Supreme Court Cases: The Top 30
Directions: Using http://www.streetlaw.org/en/home, http://oyez.org/, or your textbook for each
of the following cases include the following in the chart provided:
 Summary of the case
o Who was involved?
o What happened?
o Where and when did it occur?
o How and why was it brought to the Supreme Court?
 The decision:
o What was the Supreme Court ruling?
o Explain why this is a landmark case
This assignment must be hand written, not typed.
Grading: 2 points each summary, 1 point each precedent = 90 points total
DUE DATE: April 4th
1. Marbury v. Madison
2. McCulloch v. Maryland
3. Gibbons v. Ogden
4. Engel v. Vitale
5. Lemon v. Kurtzman
6. Reynolds v. United States (1879)
7. Oregon v. Smith
8. Schenck v. United States
9. New York Times v. Sullivan
10. Roth v. Unites States
11. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent
School District
12. Texas v. Johnson
13. Barron v. Baltimore
14. Gitlow v. New York
15. Weeks v. United States
16. Mapp v. Ohio
17. Gideon v. Wainwright
18. Miranda v. Arizona
19. Dred Scott v. Sandford
20. Plessy v. Ferguson
21. Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka
22. Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke
23. Grutter v. Bollinger
24. Griswold v. Connecticut
25. Roe v. Wade
26. Baker v. Carr
27. Wesberry v. Sanders
28. Korematsu v. Unites States
29. United States v. Nixon (1974)
30. Buckley v. Valeo
Court Case
Marbury v. Madison
Who was
involved?
William Marbury, James
Madison
What
happened?
Marbury and several
others were appointed to
government posts
created by Congress in
the last days of John
Adams's presidency, but
these were never fully
finalized.
March 2,
1801,Washington DC
Where and
when did it
occur?
How and
why was it
brought to
the
Supreme
Court?
Based on Judiciary Act
of 1789 SCOTUS had
jurisdiction
What was
the
Supreme
Court
ruling?
Explain
why this is
a landmark
case
Judiciary Act of 1789 is
unconstitutional because
it conflicts with the
Constitution.
Establishes the
SCOTUS’ power of
judicial review