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Intro. U.S. Law.

2010
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In the case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford their own attorneys Domino's Pizza, Inc. v. McDonald, 546 U.S. 470 (2006), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving claims for racial discrimination against the right to make and enforce contracts under 42 U.S.C. 1981, a key civil rights provision in U.S. law that was originally enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Court ruled unanimously, in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, that because agents of parties to contracts do not personally have rights under those contracts, they cannot state a claim under section 1981. PREISER V. RODRIGUEZ: Held: When a state prisoner challenges the fact or duration of his physical imprisonment and, by way of relief, seeks a determination that he is entitled to immediate release or a speedier release, his sole federal remedy is a writ of habeas corpus Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that under the Fourth Amendment, when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, he or she may use deadly force only to prevent escape if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others. Collins v. City of Harker Heights, Texas: Civil Rights (Federal), 14th Amendment. Legal Question Presented: Should a city that routinely does not train or warn its employees about known workplace hazards be liable under the Civil Rights Act and Fourteenth Amendment due process clause when a municipal employee is fatally injured in the course of his employment? In sum, we conclude that the Due Process Clause does not impose an independent federal obligation upon municipalities to provide certain minimal levels of safety and security in the workplace and the city's alleged failure to train or to warn its sanitation department employees was not arbitrary in a constitutional sense." Held: The city's conduct does not violate the Due Process Clause. Affirmed. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) is a landmark case in United States law. It formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution. This case resulted from a petition to the Supreme Court by William Marbury, who had been appointed by President John Adams as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia but whose commission was not subsequently delivered. Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to force Secretary of State James Madison to deliver the documents, but the court, with John
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Marshall as Chief Justice, denied Marbury's petition, holding that the part of the statute upon which he based his claim, the Judiciary Act of 1789, was unconstitutional. Marbury v. Madison was the first time the Supreme Court declared something "unconstitutional", and established the concept of judicial review in the U.S. (the idea that courts may oversee and nullify the actions of another branch of government). The landmark decision helped define the "checks and balances" of the American form of government Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case decided on March 20, 1816. It was the first case to assert ultimate Supreme Court authority over state courts in matters of federal law. Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited poll taxes in federal elections; the Supreme Court extended this prohibition to state elections Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000), and only three days earlier, had preliminarily halted the recount that was occurring in Florida. In a per curiam decision, the Court in Bush v. Gore ruled that the Florida Supreme Court's method for recounting ballots was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also ruled that no alternative method could be established within the time limits set by the State of Florida. Three concurring justices also asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature. The decision allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's previous certification of George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's electoral votes to stand. Florida's 25 electoral votes gave Bush, the Republican candidate, 271 electoral votes, defeating Democratic candidate Al Gore, who ended up with 266 electoral votes (with one D.C. elector abstaining). A majority (270) of the electoral votes is needed to win the Presidency or Vice Presidency in the Electoral College. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), also commonly referred to as The Steel Seizure Case, was a United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the United States Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress. It was a "stinging rebuff" to President Harry Truman.[1]
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Justice Hugo Black's majority decision was, however, qualified by the separate concurring opinions of five other members of the Court, making it difficult to determine the details and limits of the President's power to seize private property in emergencies. Note that while a concurrence, Justice Jackson's opinion is used by most legal scholars and Members of Congress to assess Executive power. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case involving principles of both governmental regulation of business and the supremacy of the executive branch of the federal government to conduct foreign affairs.

This is about the 1974 case on the powers of President Richard Nixon. For the 1993 impeachment of Judge Walter Nixon, see Nixon v. United States. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision. It was a unanimous 8-0 ruling involving President Richard Nixon and was important to the late stages of the Watergate scandal. It is considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any U.S. president. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court involving the doctrines of qualified immunity and absolute immunity. The Court held that presidential aides were not entitled to absolute immunity, but instead deserved qualified immunity. Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982),[1] was a Supreme Court of the United States court case that dealt with immunity from suit to government officials performing discretionary functions when their action did not violate clearly established law. Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland. Though the law, by its language, was generally applicable to all banks not chartered in Maryland, the Second Bank of the United States was the only out-of-state bank then existing in Maryland, and the law was recognized in the court's opinion as having specifically targeted the U.S. Bank. The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution which allowed the Federal government to pass laws not expressly provided for in the Constitution's list of express powers provided those laws are in useful furtherance of the express powers of Congress under the Constitution. This fundamental case established the following two principles:
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1. The Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. 2. State action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government. The opinion was written by Chief Justice John Marshall. Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824),[1] was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.[2] The case was argued by some of America's most admired and capable attorneys at the time. Exiled Irish patriot Thomas Addis Emmet and Thomas J. Oakley argued for Ogden, while William Wirt and Daniel Webster argued for Gibbons. United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995) was the first United States Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. City of Rome v. United States (1980) Race-based discrimination with respect to voting has pervaded American history, and the U.S. Congress aggressively attacked this wrong by adopting the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At issue in the City of Rome case was the most controversial provision of the Voting Rights Act, which requires federal Justice Department approval of any change in any voting practice put in place by a locale marked by a history of discrimination if that change has either "the purpose [or] . . . the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color." The case grew out of efforts to alter both the electorate and the electoral system of the city of Rome, through the city's annexation of neighboring areas and the adoption of an at-large voting scheme for the selection of city commissioners. (Included in the thirteen contested annexations, for example, were 823 new white voters and only 9 new black voters.) Rome proved in court that it had not pursued these changes with any racially discriminatory purpose, but Justice Department approval was denied nonetheless on the ground that the reforms would have an adverse effect on the ability of African Americans to secure local representation. Confronted with a constitutional challenge to Congress's authority to adopt this effects-based standard, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Justice Department and blocked Rome's proposed actions. In recognizing Congress's power under the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to attack the racially discriminatory effects of voting changes, even in the absence of a current racially discriminatory purpose, the Court both sustained and illustrated the power of the most far-reaching feature of modern federal voting-rights legislation.

