15 SCOTUS cases

Charles W. Baker and other Tennessee citizens alleged that a 1901 law designed to apportion the seats for the state's General Assembly was virtually ignored. Baker's suit detailed how Tennessee's reapportionment efforts ignored significant economic growth and population shifts within the state.

Did the Supreme Court have jurisdiction over questions of legislative apportionment?

A state's drawing of electoral boundaries, i.e. redistricting, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

6-2 for Baker, State reapportionment claims are justiciable in federal court

In 1816, Congress chartered The Second Bank of the United States. In 1818, the state of Maryland passed legislation to impose taxes on the bank. James W. McCulloch, the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the bank, refused to pay the tax. The state appeals court held that the Second Bank was unconstitutional because the Constitution did not provide a textual commitment for the federal government to charter a bank.

1. Did Congress have the authority to establish the bank?

2. Did the Maryland law unconstitutionally interfere with congressional powers?

   Congress had implied powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to create the Second Bank of the United States

unanimous for McCulloch, Maryland may not impose a tax on the bank.

A conservative nonprofit group called Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential primaries.

First Amendment "prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech”

5-4 for Citizens United, The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, despite the speaker’s corporate identity.

The U.S. Attorney General rejected a North Carolina congressional reapportionment plan because the plan created only one black-majority district. North Carolina submitted a second plan creating two black-majority districts. One of these districts was, in parts, no wider than the interstate road along which it stretched. Five North Carolina residents challenged the constitutionality of this unusually shaped district, alleging that its only purpose was to secure the election of additional black representatives. After a three-judge District Court ruled that they failed to state a constitutional claim, the residents appealed and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Did the North Carolina residents' claim, that the State created a racially gerrymandered district, raise a valid constitutional issue under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

5-4 for Shaw,

Adams and Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, (gave president more control over appointment of judges_. The Act was an attempt to frustrate successor (used it to appoint 16 judges). The appointees were approved by the Senate, but they would not be valid until their commissions were delivered by the Secretary of State. Marbury’s petition wasn’t delivered so he petitioned a writ of mandamus.

1. Do the plaintiffs have a right to receive their commissions?

2. Can they sue for their commissions in court?

3. Does the Supreme Court have the authority to order the delivery of their commissions?

   Supremacy clause, judicial review

unanimous for Marbury. Though Marbury was entitled to it, the Court was unable to grant it because Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 conflicted with Article III Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and was therefore null and void.

African American students had been denied admittance to certain public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race. They argued that such segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs were denied relief in the lower courts based on Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that racially segregated public facilities were legal so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

Does the segregation of public education based solely on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

unanimous for brown, separate but equal educational facilities for racial minorities is inherently unequal violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Several suits were filed against Chicago and Oak Park in Illinois challenging their gun bans after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that case, the Supreme Court held that a District of Columbia handgun ban violated the Second Amendment. There, the Court reasoned that the law in question was enacted under the authority of the federal government and, thus, the Second Amendment was applicable. Here, plaintiffs argued that the Second Amendment should also apply to the states

Does the Second Amendment apply to the states because it is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges and Immunities or Due Process clauses and thereby made applicable to the states?

5-4 for McDonald

Clarence Earl Gideon was charged in Florida state court with felony breaking and entering. When he appeared in court without a lawyer, Gideon requested that the court appoint one for him. According to Florida state law, however, an attorney may only be appointed to an indigent defendant in capital cases, so the trial court did not appoint one. Gideon represented himself in trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Gideon filed a habeas corpus petition in the Florida Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court's decision violated his constitutional right to be represented by counsel.

Does the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel in criminal cases extend to felony defendants in state courts?

unanimous for Gideon

In 1970, Jane Roe (a fictional name used in court documents to protect the plaintiff’s identity) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she resided, challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life. In her lawsuit, Roe alleged that the state laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

Does the Constitution recognize a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion? Due Process clause under fourteenth amendment (right to privacy)

7-2 for Roe, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is a “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s choice whether to have an abortion

During World War I, socialists Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer distributed leaflets declaring that the draft violated the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude. The leaflets urged the public to disobey the draft, but advised only peaceful action. Schenck was charged with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act of 1917 by attempting to cause insubordination in the military and to obstruct recruitment. Schenck and Baer were convicted of violating this law and appealed on the grounds that the statute violated the First Amendment.

Did Schenck's conviction under the Espionage Act for criticizing the draft violate his First Amendment right to freedom of speech?

unanimous for U.S., the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment does not shield advocacy urging conduct deemed unlawful under the Espionage Act

In what became known as the "Pentagon Papers Case," the Nixon Administration attempted to prevent the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing materials belonging to a classified Defense Department study regarding the history of United States activities in Vietnam. The President argued that prior restraint was necessary to protect national security. This case was decided together with United States v. Washington Post Co.

Did the Nixon administration's efforts to prevent the publication of what it termed "classified information" violate the First Amendment?

6-3 for N.Y. Times Co

The New York State Board of Regents authorized a short, voluntary prayer for recitation at the start of each school day. A group of organizations joined forces in challenging the prayer, claiming that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The New York Court of Appeals rejected their arguments.

Does the reading of a nondenominational prayer at the start of the school day violate the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment?

6-1 for Engel

Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller, both members of the Old Order Amish religion, and Adin Yutzy, a member of the Conservative Amish Mennonite Church, were prosecuted under a Wisconsin law that required all children to attend public schools until age 16. The three parents refused to send their children to such schools after the eighth grade, arguing that high school attendance was contrary to their religious beliefs.

Did Wisconsin's requirement that all parents send their children to school at least until age 16 violate the First Amendment by criminalizing the conduct of parents who refused to send their children to school for religious reasons? free exercise of religion under the First Amendment

unanimous for Yoder, Court held that individual's interests in the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment outweighed the State's interests in compelling school attendance beyond the eighth grade

Alfonzo Lopez, a 12th grade high school student, carried a concealed weapon into his San Antonio, Texas high school. He was charged under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. The next day, the state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged Lopez with violating a federal criminal statute, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. The act forbids "any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that [he] knows...is a school zone." Lopez was found guilty following a bench trial and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and two years' supervised release.

Is the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act, forbidding individuals from knowingly carrying a gun in a school zone, unconstitutional because it exceeds the power of Congress to legislate under the Commerce Clause?

5-4 for Lopez, possession of a gun in a local school zone is not an economic activity

Group of students planned to wear black armbands to school in order to show support for a truce on the Vietnam war. The principals found out and created a policy that those wearing an armband would be asked to remove it and if refused then be suspended. Tinker children and other sent home. Their parents sued the school district for violating students’ rights to expression.

Does a prohibition against the wearing of armbands in public school, as a form of symbolic protest, violate the students' freedom of speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment?

7-2 for Tinker