Supreme Court Cases in the United States
Marbury v. Madison
- Case Date: 1803
- Chief Justice: John Marshall
- Case Background: Marbury was a "midnight appointment" who was appointed Supreme Court Judge by the Adams Administration. He did not receive his commission and sued Secretary of State Madison. Case was brought to Supreme Court under the writ of mandamus.
- Issues: Marbury did not receive his commission even though he should have; Judiciary Acts were not supposed to be in place
- Decisions: Marbury had the right to his commission, but the court had no power to make Madison give it to him; Judiciary Acts were beyond Congress's power and the court could see them as null and void
- Legal Impact: First case of Judicial Review
Fletcher v. Peck
- Case Date: 1810
- Chief Justice: John Marshall
- Case Background: John Marshall - he wanted to increase the power of the federal government at the expense of states and advance the interests of the propertied and commercial classes
- Issues: Land frauds in Georgia forced the Court to decided whether the Georgia legislature of 1796 could repeal the act of previous legislature
- Decisions: The Court held that the land grant was a valid contract and could not be repealed even if corruption was involved
- Legal Impact: Put power into contracts
Dartmouth College v. Woodward
- Case Date: 1819
- Chief Justice: John Marshall
- Case Background: The Republicans tried to revise Dartmouth College's Charter to convert the private college into a state university
- Issues: The charter was seen as a contract; the defense believed that the charter needed the same doctrine as the contract in Fletcher v. Peck
- Decisions: The Court kept Dartmouth a private university because it proclaimed that corporation charters were contracts
- Legal Impact: This case placed restrictions on the ability of state governments to control corporations
McCulloch v. Maryland
- Case Date: 1819
- Chief Justice: John Marshall
- Case Background: The Bank was unpopular in the South and West and many states tried to tax it out of existence
- Issues: Could Congress charter a Bank? Can states ban or tax the Bank?
- Decisions: The Court upheld the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States. It was covered in the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution
- Legal Impact: Confirmed the "implied powers" of Congress
Gibbons v. Ogden
- Case Date: 1824
- Chief Justice: John Marshall
- Case Background: The state of New York had granted the steamboat company Aaron Ogden owned to carry passengers across the river between New York and New Jersey. Thomas Gibbons, with a license granted under an act of Congress, competed with Ogden for the ferry traffic
- Issues: Ogden brought suit against Gibbons and won in the New York courts, but Gibbons appealed to the Supreme Court. Did Congress's power to give Gibbons a licenses to operate his ferry supersede the state of New York's power to grant Ogden a monopoly?
- Decisions: Marshall ruled that the power of Congress to regulate commerce (which included navigation) was "complete in itself" and might be "exercised to its utmost extent." Ogden's state-granted monopoly was void
- Legal Impact: Strengthened Congress's power to regulate trade and commerce
Worcester v. Georgia
- Case Date: 1832
- Chief Justice: John Marshall
- Case Background: Georgia passes a law to attempt to regulated access by U.S. citizens to Cherokee country. White western expansion was attempting to kick the Cherokees off their land
- Issues: States were taking land away from tribes when they were not supposed to
- Decisions: The Court invalidated the Georgia law because only the federal government had the power to make a law of regulated access
- Legal Impact: It defined the tribes are sovereign entities in their own land and they were to remain free from the authority of state governments
Dred Scott v. Sandford
- Case Date: 1857
- Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
- Case Background: Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia, however he was taken by his owner to Missouri where he was purchased by U.S. Army Surgeon Dr. John Emerson. After purchasing Scott, Emerson took Scott to Illinois, which was a free state that prohibited slavery. Emerson then moved to the Wisconsin territory, where slavery was prohibited under the Missouri Compromise. Emerson then died in the Iowa Territory, where his widow would then inherit his estate (including the Scotts). Scott attempted to purchase his and his family's freedom, but the Widow refused. Emerson then transferred ownership of Scott to her brother, John Sanford. Scott sued Sanford because he believed that under the Missouri Compromise, he was a free man. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Scott was still indeed a slave. Scott then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Issues: Emerson had practically brought slavery into a free state, thus Scott should have been free under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. However, Roger B. Taney ruled that the government did not have the power to make the Missouri Compromise and that popular sovereignty should rule in all states. Thus, the Missouri Compromise should be null and void.
