Constitutional Law

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Scott v. Sanford (1856)

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Scott v. Sanford (1856)

This is the notorious Dred Scott case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that even a freed slave was not a U.S. citizen. This decision played a significant role in the critical political events that soon followed, leading to America's bloody Civil War. It also is one of the few cases overturned by a constitutional amendment.

Scott was a slave owned by a Missouri landowner named John F. A. Sandford. Scott sought relief in federal court arguing that he should be freed because he had been taken by his former owner to Illinois, a free state, and to the Louisiana Territory, also free. Chief Justice Roger Taney, in a ruling which would forever banish him to a sort of legal infamy, wrote that Scott could not invoke federal jurisdiction because "persons who are descendants of Africans ... imported into this country, and sold as slaves" were not entitled to such jurisdiction because they were not residents of the states that had formed the Union and were not otherwise entitled to citizenship by Congress.

The decision deepened the divide between North and South over the issues of the Missouri Compromise and slavery, harmed the Supreme Court's reputation for decades to follow, and greatly energized the abolitionist movement. Following the four-year Civil War, and in response to the "Scott" decision, the 14th Amendment was passed. It states, in part, that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States."

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Bush v. Gore (2000)

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Bush v. Gore (2000)

This is the seminal case of our generation. When the justices began the Supreme Court term on the first Monday in October 2000, they had no way of knowing that the term, and their lasting legacy, would be dominated by a case that wasn't even on the docket. But two months later, on Dec. 12, 2000, Chief Justice William Rehnquist joined the four other more conservative justices in reversing Florida's court-ordered recount of presidential election ballots. The majority of the court determined there was no time to conduct a lawful recount. That decision resulted in Republican George W. Bush's being awarded Florida's 25 electoral votes, and the presidency, over Democrat Al Gore.

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Marbury v. Madison (1803)

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Marbury v. Madison (1803)

This Supreme Court decision is generally regarded as the granddaddy of them all. Constitutional law professor and legal expert Laurence Tribe says, "'Marbury' is the first case in which the Supreme Court asserted that a federal court has power to refuse to give effect to congressional legislation if it is inconsistent with the court's interpretation of the Constitution." In other words, the Court decided in "Marbury" that it alone had the final say in interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

When one considers how little thought most give today to the high court's ability to undertake this sort of independent review, it is extraordinary to think that the Supreme Court itself had to assert and announce its right to do so, less than 20 years after the Constitution itself was drafted and ratified. The decision is even more remarkable when you consider that the Constitution "does not expressly confer such a power upon the federal courts," Tribe writes. That little wrinkle has made the case one of the most analyzed and disputed in American history.

Incidentally, the plaintiff in the case - William Marbury - was appointed in the final hours of President John Adams' administration as a Justice of the Peace of the District of Columbia. The new administration under America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, did not recognize those 11th-hour appointments so Marbury and several other judges took the dispute to the Supreme Court, asking the nation's high court to require Secretary of State James Madison - the defendant in the case - to deliver the appointments.

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McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

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McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

If the Supreme Court in "Marbury v. Madison" limited the scope of Congress' power to make valid laws, in "McCulloch" it broadened them. The "McCulloch" case holds that Congress has important powers which are not specifically set forth in the Constitution, but which are merely implied in the document. "Let the end be legitimate," the Court wrote, "let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional."

To fully understand "McCulloch's" significance, just think of what our national scene would look like today if Congress' powers were restricted only to the explicit authorization contained in the Constitution. Many of the laws we appreciate today would not have met the Supreme Court's narrow standards. The case arose in a dispute over the constitutionality of a bill creating the first Bank of the United States.

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Near v. Minnesota (1931)

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Near v. Minnesota (1931)

Called the "first great press case," by legal scholar and columnist Anthony Lewis, the Supreme Court in "Near" ruled that prior governmental restraints against publication was suspect under the First Amendment's free press guarantee. The decision didn't necessarily and absolutely prevent the government from going to a judge to stop the publication of a particular story, but it did make it nearly impossible for it to do so.

The case evolved from Jay Near, who published a newspaper in Minnesota that regularly attacked the county attorney responsible for Minneapolis. The official, Floyd Olson, used a state nuisance law to shut down publication of Near's newspaper. Near appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which ruled that the law was valid because "(liberty) of the press does not mean that an evil-minded person may publish just anything." The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed.

The precedent set in the "Near" case was relied upon extensively when the Richard Nixon administration unsuccessfully sued the New York Times and Washington Post in 1971 to stop publication of the so-called "Pentagon Papers." It also played a role in one of the Supreme Court's other monumental first amendment decisions, "New York Times v. Sullivan," which in 1963 made it much more difficult for public officials to chill the press by filing libel suits.

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West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937)

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West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937)

This older case was one of the Supreme Court's leading decisions during the Great Depression and it marked a turning point in the way future courts would evaluate legislation involving industry and commerce. Prior to the "West Coast" decision, the Supreme Court generally had struck down many New Deal laws on the principle that the government could not legally enact laws which violated industry's "freedom" to contract with workers. This position both created and sustained economic disparity among the haves and have-nots in the United States because it essentially precluded legislatures from addressing any or most market disparities.

In "West Coast," however, the Supreme Court turned this analysis on its head and in the process sustained a state minimum wage law for women. In an almost complete reversal from earlier decisions, the top court decided that there was no constitutional "freedom of contract" and that in any event such "freedoms" and "liberties" were not "absolute and uncontrollable."

