Landmark Supreme Court Cases
Year
1793
1803
1819
1824
1831
1832
1841
1857
1873
1877
1895
Case
Chisolm
v.
Georgia
Marbury
v.
Madison
McCulloch
v.
Maryland
Gibbons
v.
Ogden
Cherokee Nation
v.
Georgia
Worcester
v.
Georgia
US
v.
The Amistad
Dred Scott
v.
Sanford
Bradwell
v.
Illinois
Munn
v.
Illinois
US v.
E.C. Knight Co.
Ruling
Holding: The Court repealed the States’ sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the power
to hear disputes between private citizens and States.
Chief Justice
John Jay
(1st Chief Justice)
Holding: Established the doctrine of judicial review.
Holding: The Constitution gives the federal government certain implied powers.
Holding: The commerce clause of the Constitution grants the federal government the power to
determine how interstate commerce is conducted.
John Marshall
(4th Chief Justice)
Holding: The Supreme Court does not have original jurisdiction to hear a suit brought by the
Cherokee Nation, which is not a "foreign State" within the meaning of Article III
Holding: States have no criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country.
Holding: Africans are free, are not property, kidnapped, and are ordered to be released. The
President is not required to return the Africans to Spain since they had no intention of being slaves.
Holding:
1. Persons of African descent cannot be, nor were ever intended to be, citizens under the U.S.
Constitution. Plaintiff is without standing to file a suit.
2. The Property Clause is only applicable to lands possessed at the time of ratification. Congress
cannot ban slavery in the territories. Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional.
3. Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from freeing
slaves brought into federal territories.
Roger Taney
(5 Chief Justice)
th
Holding: Illinois constitutionally denied law licenses to women, because the right to practice law
was not one of the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Salmon Chase
(6th Chief Justice)
Holding: The Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent the State of Illinois from regulating charges
for use of a business' grain elevators.
Morrison Waite
(7th Chief Justice)
Holding: Manufacturing is not considered an area that can be regulated by Congress pursuant to
the commerce clause.
Melville Fuller
(8th Chief Justice)
1896
Plessy
v.
Ferguson
1904
Northern Securities
Co. v. US
1905
1911
1919
1919
1935
1936
1944
1954
1958
1961
1962
Lochner
v.
New York
Standard Oil Co.
v.
US
Abrams
v.
US
Schenck
v.
US
Schechter
v.
US
US
v.
Butler
Kormeatsu
v.
US
Brown v. Board of
Education
Cooper
v.
Aaron
Mapp
v.
Ohio
Engel
v.
Vitale
Holding: The "separate but equal" provision of private services mandated by state government is
constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause.
Holding: The federal government had the right to break up a corporation called the Northern
Securities Company. Gave further strength to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Melville Fuller
(8th Chief Justice)
Holding: New York's regulation of the working hours of bakers was not a justifiable restriction of
the right to contract freely under the 14th Amendment's guarantee of liberty.
Holding: The Standard Oil Company conspired to restrain the trade and commerce in petroleum,
and to monopolize the commerce in petroleum, in violation of the Sherman Act, and was split into
many smaller companies. Several individuals, including John D. Rockefeller, were fined.
Holding: Defendants' criticism of U.S. involvement in World War I was not protected by the First
Amendment, because they advocated a strike in munitions production and the violent overthrow of
the government.
Holding: Defendant's criticism of the draft was not protected by the First Amendment, because it
created a clear and present danger to the enlistment and recruiting practices of the U.S. armed
forces during a state of war.
Holding: Section 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act was an unconstitutional delegation of
legislative power to the Executive, and was not a valid exercise of congressional Commerce Clause
power. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part.
Holding: The Agricultural Adjustment Act is an unconstitutional exercise of power.
Holding: The exclusion order leading to Japanese American Internment was constitutional.
Edward Douglass
White
(9th Chief Justice)
Charles Evans
Hughes
(11th Chief Justice)
Harlan Stone
(12th Chief Justice)
Holding: Separate schools are not equal. Overturns Plessy v. Ferguson
Holding: States cannot nullify decisions of the federal courts.
Holding: Illegally obtained material cannot be used in a criminal trial.
Holding: School initiated-prayer in the public school system violates the First Amendment.
Earl Warren
(14th Chief Justice)
1963
1964
1965
1966
1971
1972
1973
1974
1978
1989
2012
2013
Gideon
v.
Wainwright
Escobedo
v.
Illinois
Griswold
v.
Connecticut
Miranda
v.
Arizona
New York Times
v.
US
Furman
v.
Georgia
Roe
v.
Wade
US
v.
Nixon
University of
California
v.Bakke
Texas
v.
Johnson
National Federation
of Independent
Business v. Sebelius
Shelby County v.
Holder
Holding: Indigent defendants must be provided representation without charge.
Holding: Where a police investigation begins to focus on a particular suspect who has been refused
counsel, his statements to police are excluded.
Holding: A Connecticut law criminalizing the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital
privacy. Connecticut Supreme Court reversed.
Earl Warren
(14th Chief Justice)
Holding: Police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning.
Holding: In order to exercise prior restraint, the Government must show sufficient evidence that
the publication would cause a “grave and irreparable” danger.
Holding: The arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Holding: Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due
process rights.
Warren Burger
(15th Chief Justice)
Holding: The President is not above the law.
Holding: The Court held that while affirmative action systems are constitutional, a quota system
based on race is unconstitutional.
Holding: Even offensive speech such as flag burning is protected by the First Amendment.
Holding: Upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on the basis that Congress has the
right to regulate Interstate Commerce.
Holding: Overturns section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, 1965. Regions of the nation who needed
pre-clearance from the federal government to change polling places no longer need to seek
permission.
William Rehnquist
(16th Chief Justice)