- Decisions: Taney ruled that African Americans, whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and thus had no standing to sue in federal court. It was also ruled that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories. Taney ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.
- Legal Impact: The case was a landmark decision in deciding the rights of African Americans in America. Because Taney ruled in favor of Sanford, thus ruling in favor of the Southern slaveholding society as the proper interpretation of the Constitution. Indirectly, the decision led to the start of the Civil War because it was seen as a push for the expansion of slavery. The decision strengthened the sectional tensions and, in the North, strengthened the Republican Party's presence in society.
Plessy v. Ferguson
- Case Date: 1896
- Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
- Case Background: Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act in 1892, which legally segregated common carriers on the railroad system. A black civil rights movement decided to challenge the law in the courts because they felt that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in the "White" section of the Louisiana Railroad car.
- Issues: Homer Plessy legally could enjoy all the rights of a white man because of the Fourteenth Amendment. He was forced, however, to sit in the colored section because he was considered a man of color even though he had light complexion.
- Decisions: The Court ruled that since the railroad offered equal accommodations, the separate accommodations were legal as long as if the accommodations were equal.
- Legal Impact: The "separate but equal" decision set the basis for segregated schools (Cumming v. County Board of Education)
Munn v. Illinois
- Case Date: 1876
- Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
- Case Background: Munn, a partner in a Chicago warehouse firm, had been found guilty by an Illinois court of violating the state laws which required the fixing of maximum charges for storage of grain. It was one of the first cases in the Granger Movement
- Issues: Was the act of the Illinois legislature to regulate public warehouses and the inspection and handling of grain constitutional? Could the state take away private property without a cause?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that the government had a right to regulate the use of property for the public good
- Legal Impact: The ruling allowed states to regulate certain businesses, including railroads.
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Co. v. Illinois
- Case Date: 1886
- Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
- Case Background: A statute of Illinois enacted that if any railroad company would, within that state, charge or receive for transporting passengers or freight of the same class, the same or a greater sum for any distance than it does for a longer distance, it would be liable to a penalty for unjust discrimination.
- Issues: Did the state have the power to regulate the in-state part of an interstate railroad journey?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that the Illinois State law was unconstitutional because it violated powers given to Congress by the Constitution.
- Legal Impact: The Wabash decision led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was one of the first instances in government assuming responsibility for economic affairs that had previously been delegated to the states - states were losing their power to regulate interstate trade/travel.
Insular Cases
- Case Dates: 1901-1922
- Case Background: These were several court cases which dealt with the status of territories gained after the Spanish–American War. They resulted as a response to the principle issue of the Election of 1900 and the American Anti-Imperialist League. How do citizens of the territories compare to the citizens of the continental United States?
- Issues: How does the Constitution apply to territories gained outside of the United States?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that in Alaska and Hawaii, which were incorporate territories, that people would receive full benefits of the Constitution. However, the territories gained during the Spanish-American War would not. Puerto Rico and the Philippines would only receive basic rights; they would not enjoy the full benefits of the Constitution.
- Legal Impact: When the United States gained more territories, they would have to distinguish between the two different types of territories. It created a distinction between the United States and the "Territorial" United States.
Schneck v. United States
- Case Date: 1919
- Chief Justice: Edward D. Wright
- Case Background: During WWI, Schenck mailed leaflets to perspective draft recipients. They were to warn people that the draft was wrong and that the people should avoid induction. It was a peaceful protest to the conscription of soldiers. At the same time, Schenk's motives were put into question of whether they violated the Sedition Act or the Espionage Act.
