Conlaw - high court case summaries Flashcards
City of Boerne v. Flores
Instant Facts: The local government denied a church a building permit and the church challenged the denial under federal law.
Black Letter Rule: Congress may take strong remedial measures to prohibit violations of the Constitution, but this does not give Congress the substantive power to interpret the meaning of constitutional provisions.
Katzenbach v. Morgan
Instant Facts: Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which prohibited enforcement of a New York literacy requirement.
Black Letter Rule: Under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress may pass a law prohibiting enforcement of state laws, regardless of whether the judiciary would hold the state law unconstitutional.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Instant Facts: A black slave sought freedom on the ground that he automatically became free when he and his master traveled to a part of the United States in which slavery was prohibited.
Black Letter Rule: Slaves are not “citizens” within the meaning of the Constitution, states cannot grant to a slave the right of citizenship in the United States, and under the Constitution, Congress cannot prohibit a citizen from owning slaves in a territory in which slavery is prohibited.
Plessy v. Ferguson
Instant Facts: Suit over the constitutionality of a state law which required railroads to provide “equal but separate” accommodations to whites and non-whites. Black Letter Rule: While the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly enacted to enforce the absolute equality of the races, it was not intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce social equality or a commingling of the races.
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education [Brown I—The Constitutional Ruling]
Instant Facts: African-American school children were denied admission to white schools by state segregation laws.
Black Letter Rule: Separate facilities in public education are inherently unequal and therefore violate equal protection.
Brown v. Board of Education II
[Brown II—The Implementation Decision]
Instant Facts: The Court ordered a rehearing in the case to determine appropriate relief for violation of the African-American students’ (P) equal protection rights.
Black Letter Rule: Due to varying local conditions, the lower courts shall be responsible for overseeing the implementation of Brown, which may not be practical to implement immediately, but nonetheless shall take place with deliberate speed.
New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer
New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer
Instant Facts: Suit regarding a government agency’s policy not to hire persons using narcotic drugs, which was applied to persons using methadone.
Black Letter Rule: An exclusionary scheme that is not directed against any individual or category of persons, but rather represents a policy choice made by a branch of government entitled to make such choices is constitutional because it does not circumscribe a class of persons characterized by some unpopular trait or affiliation.
Strauder v. West Virginia
Instant Facts: A black defendant brought suit regarding the fairness of excluding all non-white persons from jury service.
Black Letter Rule: Any law that expressly denies a person the right to participate as jurors in the administration of the law because of race is unconstitutional.
Korematsu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States
Instant Facts: Appeal of the conviction of a man of Japanese descent for remaining in his home in violation of a military order excluding Japanese descendants from their West Coast homes.
Black Letter Rule: All legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect and must be subjected to a high level of scrutiny.
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia
Instant Facts: An interracial couple was convicted in state court for violation of state miscegenation laws.
Black Letter Rule: Laws that classify on the basis of race are reviewed under equal protection with strict scrutiny and will not be upheld unless they are necessary to accomplish some permissible state objective.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis
Instant Facts: Black applicants to the D.C. Police force who had failed the civil service examination brought an equal protection challenge because a higher percentage of blacks failed the examination than whites.
Black Letter Rule: An otherwise neutral official action is not unconstitutional merely because it has a disproportionate racial impact.
McCleskey v. Kemp
McCleskey v. Kemp
Instant Facts: A black man sentenced to die for murdering a white person brought suit regarding the allegedly racially discriminatory manner in which Georgia’s capital sentencing scheme was administered.
Black Letter Rule: A defendant who alleges an equal protection violation has the burden of proving the existence of purposeful discrimination.
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena
Instant Facts: A subcontractor’s low bid in a federal project was rejected because of a federal racial classification.
Black Letter Rule: All racial classifications must be narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest.
Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York
Instant Facts: A national delivery company sought to challenge a New York City traffic regulation which prohibited advertisements on the side of vehicles, claiming that the regulation was in violation of equal protection because it did not apply to delivery vehicles which advertised the delivery service itself. Black Letter Rule: Where the government chooses to regulate a particular activity, the regulation will not be held invalid simply because it is not applicable to every form of that activity.
