Court Cases

Question 1

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Answer 1

This case involved the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Supreme Court declared that the law conflicted with the U.S. Constitution, and the case established the principle of judicial review wherein the Supreme Court has the power to declare laws passed by Congress and signed by the president to be unconstitutional.

Question 2

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Answer 2

Key points: The Necessary and Proper Clause and the Supremacy Clause. The case about whether the Congress had the ability to create a 2nd National Bank and whether Maryland could tax the federal government gave expansive power to the federal Congress and also reinforced the Supremacy by saying a state cannot tax a federal institution.

Question 3

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Answer 3

The Supreme Court ruled in this case that the Federal Government had exclusive power over interstate commerce. The Court said that any conflicting state government laws or actions on interstate commercial activities were void. This court case increased the power of the Federal Government when using the commerce clause.

Question 4

Barron v. Baltimore (1833)

Answer 4

This landmark Supreme Court ruling said that the Bill of Rights did not apply to state or city government laws and actions. Therefore, the civil liberties and civil rights listed in the Bill of Rights were only protected under the Federal Government’s laws and actions; not by state governments. Because of the Supreme Court not applying the Bill of Rights to state laws and actions, the 14th Amendment was passed later so that the constitution did apply standards of equal protection and due process to state government laws.

Question 5

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856)

Answer 5

This case concerned the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, which declared that certain states would be entirely free of slavery. A slave, who was brought by his owner into free territories and back to Missouri, a slave state, sued claiming that his time living in free territory made him free. The court declared that the relevant parts of the Missouri Compromise were unconstitutional, and that he remained a slave as a result.

Question 6

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Answer 6

When a man of mixed racial heritage, sat in a whites-only railroad car in an attempt to challenge a Louisiana law that required railroad cars be segregated, he was arrested and convicted. The court refused his appeal that the law was in a violation of the equal protection principle because the different train cars were separate but equal.

Question 7

United States v. Miller (1939)

Answer 7

In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the 1934 National Firearms Act’s prohibition of sawed-off shotguns, largely on the basis that possession of such a gun was not related to the goal of promoting a “well-regulated militia.”

Question 8

Korematsu v. United States (1944)

Answer 8

During World War II, citizens of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, whether naturalized immigrants or Japanese Americans born in the United States, were subjected to the indignity of being removed from their communities and interned under Executive Order 9066. When challenged, the Supreme Court decision in this case upheld the actions of the government as a necessary precaution in a time of war.

Question 9

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

Answer 9

This case challenged the principle of “separate but equal.” It was brought by students who were denied admittance to certain public schools based exclusively on race. The unanimous decision in this case determined that the existence of racially segregated public schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 10

Mapp v. Ohio (1961)

Answer 10

In this Supreme Court case it was decided that evidence obtained without a warrant that didn’t fall under one of the exceptions mentioned above could not be used as evidence in a state criminal trial, giving rise to the broad application of what is known as the exclusionary rule, which was first established in 1914 on a federal level in Weeks v. United States.

Question 11

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

Answer 11

This case perpetuated from the arrest of a man who was accused of breaking into a poolroom and stealing money from a cigarette machine. Not being able to afford a lawyer, and being denied a public defender by the judge, the man defended himself and was subsequently found guilty. Upon his appeal, the Supreme Court declared that the Sixth Amendment required that those facing felony criminal charges be supplied with legal representation.

Question 12

Sherbert v. Verner (1963)

Answer 12

In this case the Supreme Court ruled that states could not deny unemployment benefits to an individual who turned down a job because it required working on the Sabbath, a religious holy day requiring no physical labor be done for Seventh-Day Adventist petitioner, Adeil Sherbert. The Court with this case established a four-pronged test to help determine when a law violates the “Free Exercise of Religion” clause of the 1st amendment. 1). Does the person have a claim involving a sincere religious belief? and 2). Does the government law cause a substantial burden on the person’s ability to act on that sincere religious belief? If the answer to #1 and #2 is “yes”, then the Court requires the government to demonstrate that 3). It is acting to further a compelling government interest with its law; and 4). It is using the least restrictive means to pursue that compelling government interest.

Question 13

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

Answer 13

Although several state constitutions do list the right to privacy as a protected right, the explicit recognition by the Supreme Court of a right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution emerged only in the middle of the twentieth century. In this 1965 case, the court spelled out the right to privacy for the first time in a case that struck down a state law forbidding even married individuals the right to use any form of contraception. The case centered on Estelle Griswold, the head of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut. She and a partner opened a family planning clinic that distributed sexual contraception materials to married couples in violation of Connecticut’s Comstock Law that prohibited the use of contraception. The Court majority ruled that the Constitution implicitly guaranteed in the 1st, 3rd, 9th, and 14th amendments a right to privacy among married couples to do whatever they wanted in the privacy of their relationship. The Connecticut state law was ruled an unconstitutional violation of a federally protected right to privacy for all U.S. citizens and residents.

