Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Marbury v. Madison  1803  Article III – Judicial Powers  Establishment of Judicial Review – the power of the Supreme Court to declare a law or government action unconstitutional  Chief Justice William Marshall ruled with a unanimous court that the Judicial Act violated the Constitution and thus should not be followed

Gibbons v. Ogden  1824  Supremacy Clause  Strengthened the power of the federal government to regulate any interstate business  Lead the federal regulation of broadcasting, banking and oil pipelines  Established the Constitution as the tie that binds the national and state governments together and that the Constitution will be the final word

Plessy v. Ferguson  1896  14 th Amendment  Separate but equal  Court interpreted the 14 th amendment as “not intended to give Negroes social equity but only political and civil equity”

Korematsu v. US  1944  Civil Rights  Court upheld the military order presented by the circumstances of WW II – “Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group”

Brown v. Board of Education  1954  14 th Amendment/Equal Protection Clause  Separate but equal has no place  Integrated schools  Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson

Mapp v. Ohio  1962  4 th and 14 th Amendment  Illegal Evidence and Due Process Claus  No illegal search and seizures applied to all states  Before this rule not every state incorporated excluding evidence gained through an illegal search  Exclusionary Rule

Gideon v. Wainwright  1963  6 th Amendment  Right to Counsel  Person must have counsel provided, regardless of the charges filed against them  Gideon Rule

Reynolds v. Sims  1964  14 th Amendment  Equal Protection  Members of Alabama’s Jefferson County protested the state’s policy of one senator from each county regardless of the population  The Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s Congress had to be apportioned to it populations  It required states to have “honest and good faith” to set district representation equal to its population

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. US  1964  Civil Rights  Supremacy Clause  Congress could outlaw racial segregation of private facilities that are engaged in interstate commerce

In Re Gault  1966  14 th Amendment  Due Process Clause  Provided the due processes of an accused to juveniles  Prior to this ruling juvenile crimes were handled in family law not criminal law

Miranda v. Arizona  1966  5 th, 6 th, and 14 th Amendment  Rights of the Accused  When Ernesto Miranda was arrested and questioned and signed a confession that listed that he had “full knowledge of his legal rights”, he was not made aware of his rights to counsel and the confession was illegally gained.  Miranda Rights of person being arrested

Tinker v. Des Moines  1969  1 st Amendment  Students do not shed their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gates unless a substantial disruption results

Swann v. CMS  1971  14 th Amendment  Civil Rights/Equal Protection Clause  This decision changed the landscape of CMS schools by forcing the busing of students outside their neighborhood school  This lead to forced desegregation of schools

Furman v. Georgia  1971  8 th Amendment  Capital Punishment  Racial imbalances in the use of the death penalty lead to questions of how the penalty should be applied  “Apparent arbitrariness of the use of the sentence”  Lead to the rewriting of the death penalty laws in many states

Regents of the UC v. Bakke  1978  Affirmative Action  Invalidated the medical schools special admission program and directed the regents to admit Bakke, but did not overturn all affirmative action programs

New Jersey v. TLO  1985  4 th and 14 th Amendment  This case allowed students to be searched under the heading of “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause”

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier  1988  1 st Amendment  This case allows school officials to have full control of school sponsored activities  Activities can continue “so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns

Texas v. Johnson  1989  1 st Amendment  This case protected the rights of individuals to freedom of expression, even if in this case that expression is the burning of the American flag

Engel v. Vitale  1962  1 st Amendment  Establishment Clause  Eliminated prayers in school  Students cannot be forced to recite a prayer because it violates their 1 st Amendment right to freedom of religion