve the slavery question, but it had the opposite effect, further inflaming tensions between North and South and hastening the Civil War. It is widely regarded as the worst decision in the history of the Supreme Court.
Case Decided: April 14, 1873 The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) limited the “privileges and immunities” of U.S. citizenship guaranteed by the newly enacted Fourteenth Amendment. At a time when many rights were given and regulated by states rather than the federal government, the Court’s decision applied the Amendment only to those rights explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. In 1869, the Louisiana state legislature granted a monopoly of the New Orleans slaughtering business to a single corporation. Local butchers operating separate slaughtering businesses sued Louisiana under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause. The butchers argued that the state unconstitutionally deprived them of the "privilege" of operating slaughterhouse companies and prevented them from earning a living. The Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the Privileges and Immunities Clause was not violated by the monopoly. The clause only affected the rights of U.S. citizenship, not state citizenship. By designating the rights of state citizens as beyond federal protection, this decision opened the door for Jim Crow laws in the post-Reconstruction South.
Case Decided: April 17, 1905 Lochner v. New York (1905) is the namesake case of the “Lochner Era,” in which the Court struck down many state and federal regulations on working conditions. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a New York law limiting the number of hours a baker could work violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guaranteed “liberty of contract.” New York passed the Bakeshop Act in 1895 to improve sanitation and limit bakery employees to a sixty-hour work week. Bakery owner Joseph Lochner ran afoul of the law when his employee worked longer hours than legally permitted. After appeals to New York courts, Lochner took his case to the Supreme Court, which found that the Bakeshop Act infringed on his right to enter into a contract with his worker. In a 5-4 decision overturning the law, the Court recognized a “freedom of contract,” finding the act outside the police powers of the state. By the 1930s the Court began to reject “substantive due process” for economic regulations, but it became the basis for protecting personal rights like privacy in the 1960s.
Case Decided: March 3, 1919 Schenck v. United States (1919) helped define the limits of the First Amendment right to free speech, particularly during wartime. It created the “clear and present danger” standard, which explains when the consequences of speech allow the government to limit it. In this case, the Court chose to unanimously uphold activist Charles Schenck’s conviction after he distributed leaflets urging young men to resist the draft during World War I. As general secretary of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia, Schenck prepared leaflets that urged young men to “assert your rights” in the face of conscription. In the midst of the First World War, the U.S. government regarded calls for draft resistance as dangerous to national security. Charles Schenck was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917, which prohibited “disloyal” acts. He was convicted and appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that his actions were protected as part of his First Amendment freedom of speech. A wartime Court felt differently and ruled to uphold the Act. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in this famous opinion, compared Schenck’s actions to “falsely shouting fire in the theatre and causing a panic.” This expression is still widely used as an example of the limits of free speech.
Case Decided: December 18, 1944 In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, upheld the government’s forceful removal of 120,000 people of Japanese descent, 70,000 of them U.S. citizens, from their homes on the West Coast to internment camps in remote areas of western and midwestern states during World War II. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941 prompted anti-Japanese sentiment across the country and fears that Japanese Americans on the West Coast were still loyal to Japan. In response to these fears, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the War Department to remove persons of Japanese ancestry from their homes and confine them to internment camps. American-born Fred Korematsu refused to leave his home in California. He tried to avoid capture and relocation, but when he was eventually caught, he challenged his conviction, arguing that internment was a violation of his constitutional rights. In the Court’s 6-3 decision, Justice Hugo Black acknowledged that racial discrimination is “immediately suspect” but said that interning Japanese Americans was within the war powers of Congress and the president. Fred Korematsu’s conviction was eventually overturned in 1983, and in 1998, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton.
