Landmark SCOTUS Cases Timeline

Gibbons v. Ogden

May 2, 1824

QUESTION: Does the Commerce Clause give Congress authority over interstate navigation? Decision: The Court forbade states from enacting any legislation that would interfere with congressś rights or commerce among the separate states.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Mar 6, 1857

QUESTION: Was Dred Scott free or a slave? Decision: Upheld slavery in United States territories, denied te legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional.

Plessy v. Ferguson

May 18, 1896

QUESTION: Does the Separate Car Act violate the Fourteenth Amendment? Decision: The majority ruled that ¨seperate but equal¨ public accommodations for Black and white people were constitutional.

Korematsu v. United States

Dec 18, 1944

QUESTION: Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by implementing exclusion and restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent? Decision: The conviction was upheld.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

May 17, 1954

QUESTION: Does the segregation of public education based solely on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Decision: Outlawed racial segregation in public schools. It said that ¨ Separate but Equal¨ was wrong and could not be used to justify racial segregation in schools since the end of the 19th century.

Miranda v. Arizona

Jun 13, 1966

QUESTION: Does the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination extend to the police interrogation of a suspect? Decision: They ruled that an arrested individual is entitled to rights against self-incrimination and to an attorney under 5th and 6th Amendments of the United States Consatitution.

Roe V. Wade

Jan 22, 1973

QUESTION: Does the Constitution recognize a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion? The decision was that a woman has the right to privacy, and abortion falls within those rights. In the first trimester, the state can not interfere with abortion, but in the second trimester, the state can interfere.

United States v. Nixon

Jul 24, 1974

QUESTION: Is the President's right to safeguard certain information, using his "executive privilege" confidentiality power, entirely immune from judicial review? Decision: They determined that the question of whether the Senate had properly tried an impeachment was political and could not be resolved in the courts if there was no applicable judicial standard.

Texas v. Johnson

Jun 21, 1989

QUESTION: Is the desecration of an American flag, by burning or otherwise, a form of speech that is protected under the First Amendment? Decision: They agreed that symbolic speech no matter how offensive to some is protected under the first amendment.

Obergefell v. Hodges

Jun 26, 2017

QUESTION:(1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? (2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex that was legally licensed and performed in another state? Decision: Same-sex couples have the same right to marry as opposite-sex couples.