- Issues: Did Schenk's acts fall under the freedom of protest clause of the Constitution or did it violate the new acts of Congress? Were the acts unconstitutional?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that Schenk had violated the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act and that his Constitutional rights gave him no protection from the acts of Congress. Schenk would be imprisoned for his efforts to protest the war.
- Legal Impact: The Court decision showed that, in a time of war, there are greater restrictions placed upon the freedom of speech.
- "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent" ~ Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Abrams v. United States
- Case Date: 1919
- Chief Justice: Edward D. Wright
- Case Background: Abrams was accused of distributing 2 leaflets. The first was written in order to attempt to stop U.S. troops from being sent to Russia. The second was written in order to denounce the U.S. war efforts and to attempt to keep the U.S. away from Russia. Abrams was charged with violating the Espionage Act.
- Issues: Similar to the Schenk Case, was Abram protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution?
- Decisions: The Court was consistent in their rulings regarding the new acts that were implemented by Congress. Similarly to the Schenk Case, Abrams was convicted of violating the Espionage Act because of the inferred messages he was sending through the leaflets (even though it did not directly denounce the war against Germany).
- Legal Impact: Holme's Dissent - "Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition...But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. . . . The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out"
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Company
- Case Date: 1922
- Chief Justice: William H. Taft
- Case Background: On February 24, 1919, Congress passed the Child Labor Tax Law which imposed an excise tax of 10 percent on the net profits of a company that employed children. The law defined child labor as “under the age of sixteen in any mine or quarry, and under the age of fourteen in any mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment.” Drexel was fined $6,312.79 in excise taxes for employing a child under fourteen during the 1919 tax year.
- Issues: Was the Child Labor Tax Law a constitutional or unconstitutional tax?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that the tax on child labor was unconstitutional because it was a disguised criminal penalty, not a tax, on employment of children. It was also said to be a regulation on businesses instead of a tax.
- Legal Impact: It was decided that the law infringed on the individual state's rights to develop their own child labor laws. Taft also believed that, by upholding his decision, he would ruin the Congress's limitation of powers by allowing them to disguise regulations under a tax.
Adkins v. Children's Hospital
- Case Date: 1923
- Chief Justice: William H. Taft
- Case Background: In 1918, Congress passed a law setting minimum wages for women and children in the District of Columbia. The Children's Hospital of the District of Columbia, which employed many women at wages below those established by the board, sued the board on the grounds that its regulations violated liberty of contract as defined in Lochner v. New York (1905).
- Issues: Was the minimum wage law unconstitutional?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that a minimum wage law for women violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment because it abridged a citizen's right to freely contract labor.
- Legal Impact: Adkins v. Children's Hospital reaffirmed the basic holding of Lochner: minimum wage laws violate a citizen's right to freely contract work. Adkins was effectively overturned by West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), which held that states could impose minimum wage regulations on private employers without violating the Due Process Clause. As long as they are rational and fair, minimum wage laws are a legitimate exercise of the state's police power.
Korematsu v. United States
- Case Date: 1944
- Chief Justice: Harlan F. Stone
- Case Background: Executive Order 9066: a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones. Eventually, EO 9066 cleared the way for the deportation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. The executive order was spurred by a combination of war hysteria and reactions to the Niihau Incident. Korematsu had been avoiding internment because he felt his individual rights as a citizen were being violated.
- Issues: Was the internment of Japanese American citizens unconstitutional?
- Decisions: The court ruled that it was constitutional to intern Japanese Americans - regardless of their citizenship. "Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders — as inevitably it must — determined that they should have the power to do just this"
- Legal Impact: The Court's opinion remains significant both for being the first instance of the Supreme Court applying the strict scrutiny standard to racial discrimination by the government and for being one of only a handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard.
