AP Test: SCOTUS

Question 1

Marbury v. Madison

Answer 1

1803: Established judicial review by cleverly denying itself a right (as the Judiciary Act of 1789 had given SCOTUS too great of a jurisdiction - struck down as “repugnant to the Constitution” and therefore “null and void”); midnight judges; John Marshall; Supreme Court becomes coequal

Question 2

McCulloch v. Maryland

Answer 2

1819: Established national supremacy; established implied powers; use of elastic clause; states unable to tax federal institutions; J. Marshall; “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

Question 3

Gibbons v. Ogden

Answer 3

1824: First landmark ruling/interpretation of Commerce Clause; states cannot regulate steamship traffic operating between two or more states; J. Marshall

Question 4

Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer 4

1896: Established doctrine of separate but equal - overturned by Brown in 1954

Question 5

Pierce v. Society of Sisters

Answer 5

1925: Oregon’s Compulsory Education Act, which sought to eliminate all parochial and private schools was unconstitutional per the Due Process Clause; the Court’s expansion of this clause’s protection of liberty in Pierce would later be used as precedent for many other equal rights: marry, have children, marital privacy, abortion.

Question 6

Gitlow v. New York

Answer 6

1925: HUGE: set precedent of federalizing Bill of Rights (applying them to the states) known as selective incorporation; states cannot deny freedom of speech; protected through 14th Amendment’s Due Process clause.

Question 7

Wickard v. Filburn

Answer 7

1943: Expanded the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity even if it doesn’t cross state lines since it could potentially affect other interstate trade.

Question 8

Korematsu v. United States

Answer 8

1944: The Supreme Court tacitly approved laws and military orders that sent Japanese Americans to internment camps. Government needs a good reason to limit civil rights, however, the Court said such action was reasonable during wartime by the commander-in-chief.

Question 9

Brown v. Board

Answer 9

1954: School segregation is unconstitutional; segregation is psychologically damaging to blacks; overturned Plessy; use of the 14th amendment; judicial activism of the Warren court; unanimous decision.