Supreme Court Cases

FCLE and Module

7 Part 3
Marbury v. Madison

1. Marbury was commissioned by

President John Adams as a
Justice of the Peace.
2. Madison was Jefferson’s
Secretary of State.
3. Madison was ordered not to
deliver the commission to
Marbury.
4. The Court rule in favor of
Madison.
5. IMPORTANT BECAUSE: first time
a congressional act was found
unconstitutional.
6. The case officially established
JUDICIAL REVIEW.
 Plessy v. Ferguson

1. Plessy, who was 1/8 African American (one

great-grandparent was black), was kicked off a
train for sitting in the white section.
2. Ferguson was the local judge who ordered him
imprisoned.
3. Plessy appealed arguing that his 14th
amendment right to equal protection under the
law was violated.
4. The Court ruled in favor of Ferguson.
5. IMPORTANT BECAUSE: The case established the
doctrine of SEPARATE BUT EQUAL.
Brown v. Board of Education

1. In Topeka, Kansas, a black student named Linda

Brown had to walk through a dangerous
railroad crossing to get to her all-black school.
2. Her family believed that segregated schools
should be illegal. The Brown family sued the
school system. They thought that segregated
schools violated the Fourteenth
Amendment’s guarantee that people must
be treated equally under the law.
3. The Court concluded that in the field of public
education the idea of "separate but equal" has
no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal.
4. Plessy V. Ferguson was now overturned.
Gideon v. Wainwright

1. In Florida, Gideon was charged with breaking and entering,

a felony.
2. Gideon requested that the state of Florida appoint him a
lawyer because he was too poor to afford one. The state
court refused.
3. Gideon was eventually convicted and sentenced to 5 years
in state prison. Gideon believed the state of Florida had
violated his 6th Amendment right to a lawyer. He
petitioned the Supreme Court to look at his case.
4. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and ruled in
Gideon’s favor. Gideon subsequently received a new trial,
was provided with a lawyer, and was acquitted of his crime.
Miranda v. Arizona

1. Miranda was arrested for sexual assault. He

was not informed of his right to remain silent or
his right to an attorney.
2. He confessed after two hours of questioning.
3. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Miranda.
4. IMPORTANT BECAUSE: The 5th amendment
says that you don’t have to testify against
yourself. The Court ruled that PRIOR to
questioning, YOU MUST BE INFORMED OF
YOUR RIGHTS.
Tinker v. Des Moines

1. John and Mary Beth Tinker attended public school in Des

Moines, Iowa, in 1965.
2. The Tinkers decided to wear armbands to school to protest
the Vietnam War. School officials asked the Tinkers to
remove their armbands, saying the bands were disruptive;
the Tinkers refused. They were suspended from school.
3. The Tinkers sued the school district in the U.S. District
Court saying the Des Moines school district violated their
right to free speech under the First Amendment.
Though they were not speaking with their voices, they
believed that wearing armbands was like speaking. This is
called symbolic speech.
4. Decision: The wearing of armbands was "closely akin to
'pure speech'" and was protected by the First Amendment.
5. Schools can put limits on free expression, but the principal
in this case failed to show that the arm bands would
substantially interfere with the school environment.
 Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier

1. Kuhlmeier, a student, edited the Hazelwood East High School

newspaper.
2. The principal ordered two pages to be deleted from the high
school newspaper--the articles dealt with pregnancy (the
principal maintained that the girls could be identified even if
names were withheld and that the article was too sexually
graphic) and divorce (the principal said the article discussed
parents without giving the parents a right to respond).
3. Kuhlmeier and two student reporters sued saying their
freedom of speech/press was denied, in violation of the First
Amendment. In effect, they believed they were being
censored.
4. The key question before the Supreme Court in this case is
whether school officials can censor speech in school
sponsored newspapers and yearbooks.
5. The Court found that school officials can set higher standards
for student speech. (A school newspaper differs from a normal
newspaper because it is a teaching tool.)
Mapp v. Ohio

1. Three police officers arrived at Mapp’s house looking for a

bombing suspect and bombing materials.
2. The police entered the house without a search warrant. They
found obscene materials in their search, but nothing related to
the bombing suspect or bombing materials. She was arrested
for possession of obscene materials.
3. Mapp’s case eventually made it to the Supreme Court.
4. The Supreme Court ruled that Mapp’s rights had been violated
under the 4th Amendment’s “search and seizure” clause--the
evidence that was used against Mapp was deemed
inadmissible in a court of law because it was obtained without
a search warrant.
5. After the case, any evidence seized in violation of the 4th
Amendment could not be used in prosecution at the federal,
state, or local level. This is known as the “exclusionary rule.”
 Washington D.C. v. Heller

1. Faced with concerns about high levels of gun-related crime in

Washington, D.C., legislators passed the nation’s most restrictive gun
control ordinance to date.
2. The new law essentially banned the ownership of handguns for most
Washington, D.C. residents.
3. Heller, a D.C. police officer, applied for permission to own a handgun
for self-defense in his home. He was refused. Heller brought a suit
against D.C. for violation of his 2nd Amendment right.
4. For the first time, the Supreme Court ruled that, despite state laws,
individuals had the right to own handguns for self-defense in the
home.
5. This case was followed a few years later by a similar case, McDonald
v. City of Chicago, in which the Supreme Court again ruled that
jurisdictions may not prohibit an individual from keeping and
bearing arms in their home for self defense.
Engel v. Vitale

