Supreme Court Cases Flashcards
Marbury v. Madison
Establishes the Supreme Court’s power of Judicial Review.
McCulloch v. Maryland
Maryland was trying to tax the national bank and Supreme Court ruled that federal law overruled state law.
Schenck v. United States
A 1919 decision upholding the conviction of a socialist who had urged young men to resist the draft during World War I. Justice Holmes declared that government can limit speech if the speech provokes a “clear and present danger” of substantive evils.
Brown v. Board of Education
1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated.
Baker v. Carr
Case that established one man got one vote. this decision created guidelines for drawing up congressional districts and guaranteed a more equitable system of representation to the citizens of each state.
Engel v. Vitale
The 1962 Supreme Court decision holding that state officials violated the First Amendment when they wrote a prayer to be recited by New York’s schoolchildren.
Gideon v. Wainwright
A person who cannot afford an attorney may have one appointed by the government.
Tinker v. Des Moines
1969 - Students in an Iowa school were suspended for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam war. Ruled that this suspension was unconstitutional, and that public school students do not “shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door.”
New York Times v. United States
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Amish children do not have to go to school until they are 16 and they may stop after the 8th grade.
Roe v. Wade
1973 case that legalized abortion on the basis of a woman’s right to privacy.
Shaw v. Reno
NO racial gerrymandering; race cannot be the sole or predominant factor in redrawing legislative boundaries; majority-minority district.
United States v. Lopez
1995 - The Commerce Clause of the Constitution does not give Congress the power to prohibit mere possession of a gun near a school, because gun possession by itself is not an economic activity that affects interstate commerce even indirectly.
McDonald v. Chicago
2010 case ruling that States cannot ban guns because of the right to bear arms and equal protection of the law.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Comission
A 2010 landmark Supreme Court case that ruled that individuals, corporations, and unions could donate unlimited amounts of money to groups that make independent political expenditures.
