Landmark Cases

By tristanlarge42

  • Dred Scott V. Sanford

    Dred Scott V. Sanford
    Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed suit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. Scott's master maintained that no descendant of slaves could be a citizen in the sense of Article III of the Constitution. Was Dred Scott free or a slave?

  • Plessy V. Ferguson

    Plessy V. Ferguson
    In 1892, Homer Plessy – who was seven-eighths Caucasian – agreed to participate in a test to challenge the Act. He was solicited by the Comite des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), a group of New Orleans residents who sought to repeal the Act. They asked Plessy, who was technically black under Louisiana law, to sit in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. Does the Separate Car Act violate the Fourteenth Amendment? Segregation was found to be acceptable at the time.

  • Korematsu V. United States

    Korematsu V. United States
    A Japanese-American man living in San Leandro, Fred Korematsu, chose to stay at his residence rather than obey the order to relocate. Korematsu was arrested and convicted of violating the order. He responded by arguing that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed Korematsu's conviction. Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by implementing exclusion and restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent?

  • Brown V. Board of Education

    Brown V. Board of Education
    This case was the consolidation of cases arising relating to the segregation of public schools on the basis of race. In each of the cases, African American students had been denied admittance to certain public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race. Argued that segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Does the segregation of public education based solely on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

  • Mapp V. Ohio

    Mapp V. Ohio
    Dollree Mapp was convicted of possessing obscene materials after an admittedly illegal police search of her home for a fugitive. She appealed her conviction on the basis of freedom of expression. Were the confiscated materials protected from seizure by the Fourth Amendment?

  • Miranda V. Arizona

    Miranda V. Arizona
    In 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested in his house and brought to the police station where he was questioned by police officers in connection with a kidnapping and rape. The jury found Miranda guilty. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Arizona affirmed and held that Miranda’s constitutional rights were not violated because he did not specifically request counsel. Does the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination extend to the police interrogation of a suspect?

  • Wisconsin V. Yoder

    Wisconsin V. Yoder
    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. 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?

  • Roe V. Wade

    Roe V. Wade
    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. Does the Constitution recognize a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?

  • Texas V. Johnson

    Texas V. Johnson
    Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag as a means of protest against Reagan administration policies. Johnson was tried and convicted under a Texas law outlawing flag desecration. He was sentenced to one year in jail and assessed a $2,000 fine. After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction, the case went to the Supreme Court. Is the desecration of an American flag, by burning or otherwise, a form of speech that is protected under the First Amendment?

  • Bush V. Gore

    Bush V. Gore
    Every county in Florida must immediately begin manually recounting all "under-votes" because there were enough contested ballots to place the outcome of the election in doubt. Governor George Bush and his running mate, Richard Cheney, filed a request for review in the U.S. Supreme Court and sought an emergency petition for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court's decision. Did the Florida Supreme Court violate Article II Section 1 Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution by making new election law?