1. Prior to 1962, students in New York public schools began

each day with a nondenominational prayer to God.
2. A group of several families brought a suit against a local
school system, pointing out that the requirement to recite
a prayer violated the establishment clause of the First
Amendment.
3. The Supreme Court heard the case and decided that
government-written prayers are not to be recited in public
schools and were a violation of the establishment clause.
4. Establishment Clause: prohibits the government from making
any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause
not only forbids the government from establishing an official
religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly
favor one religion over another.
 Wisconsin v. Yoder
1. Three Amish students were charged with violating a Wisconsin state law
that required children to attend school until the age of 16.
2. The student’s parents had made them drop out of school after the 8 th
grade in perceived accordance with their Amish faith.
3. The students and their parents appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
4. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that an individual's interests in
the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment outweighed
the State's interests in compelling school attendance beyond the 8th
grade.
5. The Court found that the values and programs of secondary school were
"in sharp conflict with the fundamental mode of life mandated by the
Amish religion," and that an additional one or two years of high school
would not necessarily produce the benefits of public education.
Citizens United v. FEC
1. In 2008, David Bossie made a movie critiquing presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton. The movie was due to be
released within 30 days of the presidential primary
election, in apparent violation of an existing federal law
called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2001.
2. A federal court basically upheld BCRA, suggesting the
movie was electioneering communication aimed at voters
and paid for by corporate money.
3. Bossie then appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that
BCRA violated his First Amendment rights.
4. In Citizens United vs. FEC, the Supreme Court threw out
parts of BCRA and upheld that corporations (and probably
labor unions) have a constitutional right to make
independent expenditures advocating the election or
defeat of political candidates.
 McCulloch v. Maryland
1. Congress created the Bank of the United States in 1816 and opened
a branch in Baltimore. The state of Maryland legislature placed a tax
on all money issued by the Bank.
2. The cashier, McCulloch, refused to pay the tax to the state of
Maryland.
3. Maryland argued in the Supreme Court that the Constitution said
nothing about creating banks, so Maryland was allowed to impose
the tax.
4. The Court ruled that Congress did have the power to create the
bank, according to the “necessary and proper clause” of the
Constitution.
5. The most important thing that happened in this case was that the
Court ruled that a state could not interfere with Congress’s
constitutional powers, so any state law that did interfere (like the
bank tax) was invalid. Federal power was ruled supreme in this
case.
 U.S. v. Lopez
1. High school senior Alfonso Lopez walked into his San Antonio high
school carrying a concealed weapon. He was charged with violating a
Texas law that banned firearms in schools. The next day, the state
charges against him were dismissed after he was charged with violating
a federal law: the Gun Free School Zones Act.
2. Lopez challenged his conviction, arguing that the federal Gun Free
School Zones Act was an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s power.
Schools were controlled by state and local governments and were not
under the authority of the federal government. The federal government
claimed that it had the authority to ban guns in schools under its
commerce (economic) power as described in Article I of the
Constitution.
3. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal law was unconstitutional and
threw it out. They reasoned that possessing a firearm within a school
zone had nothing to do with economic (commerce) activities and
therefore Congress should not have made the law in the first place.
4. This federalism case reversed the Supreme Court’s 50-year trend of
rulings that expanded the powers of Congress at the expense of the
states. In the Lopez case, states got the upper hand.
 U.S. v. Nixon
1. A congressional hearing about President Nixon’s Watergate break-in
scandal revealed that he had installed a tape-recording device in the Oval
Office of the White House. The special prosecutor in charge of the case
wanted access to these taped discussions to help prove that President
Nixon and his aides had abused their power and broken the law.
2. President Nixon claimed executive privilege under Article II of the
Constitution and refused to hand over the tapes.
3. Basically, executive privilege means that a president and some other
members of the executive branch claim that they do not have to testify
before Congress or a court. They say that some aspects of their job are too
sensitive, or secret, to be released.
4. President Nixon’s refusal to hand over the Watergate tapes to the special
prosecutor was challenged and eventually taken to the Supreme Court.
5. The Court decided that executive privilege is not limitless, and the tapes
were released. Nixon soon resigned rather than be impeached based on
the content of the tapes.
6. In this classic showdown between the judicial and executive branches,
judicial power came out on top.
 West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette

1. This court case made it clear that the free exercise of religion clause of
the First Amendment forbids the government from requiring a person to
swear to a belief.
2. In this case, the Supreme Court struck down a state law requiring public
school students to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of
Allegiance.
3. Parents and students of the Jehovah’s Witness faith claimed that the state
law violated their free exercise of religion because their religion prohibits
them from pledging allegiance to anything other than God.
4. The Court agreed with the Witnesses and held that the state had no
interest compelling enough to justify a law requiring the pledge to be
spoken. In their majority opinion the Court stated:
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that
no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in
politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens
to confess by word or act their faith therein.”