"(Liberty) under the Constitution," the Court wrote, "(is) necessarily subject to the restraints of due process and regulation which is reasonable in relation to its subject and is adopted in the interests of the community is due process." The "West Coast" case stands for the proposition that courts will defer to state legislatures on economic regulation when that regulation is reasonable. And it's a decision that through the years has sustained thousands of laws, both state and federal, affecting millions of workers, to withstand constitutional challenge by industry.

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Brown v. Board of Ed. (1954)

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Brown v. Board of Ed. (1954)

This case was the first salvo in a legal and political war, which exists to this day, about whether, and to what extent, the federal government should require integration in schools. In "Brown," the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in public schools and in the process discarded the doctrine of "separate but equal" it dubiously announced in 1896 in "Plessy v. Ferguson."

The case came before the top court from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware. In each instance, representatives of black children had asked a federal court to help them gain admittance to public schools on an integrated basis after the children had been denied such admittance. "Separate education facilities are inherently unequal," the Supreme Court ultimately ruled. "(To) separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."

The Supreme Court's decision put the power and prestige of the federal courts, and thus the federal government itself, on the side of integration. It initiated a series of events that culminated in race riots, the civil rights movement and, ultimately, comprehensive civil rights legislation in the 1960s. The decision, and the way it ultimately was enforced by federal officials, also helped turn the solid Democratic South into a Republican stronghold.

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Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

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Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

The Supreme Court's decision in "Gideon" gave indigents the right under the Sixth Amendment to court-appointed counsel in all felony cases. In other words, it established a rule that over the decades has permitted perhaps millions of people - too poor to hire their own lawyer - to have an attorney appointed on their behalf in the most serious cases our legal system considers.

Clarence Earl Gideon had been convicted in Florida of breaking and entering and was serving a five-year prison sentence when he asked the Supreme Court to look at his case. During trial, Gideon told the top court, he had repeatedly asked a Florida judge to have a lawyer appointed to help him with his defense. The Supreme Court agreed that the right to counsel was a fundamental right to be afforded to every defendant. "Fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him," the Supreme Court wrote.

In his 1964 book about the case Gideon's Trumpet, Anthony Lewis wrote that Gideon's triumph "shows that the poorest and least powerful of men - a convict with not even a friend to visit him in prison - can take his cause to the highest court in the land and bring about a fundamental change in the law."

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Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

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Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

This decision makes the list in lieu of its more famous descendant, "Roe v. Wade," because without "Griswold" it is at least arguable that "Roe" would not have been written as it was.

In "Griswold," the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a state law banning the use of contraceptives and in the process identified a constitutionally-sanctioned "zone of privacy" into which governmental intrusion could not reach. This "privacy interest" would also serve as a justification for the Supreme Court's abortion decision just two years later in "Roe."

Some legal experts have called the "Griswold" case the "most important" of its era. Others have criticized it strongly because the "privacy" rights described by the "Griswold" majority are nowhere explicitly found in the Constitution. Even the Supreme Court justices who agreed that the Connecticut statute was unconstitutional could not agree on precisely why. But "Griswold" begat "Roe" and the two cases have now stood for more than a quarter of a century for the proposition that state or federal laws aimed at most types of personal conduct are likely to be struck down by the top court.

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Goldberg v. Kelly (1973)

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Goldberg v. Kelly (1973)

In "Goldberg," the Supreme Court held that a state could not terminate "public assistance payments to a particular recipient without affording him the opportunity for an evidentiary hearing prior to termination." The case therefore established the rule, now commonplace, that the government cannot take away a benefit it has chosen to offer its citizens without affording those citizens certain "procedural due process" requirements. Millions of Americans benefit from this decision, probably without even knowing it.

The plaintiffs had brought suit against New York claiming that the state was on the verge of improperly terminating their welfare benefits, or already had terminated their welfare benefits, "without prior notice and hearing." The Supreme Court agreed that due process required the government to give its citizens "the opportunity to be heard ... at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner." The "Goldberg" decision dramatically changed the way the government - in particular, its bureaucratic component - is required by law to operate and it created the notion that even government "benefits" create property interests, which people may go to court to protect.

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U.S. v. Nixon (1974)

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U.S. v. Nixon (1974): Bonus Case

Although this decision didn't have a profound effect on a large majority of Americans or symbolize a sea-change in legal or social thinking, it did lead directly to President Richard Nixon's resignation. It also laid the groundwork for the Supreme Court's 1997 decision to permit Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton to proceed. That later decision, influenced the impeachment of Clinton and ominously opened the door for future civil lawsuits against sitting presidents. The Supreme Court's decision in the Nixon and Clinton cases stand for the proposition that no individual, including the U.S. president, is above the law.

The case came about during the Watergate crisis, when the president claimed executive privilege and refused to produce audiotapes and documents in response to a subpoena issued by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The Supreme Court ruled that the president's "generalized" privilege claims could not "prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice."

As it had done nearly 200 years earlier in "Marbury v. Madison" when it delineated the judicial branch's power over the legislative branch, the Court in "Nixon" delineated its power over the third branch of government, the executive branch.

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U. S. vs. Miller, the last Second Amendment case decided by the Supreme Court, involved what type of arms?

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Sawed-off shotguns
the year was 1939

we currently await a decision, April 2008

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What event led to the quartering of soldiers in private homes, and thus to the eventual inclusion of the Third Amendment in the Bill of Rights?

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The Boston Tea Party