Dennis v. United States
- Case Date: 1951
- Chief Justice: Fred M. Vinson
- Case Background: Communist fears spread rampant throughout the United States. In 1948, eleven Communist Party leaders were convicted of advocating to overthrow the US government and for violating several points of the Smith Act. The party members who had been petitioning for socialist reforms claimed that the act violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and that they served no clear and present danger to the nation.
- Issues: Is the Smith Act constitutional? Can the censorship of pro-Communism occur in accordance to the First Amendment?
- Decisions: The Court found that the First Amendment did not protect the Communist Party from being able to conspire and violently overthrow the government. It affirmed the power and the legality of the Smith Act.
- Legal Impact: The case was an instance of the clear and probable danger belief: "In each case [courts] must ask whether the gravity of the "evil," discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as necessary to avoid the danger."
Baker v. Carr
- Case Date: 1962
- Chief Justice: Earl Warren
- Case Background: Charles W. Baker believed that a 1901 law designed to apportion, the 1901 Apportionment Act, was ignored. in Tennessee. The lawsuit detailed how the reappointment efforts in the Tennessee legislature ignored population shifts and significant economic changes in the state. He stated that rural votes counted much more than urban votes, causing their to be a bias in the results.
- Issues: Does the Supreme Court have the power to change legislative appointment and its processes?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that legislative appointment was an issue it could change due to the fact that there were constitutional violations.
- Legal Impact: The 14th amendment allowed the Court to evaluate jurisdiction.
Gideon v. Wainwright
- Case Date: 1963
- Chief Justice: Earl Warren
- Case Background: Clarence Earl Gideon was charged in Florida with a felony, however he appeared in court he did so without a lawyer. He requested the Court appoint him a lawyer but was denied due to Florida state law. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison but filed a habeas corpus petition claiming that his Sixth Amendment right was violated by the Florida State Law.
- Issues: How far did the Sixth Amendment extend? Did it extend into state courts for felony defendants?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that felony defendants in state courts that did not have a lawyer received full benefits of the Sixth Amendment.
- Legal Impact: It required of state courts to appoint attorneys for defendants who could not afford to retain counsel on their own.
Griswold v. CT
- Case Date: 1965
- Chief Justice: Earl Warren
- Case Background: Part of Griswold's job was the instruction to married couples of birth control and dispensing birth control products to her patients. She was convicted because of a CT law that prevented giving medical advice or treatment concerning contraception.
- Issues: Did the Constitution protect the right of marital privacy? Was the CT law unconstitutional because it restricted a couple's ability to gain counseling regarding their health and well being?
- Decisions: The Court ruled that there were many amendments under the Bill of Rights that protected the right to privacy in marital relations from specific state and federal restrictions. The CT law was found null and void.
- Legal Impact: Marital privacy was assumed to be a constitutional right given to all couples.
Miranda v. United States
- Case Date: 1966
- Chief Justice: Earl Warren
- Case Background: On March 13, 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested based on evidence linking him to the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old girl ten days earlier. Miranda signed a confession to the rape charge on forms that included the typed statement "I do hereby swear that I make this statement voluntarily and of my own free will, with no threats, coercion, or promises of immunity, and with full knowledge of my legal rights, understanding any statement I make may be used against me." However, Miranda was never told of his rights under the 5th and 6th amendments. At trial, when prosecutors offered Miranda's written confession as evidence, his lawyer, Alvin Moore, objected that because of these facts, the confession was not truly voluntary and should be excluded. Moore's objection was overruled and based on this confession and other evidence, Miranda was convicted of rape and kidnapping and sentenced to 20 to 30 years on each charge.
- Issues: Is it required that all interrogated individuals need to be read their rights before any further interrogations occur? Are they protected under the 5th amendment?
- Decisions: They overturned the decision on Miranda's case and that the rights must be read to the individual. "The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him" ~ Earl Warren
- Legal Impact: "You have the right to remain silent when questioned. Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish. If you decide to answer any questions now, without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney. Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?" This, known as the Miranda Warning, must be read at every arrest before interrogations begin.