Grutter v. Bollinger
Instant Facts: Grutter (P), a white law school applicant, brought suit to challenge the University of Michigan Law School’s (D) policy of relying on an applicant’s race in the admissions decision.
Black Letter Rule: Racial classifications must be narrowly tailored to achieving a compelling state interest.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1
Instant Facts: Parents brought suit when their children were denied admittance to certain public schools based on the school district’s “assignment plan,” which was tied to the race of the students.
Black Letter Rule: When the government distributes benefits or burdens on the basis of individual racial classifications, the action is reviewed under strict scrutiny.
Craig v. Boren
Instant Facts: A state statute prohibited the sale of 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18.
Black Letter Rule: Statutes which discriminate based upon one’s sex violate equal protection if they create a gender-based classification that is not substantially related to an important governmental objective.
United States v. Virginia
Instant Facts: When the U.S. challenges a state military college’s male-only policy as violating Equal Protection, the state proposes to create a separate women-only program.
Black Letter Rule: State military schools offering boot-camp style training may not exclude women, even if they offer separate women-only programs, unless they demonstrate an “exceedingly persuasive justification.”
Romer v. Evans
Instant Facts: Colorado (D) amended its Constitution to prohibit and nullify all laws that protect homosexuals from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.
Black Letter Rule: A law which nullifies all other laws which protect homosexuals could not possibly have been adopted for any purpose except the bare desire to discriminate against homosexuals, and therefore does not pass a rational-basis equal protection review.
Sugarman v. Dougall
Instant Facts: An alien brought suit seeking to have a New York statute which excluded aliens from certain government positions deemed unconstitutional.
Black Letter Rule: Classifications based on alienage are subject to close judicial scrutiny (heightened scrutiny).
Slaughter-House Cases
Instant Facts: A Louisiana law that granted a monopoly for one corporation to maintain slaughterhouses in and around New Orleans is challenged by out-of-work butchers as a violation of the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Black Letter Rule: The 13th and 14th Amendments are to be read narrowly to apply only to former slaves and African-Americans.
Lochner v. New York
Instant Facts: An employer, who was arrested for violating a state law which prohibited bakers from working more than 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week, challenged the law on due process grounds.
Black Letter Rule: A law that infringes on freedom in the marketplace and freedom of contract is unconstitutional if it does not bear a reasonable relation to a legitimate governmental purpose.
Skinner v. Oklahoma
Instant Facts: Appeal of a state court order mandating the sterilization of a convicted criminal.
Black Letter Rule: When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same equality of offense and puts extra punishment on one and not the other, it has made an invidious discrimination.
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections
Instant Facts: Virginia charged voters a $1.50 poll tax as a condition on the right to vote.
Black Letter Rule: Voter wealth or the payment of any fee cannot be made a precondition for voting.
Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15
Instant Facts: Kramer (P) challenged a New York law limiting the vote in certain school district elections to those who owned or leased property in the district or who had children enrolled in the district’s schools.
Black Letter Rule: It is a violation of equal protection to restrict the voting in school district elections to parents and property owners or lessors.
Reynolds v. Sims
Instant Facts: The Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s districting scheme because it did not apportion its districts according to population which resulted in smaller districts (in population) having more representation in the state legislature than larger districts.
Black Letter Rule: A State must structure its elections and its state legislature so that its citizens are equally represented according to population.
City of Mobile v. Bolden
Instant Facts: Bolden (P) brought suit over Mobile’s (D) at-large city commission voting method, arguing that it discriminated against blacks.
Black Letter Rule: The Equal Protection Clause does not require proportionate representation as an imperative of political organization.
Shapiro v. Thompson
Instant Facts: Various states required their residents to live within the state for one year before they were eligible to receive state welfare benefits. The Supreme Court struck down the law as a violation of equal protection.