Question 14

Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

Answer 14

When a man was arrested, interrogated, and confessed to kidnapping, the arresting officers neglected to inform him of his Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate. His appeal to the Supreme Court upon being found guilty resulted in a decision that the right to not incriminate oneself relies heavily a suspect being informed of these rights at the time of arrest. This ensures that any statements they provide are voluntary.

Question 15

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)

Answer 15

Students were suspended for wearing black armbands to school as a protest against the continuing American involvement in the Vietnam conflict. The Supreme Court ruled in this case the suspensions violated the free speech rights of the students and the symbolic political speech that this protest represented.

Question 16

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

Answer 16

In this case involving the Ku Klux Klan, the Supreme Court found that only speech or writing that constituted a direct call or plan to imminent lawless action, an illegal act in the immediate future, could be suppressed; the mere advocacy of a hypothetical revolution was not enough.

Question 17

Cohen v. California (1971)

Answer 17

This case involved an arrest and conviction for disturbing the peace for wearing a jacket expressing opposition to the draft (and the Vietnam War). The conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court since his actions were silent and he made no attempt to otherwise disturb the peace.

Question 18

Gillette v. United States (1971)

Answer 18

To avoid serving in the Vietnam War, many people claimed to have a conscientious objection to military service on the basis that they believed this particular war was unwise or unjust. However, the Supreme Court ruled in this case that to claim to be a conscientious objector, a person must be opposed to serving in any war, not just some wars.

Question 19

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)

Answer 19

In this case the Supreme Court established a test for deciding whether a law or other government action that might promote a particular religious practice should be allowed to stand. The case involved the U.S. of taxpayer money to partially pay salaries to private Catholic school teachers for the teaching of secular (non-religious) subjects in Pennsylvania. The court’s “three-pronged Lemon Test” asked 1). Does the law have a secular purpose? If not, it violates the Establishment clause; 2). Is the primary effect either to advance or inhibit religion? Is so, it violates the Establishment clause; and 3). Does the law foster an “excessive government entanglement with religion?” Is so, it violates the Establishment clause.

Question 20

New York Times Co. v. The United States (1971)

Answer 20

This legal opinion and standard upheld by the Supreme Court prevented the government from unfairly barring the publication of sensitive information without a clear reason to do so. Most famously, the New York Times Co. vs. the United States (1971) pitted President Richard Nixon against the NY Times and the Washington Post regarding publication of the Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court said that government censorship of the freedom of the press (prior restraint) could not happen unless whatever the press published would cause ‘inevitable, direct and immediate harm’ to national security.

Question 21

Branzburg v. Hayes (1972)

Answer 21

The Court ruled that requiring news reporters to disclose “confidential information” to a grand jury DID serve a “compelling and paramount state interest” and did NOT violate the 1st amendment protection of free speech (as the media wanted to claim an absolute right to protect sources). The case involved a reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal (KY) who had been interviewing / observing people manufacturing and using illegal drugs. The reporter refused to honor two grand jury testimony subpoenas, claiming the confidentiality of his sources exempted him from testifying before a Grand Jury inquiry.

Question 22

Furman v. Georgia (1972)

Answer 22

A man was caught burglarizing a private home. As he fled the scene he tripped causing the gun to accidently fire, killing the individual who discovered him. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In this case the court laid out guidelines for capital punishment.

Question 23

Miller v. California (1973)

Answer 23

The Supreme Court used this case to establish a test for deciding whether something is obscene. This produced the “miller” test wherein courts ask four fundamental questions to help determine obscenity, including 1). Would the average person applying community standards find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to ‘prurient’ interests? 2). Does the work depict or describe in a patently offensive way sexual conduct defined by the applicable state law? 3). Does the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value?

Question 24

Roe v. Wade (1973)

Answer 24

This case involved a pregnant woman from Texas who desired to terminate her pregnancy. The case challenged Texas laws that outlawed abortion except by a doctor’s order to save the woman’s life. The Supreme Court case centered on the question of whether there is a constitutional right to privacy implied in either the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th, or 14th amendments and whether that right to privacy extended to a woman’s right to determine her own reproductive choices with her own body. The court ultimately determined that the right to privacy does exist and that such privacy extends to the question of abortion. However, the court recognized the obligation to balance the right to privacy against the state’s interest to protect the “potentiality of life.” The resulting trimester standard asserted that the government could not restrict access to abortion in the 1st pregnancy trimester. In the 2nd trimester, the government could regulate abortion with measures reasonably related to maternal health. In the 3rd trimester, the government could regulate or outright prohibit abortion once a fetus became ‘viable’ as long as the regulation or law included exceptions to protect the life or health of the mother.

