Important Decisions of the Supreme Court
4-16
Due Process and Criminal Law Procedure
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
The plaintiff, Gideon, was granted the right to a new trial with a courtappointed attorney after being found guilty in his first trial, in which he had
no legal representation (he was too poor to hire an attorney for his first
trial). Gideon was found not guilty in his second trial. The court ruled that
the 6th Amendment’s guarantee of legal counsel for poor persons charged
with a felony applied to defendants in state criminal trials. After Gideon,
states had to appoint attorneys for all who could not afford them.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
Ernesto Miranda appealed his conviction on kidnapping and sexual assault
charges, saying that he had not had access to legal counsel or been told
of his legal rights prior to his confession. Therefore, he argued, his
confession was invalid. The court agreed that Miranda should have been
warned, “prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that
anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has a
right to . . . an attorney . . . .” Those warnings are now referred to as
“Miranda rights.”
Equal Protection and Civil Rights
Constitution
14th
Amendment
Equal
Protection
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Plaintiff Herman Plessy argued that a Louisiana law that required separate
seating for whites and African-Americans on public railroads violated his
right to “equal protection under the laws,” guaranteed by the 14th
Amendment. The court ruled that as long as the segregated facilities were
equal, they were constitutional. Segregated public facilities remained legal
until the court ruled segregation to be unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of
Education in 1954.
Bob Jones University v. United States (1983)
Bob Jones University, a private college, had a policy that barred admission
to any applicants who were interracially married. Private colleges are taxexempt; the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revoked the college’s taxexempt status based on the policy, charging that it was discriminatory. The
college appealed the IRS’s decision to the Supreme Court, trying to regain
its tax-exempt status. The court ruled against the college, finding that the
government has “a fundamental overriding interest in eradicating racial
discrimination in education.”
Important Decisions of the Supreme Court
4-17
Free Speech
Schenck v. United States (1919)
Plaintiff Charles Schenck led an antiwar group that urged young men to
avoid the draft for World War I. Schenck was arrested for violating the
Espionage Act of 1917, which made opposing the war a crime. Schenck
argued that the law violated his free-speech rights. The court found against
Schenck, ruling that his rights could be limited in a time of war. The ruling
set the precedent that the federal government could curtail First
Amendment rights in some circumstances.
PEACE
Texas v. Johnson (1989)
Defendant Gregory Johnson burned a U.S. flag outside of the Republican
National Convention in Dallas, Texas, in 1984. He was convicted of illegally
desecrating the U.S. flag under a Texas law that forbade it. Johnson’s
conviction was overturned by a higher Texas court, but the state appealed
the case to the Supreme Court. The court struck down the Texas law, ruling
that it infringed on Johnson’s freedom of expression.
Privacy and Abortion
Roe v. Wade (1973)
A woman challenged a Texas law that forbade abortion in the first three
months of pregnancy, claiming that the law infringed on her “fundamental
right to privacy.” The court found that the state could not infringe on a
woman’s right to privacy, including her right to an abortion. The ruling
struck down all state laws regulating abortion in the first three months of
a pregnancy.
23-11
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
Health care providers in Missouri challenged a state law that said that
public funds could not be used to pay for abortions or abortion counseling.
The workers claimed that the law conflicted with the court’s ruling in Roe v.
Wade. The court ruled in favor of the state, finding that the state could limit
the use of public funds as it saw fit. The Webster ruling scaled back the
privacy protections Roe v. Wade had established.
Important Decisions of the Supreme Court
4-18
Freedom of Religion
Engel v. Vitale (1962)
New York State public school officials had required students to recite a
nondenominational prayer at the beginning of each school day. A group
of parents sued the state, claiming that the prayer violated their children’s
First Amendment protection against the state establishment of religion. The
court found that the prayer was an unconstitutional attempt by the
government to establish a state religion.
Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
The court struck down a state law that allowed financial aid to private
religious schools. In its ruling, it developed a three-part test that states
must meet in order to avoid violating the constitutional bar on a state
establishment of religion. The court found that the aid to religious schools
must be intended to achieve a non-religious purpose, must neither
advance nor inhibit religion, and must not lead to an excessive government
entanglement with religion.
Freedom of the Press
G
AG
R
U
LE
X
Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966)
In 1954, Dr. Sam Sheppard was arrested for killing his pregnant wife in
their Cleveland, Ohio, home. The press publicized the story extensively,
covering it in a way that assumed Sheppard’s guilt. Newspapers also
printed information damaging to Sheppard that was not introduced as
evidence. The court overturned Sheppard’s conviction, ruling that pretrial
publicity had threatened his ability to receive a fair trial. If press coverage
interferes with the fair administration of justice, the court ruled, courts may
curb the freedom of the press, by limiting the number of reporters allowed
in a courtroom, for example, and by keeping jurors and witnesses away
from the press. After the Sheppard case, courts began to issue “gag rules,”
court orders that bar the press from printing certain information about a
case that has not gone to trial.
New York Times Co. v. U.S. (1971)
The federal government had tried to stop the New York Times and the
Washington Post from publishing articles based on the Pentagon Papers,
thousands of classified government documents that disclosed new
information about the extent of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. The
newspapers insisted on their right to publish the material under the First
Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press. The government argued
that publication of the papers would harm national security. The court ruled
that the government had failed to meet “the heavy burden of showing
justification” for the need to keep the papers confidential. Therefore, the
government’s request for “prior restraint” of the press was denied.