Case Decided: June 2, 1952 Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer (1952) significantly curbed executive power when the Court overturned President Truman’s seizure of steel mills during the Korean War. The Court ruled 6-3 that the President’s actions were unconstitutional because they had not been authorized by Congress. By deciding that the Constitution gives Congress and not the president this authority, the Court affirmed the “separation of powers” essential to American government. In 1952, nearly two years into U.S. involvement into the Korean War, the United Steel Workers of America clashed with industry managers and threatened to strike for higher wages. Steel was an integral part of the war effort, and President Truman felt he couldn’t risk a halt in production. Rather than using labor laws passed by Congress to avert a strike, he ordered his secretary of commerce, Charles Sawyer, to seize and operate the steel mills. Appeased, the union called off the strike, but the steel companies immediately fought back against the President’s seizure of their property. The Court sided with the companies, concluding that nothing in the Constitution authorized the president to seize property in wartime without approval from Congress. While cases like Schenck and Korematsu point to the expanded powers of the executive branch during wartime, Youngstown serves as a reminder that these powers have their limits.
Case Decided: May 17, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education (1954) struck down the doctrine of “separate but equal” established by the earlier Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson. In Brown, the Court ruled racial segregation in public schools inherently unequal and unconstitutional based on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Even though Linda Brown lived just blocks away from an all-white elementary school, she had to walk across railroad tracks and catch a bus to an all-black school farther away. In 1951, her father, Oliver Brown, joined with other black parents in Topeka and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to sue the local board of education, challenging school segregation. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the Supreme Court’s first African American justice, argued that segregated schools could never be equal. The Supreme Court, in its unanimous opinion, agreed. The justices were influenced by the famous “doll experiments,” which demonstrated the psychological impacts of internalized racism on black children. The Court ruled that segregation itself was harmful and a violation of the constitutional right to equal protection under the law. The decision prompted a backlash across the South but also contributed to a watershed moment in the civil rights movement that struck down segregation laws during the 1960s.
Case Decided: March 26, 1962 Baker v. Carr (1962) established the right of federal courts to review redistricting issues, which had previously been termed "political questions" outside the courts' jurisdiction. The Court’s willingness to address legislative reapportionment in this Tennessee case paved the way for the “one man, one vote” standard of American representative democracy. The early 1900s saw both population increases and rapid urban migration in America. In Tennessee, while people flocked to cities like Memphis, the legislative districts stayed the same. Although more people were voting in urban areas, they still had the same amount of political representation as rural districts with significantly fewer residents. In 1960, roughly two-thirds of Tennessee’s representatives were being elected by one-third of the state’s population. A group of urban voters including Memphis resident Charles Baker sued Tennessee Secretary of State Joseph Carr for more equal representation. In a 6-2 decision, Justice William Brennan wrote for the majority that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause was valid grounds to bring a reapportionment lawsuit. This decision opened the floodgates for similar lawsuits that redrew election maps around the country.
Case Decided: June 13, 1966 Hear Oral Argument Miranda v. Arizona (1966) gave rise to the “Miranda warning” now issued upon arrest after the Court ruled 5-4 that suspects must be informed of their rights before they are questioned. These rights include the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. In 1963, Phoenix police arrested Ernesto Miranda as a suspect in a recent kidnapping and rape case. The victim identified Miranda in a lineup, and after being interrogated by officers for two hours, he signed a written confession admitting his guilt. The form Miranda signed included a general acknowledgement that he had “knowledge of my legal rights,” but Miranda’s attorney argued at trial and before the Supreme Court that no one told Miranda what those rights were. In his opinion for the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren directed police departments across the country to inform suspects of their right to an attorney and against self-incrimination before questioning them. The ruling forever changed law enforcement practices and made the words “you have a right to remain silent…” widespread on television and throughout American life.