Black Letter Rule: Under Equal Protection a State may not grant or deny welfare benefits to its residents based upon the amount of time the residents have lived within its borders.
San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez
Instant Facts: School districts with a low property tax base spent less on education per pupil than those districts with a higher property tax base.
Black Letter aRule: Even though the system of financing education by collecting taxes on property in the school district leads to some disparity in spending per pupil across districts, it is not an irrational way for a state to fund education.
Griswold v. Connecticut
Instant Facts: The director of Planned Parenthood, arrested for providing advice to married couples in violation of a non-contraception statute, contends that the statute violates the 14th Amendment.
Black Letter Rule: A right of personal privacy emanates from the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, and it cannot be invaded absent a showing that the legislation is necessary to accomplish a compelling state interest.
Roe v. Wade
Instant Facts: A pregnant woman challenged a Texas law that prohibited abortion unless the woman’s life was in danger.
Black Letter Rule: The 14th Amendment supplies a broad right of privacy and personal autonomy, entitling a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy but also enabling state regulation of abortion at various stages of the pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey
Instant Facts: A family planning association challenges a state law which requires doctors to dispense information to, obtain the informed consent of, and retain information about pregnant women seeking abortions.
Black Letter Rule: The essential holding of Roe v. Wade remains valid, although the trimester framework and strict scrutiny approach are replaced by an undue burden test.
Lawrence v. Texas
Instant Facts: Lawrence (D) was convicted of deviate sexual intercourse with another man in violation of a state statute.
Black Letter Rule: State laws criminalizing homosexual relations violate substantive due process.
Obergefell v. Hodges
Instant Facts: State law denied Obergefell (P) the right to have his name listed on his husband’s death certificate as the surviving spouse, and he claimed the law was unconstitutional.
Black Letter Rule: State laws that deny same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry are unconstitutional.
United States Department of Agriculture v. Moreno
Instant Facts: A group of individuals who were excluded from the federal government’s food stamp program because they lived with unrelated persons challenged their exclusion from the program on the ground that the rule barring unrelated households from the program was wholly unrelated to the purpose of the statute.
Black Letter Rule: Even under rational basis scrutiny, a challenged classification must rationally further some legitimate governmental purpose.
City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc.
Instant Facts: Acting pursuant to municipal zoning ordinance requiring permits for such homes, a Texas city denied a special use permit for the operation of a group home for the mentally retarded.
Black Letter Rule: Because legislative or regulatory classifications based on mental retardation are neither suspect nor “quasi-suspect” their validity should be determined pursuant to a rational basis review.
Palmer v. Thompson
Instant Facts: A group of black citizens files suit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi challenging the city council’s decision to close public pools rather than operate them on a segregated basis as a violation of Equal Protection.
Black Letter Rule: A legislative act does not violate equal protection merely because it was motivated by a discriminatory purpose.
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney
Instant Facts: A female state employee who was passed over for promotion by several less qualified male applicants who had served in the armed forces filed an equal protection suit challenging the state personnel office’s stated preference for veterans.
Black Letter Rule: To be deemed purposefully discriminatory, a government act must have been taken because of, not merely in spite of, its adverse effects upon an identifiable group.
Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
Instant Facts: A real estate developer filed suit in federal court alleging that the decision of the defendant municipality to deny a rezoning request for low-and moderate-income housing was racially discriminatory and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Black Letter Rule: Where there is proof that a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in the decision, the judicial deference usually accorded to government action is no longer warranted.
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
Instant Facts: A black student and others filed a petition in federal District Court seeking relief from the failure of the Charlotte School to desegregate in an expedient manner consistent with Brown I.
Black Letter Rule: Once it has been shown that school officials have failed to comply with the constitutional principles announced in Brown v. Board of Education, district courts have at their discretion broad equitable powers which they may employ to remedy the violation.
Milliken v. Bradley
Instant Facts: A federal district court in Michigan ordered a multidistrict, area-wide remedy to address the racial segregation in only one of the 53 school districts in the metropolitan Detroit area.
