SC cases

Question 1

Griswold v Connecticut

Answer 1

1965; inferred a right to privacy from the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 9th Amendments.

Question 2

US v Texas

Answer 2

2016; Supreme Court upheld a Texas order effectively stalling DAPA.

Question 3

Plessy v Ferguson

Answer 3

1896; held that the doctrine of “separate but equal” was constitutional.

Question 4

Brown v Board of Education of Topeka

Answer 4

1954; outlawed segregation in schools

Question 5

Marbury v Madison

Answer 5

1803; established the Supreme Court’s ability to carry out judicial review

Question 6

Regents of the University of California v Bakke

Answer 6

1978: the university could not use explicit quotas when admitting students from racial minorities, but could “take race into account”.

Question 7

Gratz v Bollinger

Answer 7

2003: the court struck down the Uni of Michigan’s affirmative action-based admissions programme for being too “mechanistic” - all black, Hispanic and Native American applicants were automatically awarded 20 of the 150 points needed for admission.

Question 8

Grutter v Bollinger

Answer 8

2003: the court upheld the Uni of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action-based admissions programme because it was “individualised.” Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that the court expected that AA would no longer be needed in such cases in 25 years’ time.

Question 9

Adarand Constructors v Pena

Answer 9

1995: Sandra Day O’Connor said that affirmative action plans should be “narrowly tailored.”

Question 10

Fisher v Texas

Answer 10

2016: the white Abigail Fisher was rejected by the Uni of Texas and claimed she had been the victim of discrimination because minority race students with less impressive qualifications had got in. She lost, though the court was split 4-3 (Scalia not yet replaced, Kagan recused herself). Obama wrote an amicus brief supporting the university.

Question 11

Parents Involved v Seattle School District

Answer 11

2007: Roberts - “the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Question 12

Roe v Wade

Answer 12

1973; affirmed a woman’s right to abortion.

Question 13

Trump v Hawaii

Answer 13

2018: court upheld the Muslim travel ban.

Question 14

Husted v A Philip Randolph Institute

Answer 14

2018: court upheld an Ohio law which allowed voters to be purged from registration rolls according to rules which had been found to disproportionately affect people of colour.

Question 15

Abbot v Perez

Answer 15

2018: Texas was free to use redistricting maps that a lower court had said were drawn to disenfranchise Hispanic and Af-Am voters.

Question 16

Carpenter v US

Answer 16

2018: court ruled that police need a search warrant to access phone records - seen as a landmark for privacy rights in the digital age.

Question 17

Shelby County v Holder

Answer 17

2013: s4 of the Voting Rights Act 1965, which required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing their electoral law, was unconstitutional.

Question 18

DC v Heller

Answer 18

2008: overturned a Washington DC ban on handguns in the home, and a requirement that shotguns be kept unloaded, disassembled or with a trigger lock.

Question 19

Citizens Utd v FEC

Answer 19

2010: overturned congressional restrictions on company spending in federal elections on First Amendment grounds, effectively leading to Super PACs.

Question 20

NFIB v Sibelius

Answer 20

2012: upheld Obamacare, save for the provision to forcibly extend Medicare.

Question 21

Obergefell v Hodges

Answer 21

2015: state bans on same sex marriage violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Question 22

McCutcheon v FEC

Answer 22

2014: aggregate contribution limits to election campaigns violate the First Amendment.

Question 23

Whole Women’s Health v Hellerstedt

Answer 23

2016: Texas’ requirements on abortion providers - e.g. that they had to meet standards of medical centres performing more complex operations - did not offer benefits sufficient to justify the difficulties they placed on access to abortion. They were therefore struck down.

Question 24

US v Windsor

Answer 24

2013: the 1996 Defence of Marriage Act was unconstitutional because it denied federal benefits to same-sex couples that were available to married couples.

Question 25

Zelman v Simmons Harris

Answer 25

2002: court upheld an Ohio programme giving financial aid to parents allowing them to send children to religious schools (1st Amendment, religion)

Question 26

Town of Greece v Galloway

Answer 26

2014: town and city councils can begin meetings with prayer, even if it clearly favoured one religion (1st Amendment, religion)

Question 27

McConnell v FEC

Answer 27

2004: upheld the section of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) that banned soft money.

Question 28

Ring v Arizona

Answer 28

2002: death penalties imposed by judges, not juries, violate the 6th Amendment because they infringe the right to trial by jury

Question 29

Roper v Simmons

Answer 29

2005: unconstitutional to sentence anyone to death for a crime committed before they were 18

Question 30

Baze v Rees

Answer 30

2008: lethal injection is not a cruel and an unusual punishment and so does not violate the 8th Amendment. Confirmed in 2015 by Glossip v Gross.

Question 31

Lawrence v Texas

Answer 31

2003: overturned Bowers v Hardwick 1986, which upheld Georgia’s anti-sodomy laws. (Example of courts going against stare decisis.)

Question 32

Snyder v Phelps

Answer 32

2011: Westboro Baptist Church’s protests at the funerals of US soldiers (placards saying “God killed your sons” and “Pray for more dead soldiers) were protected by the First Amendment. (Example of upholding rights even when unpopular to do so.)

Question 33

Elonis v US

Answer 33

2015: Elonis’ conviction for posting rap lyrics threatening his ex-wife was overturned: the jury was wrong to base its decision on whether a “reasonable person” would have taken the threats seriously, and instead should have considered whether Elonis meant them seriously. (Example of upholding rights even when unpopular to do so.)

Question 34

Kyollo v US

Answer 34

2001: under the 4th Amendment the police do need a warrant to search a house using thermal imaging. (Example of SC challenging authority.)

Question 35

Boumedienne v Bush

Answer 35

2008: foreign suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have the constitutional right to challenge their detention. (Example of SC challenging authority.)

Question 36

NLRB v Noel Canning

Answer 36

2014: Obama had acted unconstitutionally when making appointments to the National Labour Relations Board during a recess. (Example of SC challenging authority.)