Important Decisions of the Supreme Court
4-19
Search and Seizure
Se
Wa arch
rra
nt
Weeks v. United States (1914)
Federal agents conducted a search of Mr. Weeks’ home without a warrant
and used documents found there to prosecute and convict him. Weeks
argued that since the evidence had been obtained in violation of his 4th
Amendment guarantee against “unreasonable searches and seizures,”
it should be excluded from his trial. The court agreed with Weeks and
overturned his conviction, establishing the “exclusionary rule,” which allows
a defendant to forbid the introduction of evidence that is obtained illegally.
The Weeks decision applied only to people accused of federal crimes.
Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Police raided the plaintiff’s home without a warrant and seized materials
judged to be obscene. The plaintiff appealed her obscenity conviction to
the Supreme Court on the grounds that the 14th Amendment’s due
process extended the 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable
search and seizure to states. The court ruled in her favor; prior to the
ruling, some states had admitted illegally obtained evidence in court.
Capital Punishment
Furman v. Georgia (1972)
One of a group of three cases decided by the court, which raised issues
of racial imbalance in applying the death penalty. With this ruling, the court
struck down all capital punishment laws in the U.S. The ways in which
judges and juries decided to impose the death penalty, it found, were too
arbitrary, and resulted in “a wanton and freakish pattern of its use.”
Therefore, the laws violated the 8th Amendment’s prohibition against
“cruel and unusual punishment.”
Gregg v. Georgia (1976)
The court upheld Georgia’s capital punishment law, which had been
changed to establish a two-part process for applying the death penalty:
first a trial to determine the defendant’s guilt or innocence, then a separate
phase for sentencing. The court found that capital punishment, in and of
itself, did not violate the 8th Amendment’s protection against cruel and
unusual punishment.
Important Decisions of the Supreme Court
4-20
Voting Rights
BA LLOT
Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960)
An Alabama districting plan attempted to dilute black voting power by
purposely drawing district lines to exclude African-Americans in the city
of Tuskegee. Professor C. G. Gomillion of Tuskegee Institute argued that
the district trampled blacks’ rights to vote. The court ruled that the
gerrymandered district was unconstitutional on the basis of the 15th
Amendment, which forbids the denial of voting rights on the basis of race.
Gray v. Sanders (1963), Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)
In these two cases, the court ruled that all votes cast in an electoral
district should be given equal weight. The concept of equal representation
became known as the “one person, one vote” rule. In Gray, the court found
that the system Georgia used for primary elections, which gave more
weight to votes cast in rural districts, violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal
Protection Clause. In Wesberry, the court applied the rule to congressional
districts, after voters in Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District complained
that the area, which included Atlanta, had not been redistricted to reflect
population growth.
Affirmative Action
Application
Name __________________
Qualifications ____________
Racial or Ethnic
Background______________
University of California Regents v. Bakke (1978)
Allan Bakke, a white applicant who was denied admission to a University
of California medical school, claimed that the school had discriminated
against him because it had used a race-based admissions policy that set
aside spaces for minority applicants. Bakke had higher test scores than a
black applicant who had been admitted. The court found the admissions
program to be unconstitutional and ordered the university to admit Bakke.
It also ruled, however, that colleges could consider race as a positive
factor in the admissions process.
Adarand Constructors v. Pena (1995)
Randy Pech, the white owner of a construction company, lost a bid for
completing a federal construction project to a Hispanic-owned firm. Pech’s
bid for the work had been lower, but under a federal affirmative-action
program, the Hispanic firm had been awarded the contract. The court
upheld Pech’s claim of discrimination, finding that federal affirmative-action
programs could exist only if they served a “compelling governmental
interest” in addressing past discrimination. The ruling narrowed the scope
of permissible affirmative-action programs.
Important Decisions of the Supreme Court
4-21
States’ Rights and the Commerce Clause
Commerce Clause
Constitution
(Article 1, Sect. 8)
14th
Amendment
“The Congress shall
have power . . . to
regulate Commerce
with foreign Nations
and among the
several States . . . ”
Equal
Protection
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
Aaron Ogden, a ferry operator with a state license to operate steamboats
in and out of New York, sought to prevent Thomas Gibbons from landing
in New York City. Gibbons was a ferry operator who possessed a federal
license that allowed him to navigate and trade in all U.S. waters. After
considering the conflict between federal and states’ rights to regulate
commerce, the court ruled that Congress could regulate any commerce
that affected more than one state. Future federal regulations regarding
television, pipelines, and banking were based on this decision.
U.S. v. Lopez (1995)
The Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990, a federal law that made it a
crime to possess a gun within 1,000 feet of a public school, had been
challenged on the grounds that the enforcement of law and order was
properly the responsibility of states, not the federal government. The
federal government had argued that the Commerce Clause gave it the
right to impose the law. The court disagreed, ruling that the law was “a
singular incursion by the federal government into territory long occupied
by the state.”
Separation of Powers
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
In a case that would define the role of the court, the court found part of
the Judiciary Act of 1789 to be unconstitutional. Chief Justice Marshall
established the principle of “judicial review” as a power of the court. This
meant that the court could declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, a
significant check on Congress’s power.
United States v. Nixon (1974)
This case arose from the Watergate scandal. President Nixon had refused
to surrender to investigators tapes he made of conversations with his
advisors. Nixon had invoked “executive privilege” in refusing to hand over
the tapes, but the court ruled that “the fundamental demands of due
process of the law” were more important than the president’s
confidentiality. It ordered Nixon to give up the tapes.