Black Letter Rule: Before the boundaries of separate and autonomous school districts may be set aside by consolidating the separate units for remedial purposes or by imposing a cross-district remedy, it must first be shown that there has been a constitutional violation within one district that produces a significant segregative effect in another district.
Gratz v. Bollinger
Instant Facts: Gratz (P) was denied admission to the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts in favor of minority candidates.
Black Letter Rule: University admissions policies must take race into account, if at all, only on a case-by-case, individualized basis.
Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
Instant Facts: Fisher (P) claimed that the University of Texas’s (D) consideration of race for some applicants for admission violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Black Letter Rule: Satisfying the burden of proof under a strict scrutiny standard requires continuing reassessment, and that reassessment is undertaken in light of the experience and data generated since the adoption of the plan that uses race as a factor.
Frontiero v. Richardson
Instant Facts: A female lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force filed suit against the Armed Forces claiming that the statute creating the presumption that the wives of servicemen were “dependent” for the purpose of obtaining increased living allowances but requiring servicewomen to prove their husbands were “dependent” for such purposes was a violation of equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.
Black Letter Rule: Gender-based classifications are inherently suspect and must be subjected to strict scrutiny.
Geduldig v. Aiello
Instant Facts: A group of women filed a claim against the state of California challenging its disability insurance system on the ground that the denial of benefits for pregnancy related disability worked a discrimination against women in violation of equal protection.
Black Letter Rule: Discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is not in itself a violation of equal protection.
Orr v. Orr
Instant Facts: A man in a divorce proceeding sought to challenge upon equal protection grounds a state law which provided that men, but not women, could be required to pay alimony upon divorce.
Black Letter Rule: A state may not enact a statute requiring only men to pay alimony upon divorce.
Califano v. Webster
Instant Facts: An equal protection claim was brought against the federal government to challenge provisions of Social Security Act that allowed women to exclude three more lower earning years in the computation of the retirement benefits.
Black Letter Rule: Reduction of the disparity in economic condition between men and women caused by the long history of discrimination is a governmental interest sufficiently important to justify a gender based classification.
Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service
Instant Facts: Nguyen (D), a Vietnamese-born child of an unmarried American man and Vietnamese woman, faced deportation after two felony convictions in the United States.
Black Letter Rule: To withstand an equal protection challenge, a gender-based classification must be substantially related to achieving an important governmental objective.
Graham v. Richardson
Instant Facts: A resident alien living in Arizona sought to challenge a state law which prohibited resident aliens who had lived in the state less than 15 years from receiving welfare benefits.
Black Letter Rule: A State’s desire to preserve limited welfare benefits for its own citizens is inadequate to justify the exclusion of resident aliens from receiving a portion of those benefits.
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
Instant Facts: Employee sued employer for not paying her in accordance with the state’s minimum wage law.
Black Letter Rule: Freedom of contract is the general rule and the exercise of legislative authority to infringe upon that freedom the exception that must be justified by the existence of exceptional circumstances.
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
Instant Facts: Employee sued employer to recover difference between her actual wages and the minimum wage state law required that she be paid.
Black Letter Rule: Regulation that is reasonable in relation to its subject and is adopted in the interests of the community satisfies the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
United States v. Carolene Products Co.
Instant Facts: Company indicted for violating federal law prohibiting the shipping of adulterated milk products across interstate lines challenged constitutionality of the law.
Black Letter Rule: When reviewing legislation, the existence of facts supporting the legislation is to be presumed and such legislation shall not be pronounced unconstitutional unless it is of such character as to preclude the assumption that it rests upon some rational basis.
Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc.
Instant Facts: Optician brought suit to have law prohibiting him from dispensing lenses or fitting lenses in frames without a prescription from a licensed ophthalmologist or optometrist and to enjoin state officials from enforcing the law.
Black Letter Rule: Economic legislation will be upheld so long as there is any conceivable justification for it.