Case Decided: January 22, 1973 Hear Oral Argument Roe v. Wade (1973) determined that a woman’s right to have an abortion is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy established by the previous Supreme Court case Connecticut v. Griswold. The Court ruled, however, that this right is not absolute; states can restrict an abortion based on the viability of the fetus. “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff in this case, was a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman who discovered she was pregnant in 1969. Texas law at the time outlawed abortion except in rare cases. Two Texas lawyers looking to challenge the statute helped McCorvey sue Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade in a test case that they hoped would legalize abortion. In a 7-2 decision, Justice Blackmun wrote that a woman’s right to an abortion is part of her right to personal privacy, a right the Court found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of personal liberty. The ruling tied the legality of abortion to the medical realities of pregnancy. It legalized abortion in the first trimester but allowed states to regulate it starting in the second trimester and to outlaw it when the fetus becomes viable. Norma McCorvey has since undergone a religious conversion and now opposes abortion, which remains a controversial topic of both public opinion and the law.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) is one of the most important Supreme Court cases regarding federal power. In a unanimous decision, the Court established that Congress had implied constitutional power to create a national bank and that individual states could not tax a federally chartered bank. The Court stated Congress was authorized to pass laws "necessary and proper" in order to carry out its duties.
Civil Rights Cases (1883) were a series of five cases that were decided en bloc. Despite the post-Civil War Reconstruction Period, the Court in an 8-1 decision held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was not constitutional under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. This set the tone for the legality of the Jim Crow era of segregation for African Americans.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins The Court's decision in this was seen as trailblazing -- it struck down legislation aimed at closing Chinese-operated laundries in San Francisco and guaranteed non-citizens the Constitution's protections. It was the first case to use the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. In a unanimous decision the Supreme Court ruled laws with discriminatory intent were unconstitutional. This landmark case has been cited over 150 times since the Court's decision.
In Plessy v. Ferguson the Court infamously ruled it was within constitutional boundaries for the state of Louisiana to enforce racial segregation in public facilities. In a 7-1 ruling (one of the nine Justices didn't consider the case due to the unexpected death of one of his daughters), the Court established that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to enforce racial equality, not to eliminate the distinction based on color. Under that reasoning, the Court ruled segregation could not be considered unconstitutional. The decision was the birth of the "separate but equal" doctrine that African Americans lived under for decades until it was later overturned with the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
Gideon v. Wainwright is responsible for changing the criminal justice system by granting criminal defendants the right to an attorney, even if they can't afford one on their own. The Court ruled that under the Sixth Amendment, state and federal courts were to respect the rights of the accused and allow them the opportunity to defend themselves.
Griswold v. Connecticut struck down a Connecticut law, applied to married couples, that banned contraceptives and the ability to receive information about the use of contraceptives. In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that the Connecticut law violated the right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Katz v. United States extended the Fourth Amendment's "unreasonable searches and seizures" protection to include recordings of conversations, not just personal effects. The Court held that wiretapping violated the privacy of the criminal defendant, Charles Katz -- privacy that he expected to have once entering a phone booth and closing the door.
Brandenburg v. Ohio established the Imminent Lawless Action test used to determine when speech protected under the First Amendment can be lawfully restricted. In Brandenburg, the Court held that hate speech is protected under the First Amendment as long as it does not provoke violence.
Tinker v. Des Moines determined it was a First Amendment violation for public schools to punish students for expressing themselves. In a 7-2 decision, the Court concluded that the rights of children are parallel to the rights of adults and that "students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views."
New York Times v. United States, better known as the “Pentagon Papers” case, was a decision expanding freedom of the press and limits on the government's power to interrupt that freedom. President Richard Nixon used his executive authority to prevent the New York Times from publishing top secret documents pertaining to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the President’s attempt to prevent the publication was a violation of First Amendment protections for press freedom.
Gregg v. Georgia held that Georgia's death penalty statute was constitutional. The Court claimed the statute did not constitute a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments. This case established a constitutional basis for the death penalty, but also established limits to how it could be carried out.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke was a controversial case challenging the legal grounding of affirmative action programs in college admissions. A difficult decision for the Justices, the Court decided that affirmative action in college admissions was constitutional, but that racial quotas like those used by the University of California at the time, were not.