Question 25

Buckley v. Valeo (1976)

Answer 25

A landmark court case that held spending money in an election was essentially equivalent to free speech and struck down several provisions of campaign finance law that had previously been in place. The Supreme Court answered two questions in this case; that individual restrictions on campaign donations did not violate the First Amendment, however; secondly that the limitation on expenditures by candidates for campaign purposes does violate the First Amendment.

Question 26

Texas v. Johnson (1989)

Answer 26

As part of a protest, an individual set fire to a U.S. flag that another protestor had torn from a flagpole. He was arrested, charged with “desecration of a venerated object” under Texas law and eventually convicted. However, the Supreme Court decided in this case that burning the flag was a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment and found the Texas venerated objects law, as applied to flag desecration, to be unconstitutional.

Question 27

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey (1992)

Answer 27

This landmark ruling involved a challenge to abortion restrictions in Pennsylvania law that would require a woman to 1) have a 24-hour waiting period; 2) grant informed consent; 3) a married woman had to indicate she had informed her husband of the intent to abort her fetus; and 4) required that a minor seeking an abortion had to have the consent of one parent (with limited exceptions). A very divided court upheld the Pennsylvania law on all counts except the requirement of a married woman to indicate she had informed her husband of her intent. The court struck down this provision in the law as a violation of the 14th amendment due process. In the ruling, the Supreme Court also broke with the Roe v. Wade precedent that created different rules for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trimester of pregnancy and that held a strict scrutiny standard for judicial review. In its place, the Court established a “viable fetus” standard that argued the state had a compelling interest in protecting the potentiality of life and therefore could impose legislation regulating abortion once the fetus was deemed ‘viable’ even into the 1st trimester of gestation.

Question 28

Miller v. Johnson (1995)

Answer 28

A court case addressing racial gerrymandering. The case ruled that Georgia’s congressional House districts violated the 14th Amendment’s “Equal Protection” clause since the odd, non-compact district boundaries undermined the concept of “ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE” by giving some voters more influence than others in an intentional way. The court set a general standard that NON-COMPACTNESS is a clear sign of racial segregation built into a single district. See Shaw v. Reno (1993) that rejected the creation of two African American “majority-minority” districts in NC as violating the same Equal Protection clause (and requiring “strict scrutiny” standards for the government to justify a “compelling governmental interest” for such practice).

Question 29

Heller v. District of Columbia (2008)

Answer 29

The Court ruled that the District of Columbia handgun law that included a ban on registering handguns, the prohibition on carrying handguns, and legal provisions that required unregistered handguns be kept disassembled or nonfunctional with a trigger lock mechanism in the home was unconstitutional. In a 5-4 majority decision, the Court ruled that the original intent of the 2nd amendment extended beyond the formation of a government-sponsored militia and assumed a general right for all adult people to have a commonly used weapon like a handgun actively assembled in the home for self-defense.

Question 30

McDonald v. Chicago (2010)

Answer 30

When the Supreme Court initially decided (District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008) that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, that ruling initially applied only to Washington, D.C. as a federal district. However, the McDonald v. Chicago case two years later affirmed that the precedent set with District of Columbia v. Heller carried over to all government at all levels (including the City of Chicago, IL) under the 2nd amendment and the 14th amendment due process clause. These two cases solidified a Supreme Court shift towards “individual right to self-defense” interpretations of the 2nd amendment as a fundamental liberty that extended throughout the country.

Question 31

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)

Answer 31

A nonprofit corporation was prevented by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from showing a movie about a presidential candidate of the time because it violated the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The decision in this case concluded that the restrictions imposed by BCRA and enforced by the FEC violated the corporation’s First Amendment right to free expression.

Question 32

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014)

Answer 32

This case challenged a mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that required that all employment-based group health care plans provide coverage for certain types of contraceptives. The decision declared that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) permits for-profit companies to deny coverage for contraception in their health plans when that coverage violates a religious belief.

Question 33

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

Answer 33

A landmark Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage. The court answered two important questions in this case. First that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex (Const. Amend. 14 due process clause). Secondly, that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state (Const. Amend. 14 privileges and immunities clause).