Saenz v. Roe
Instant Facts: California (D) paid residents who had lived in the state for less than 12 months lower welfare benefits than it paid other residents.
Black Letter Rule: Under the Privileges or Immunities Clause, a State must provide the same benefits to new residents as it does to other residents.
The Civil Rights Cases
Instant Facts: Owners of theaters and hotels were prosecuted for discriminating against African Americans.
Black Letter Rule: Under the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress does not have the power to pass laws prohibiting discrimination by private citizens.
Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co.
Instant Facts: An injured construction worker suing for negligence claimed that allowing the defendant to exclude jurors based on their race violated his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Black Letter Rule: When a private litigant in a civil action makes peremptory challenges based on the jurors’ race, he or she violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Crawford v. Marion County Election Board
Instant Facts: Indiana (D) enacted a statute that required voters to show a picture ID at the polls, and Crawford (P) claimed the statute was an unconstitutional burden on voting rights.
Black Letter Rule: Evenhanded restrictions on the right to vote that are related to voter qualifications and that protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process are valid.
Boddie v. Connecticut
Instant Facts: An indigent citizen challenged a Connecticut law which made the payment of a court fee a prerequisite to accessing the judicial system for the purpose of obtaining a divorce.
Black Letter Rule: The Due Process Clause prohibits the States from denying individuals seeking dissolution of their marriages access to the courts based solely on the person’s inability to pay court fees.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Instant Facts: When an employer demands its workers pass an intelligence test or obtain a high school diploma to advance, black workers complain of discriminatory effects.
Black Letter Rule: Employers may establish tests or degree requirements as criteria for advancement, even if this tends to exclude racial minorities, if the employers prove the tests/requirements measure employment capability.
Ricci v. DeStefano
Instant Facts: Eligible job applicants sued the City of New Haven (D) for race discrimination when it refused to certify the results of their job examinations because not enough minority candidates had passed.
Black Letter Rule: Under Title VII, before an employer can engage in intentional discrimination for the asserted purpose of avoiding or remedying an unintentional disparate impact, the employer must have a strong basis in evidence to believe it will be subject to disparate-impact liability if it fails to take the race-conscious, discriminatory action.
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.
Black Letter Rule: The Fair Housing Act prohibits entities from making housing decisions that have a disparate impact on a protected class, even if this impact is not intended by the entities making the decisions. Established precedent regarding similar antidiscrimination statutes makes clear that a disparate-impact claim may be brought if: (1) the language of the statue refers to the consequences of an action and not merely the intent of the actor, and (2) interpreting the statute to encompass a disparate-impact claim is consistent with the statute’s purpose.
Instant Facts: The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (Department) (defendant) determined which developers would be distributed credits based on specific selection criteria that the Department had established. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. (ICP) (plaintiff) was a nonprofit corporation that aided low-income families in obtaining housing. ICP claimed that the Department’s selection criteria had resulted in a disproportionately high allocation of tax credits to predominantly black neighborhoods as compared to white neighborhoods.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Instant Facts: A San Francisco ordinance making it unlawful to operate a laundry except in a brick or stone building was challenged because it was enforced only against Chinese laundries.
Black Letter Rule: A facially neutral law that is enforced only against a suspect class violates equal protection.
United States v. Armstrong
United States v. Armstrong
Instant Facts: Armstrong (D) and others were indicted on several charges involving possession and intent to distribute crack cocaine, as well as using a firearm. Armstrong (D) moved for discovery to show that he was singled out for prosecution because of his race.
Black Letter Rule: To obtain discovery on a claim of selective prosecution based on race, a defendant must produce evidence that similarly situated offenders of a different race could have been prosecuted, but were not.
Plyler v. Doe
Plyler v. Doe
Instant Facts: Children of illegal immigrants (P), who were themselves illegally in the United States, were denied the opportunity to attend public schools for free.
Black Letter Rule: If the State (D) is to deny a discrete group of innocent children the free public education that it offers other children residing within its borders, that denial must be justified by a showing that it furthers some substantial state interest.