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Issue: Under constitutional law, may the Court uphold Congressional legislation which blocks a city's electoral process when the process is not discriminatory on its face? Holding: Yes. The Act's ban on electoral changes that are discriminatory in effect is an appropriate method of promoting the purposes of the 15th Amendment, even if it is assumed that section one of the Amendment prohibits only intentional discrimination in voting. Court's Rationale/Reasoning: Even though the Court's Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence teaches that the Clause prohibits only purposeful discrimination, not actions with discriminatory effects, the Court found Congress to have been acting within its Section 2, 15th Amendment powers. The Court said it would defer to the judgment of Congress that because of past "ingenious defiance" of the right of black voters, it might be necessary to focus on discriminatory effects to uphold "the spirit" of the 15th Amendment. The Court found that under section 2 of the 15th Congress may prohibit practices that in and of themselves do not violate section 1 of the Amendment, so long as the prohibitions attacking racial discrimination in voting are appropriate. United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000) is a United States Supreme Court decision which held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded congressional power under the Commerce Clause and under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363 (2000),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States used the preemption doctrine to strike down the Massachusetts Burma Law, a law that effectively prohibited Massachusetts' governmental agencies from buying goods and services from companies conducting business with Myanmar (Burma) essentially, a secondary boycott. The Massachusetts Burma Law was modeled after similar legislation that had targeted the apartheid regime of South Africa. The Court reasoned that the United States Congress had passed a law imposing sanctions on Myanmar, and that the Massachusetts law "undermine[d] the intended purpose and 'natural effect' of at least three provisions of the federal Act, that is, its delegation of effective discretion to the President to control economic sanctions against Burma, its limitation of sanctions solely to United States persons and new investment, and its directive to the President to proceed diplomatically in developing a comprehensive, multilateral strategy towards Burma." Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes.

Intro. U.S. Law. 2010


Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that held a "liberty of contract" was implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case involved a New York law that limited the number of hours that a baker could work each day to ten, and limited the number of hours that a baker could work each week to 60. By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the law was necessary to protect the health of bakers, deciding it was a labor law attempting to regulate the terms of employment, and calling it an "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract." Justice Rufus Peckham wrote for the majority, while Justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. filed dissents. Lochner was one of the most controversial decisions in the Supreme Court's history, starting what is now known as the Lochner era. In the Lochner era, the Supreme Court issued several controversial decisions invalidating progressive federal and state statutes that sought to regulate working conditions during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. Justice Harlan's dissent, joined by two other Justices, argued that the Court gave insufficient weight to the state's argument that the law was a valid health measure. Justice Holmes's famous lone dissent criticized the decision for discarding sound constitutional interpretation in favor of personal beliefs, writing: "[t]he Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics." This was a reference to a book in which Spencer advocated a strict laissez faire philosophy. During the quarter-century that followed Lochner, the Supreme Court generally upheld economic regulations, but also issued several rulings invalidating such regulations. The Court also began to use the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect personal (as opposed to purely property) rights, including freedom of speech and the right to send one's child to private school (which was the beginning of a line of cases interpreting privacy rights). The Lochner era is often considered to have ended with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), in which the Supreme Court took a much broader view of the government's power to regulate economic activities. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965),[1] was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 72, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy". Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy," Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority that the right was to be found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional protections. Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion in which he used the Ninth Amendment to defend the Supreme Court's ruling. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote a concurring opinion in which he argued that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Byron White also wrote a concurrence based on the due process clause.

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Two Justices, Hugo Black and Potter Stewart, filed dissents. Justice Black argued that the right to privacy is to be found nowhere in the Constitution. Furthermore, he criticized the interpretations of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to which his fellow Justices adhered. Justice Stewart famously called the Connecticut statute "an uncommonly silly law", but argued that it was nevertheless constitutional. Since Griswold, the Supreme Court has cited the right to privacy in several rulings, most notably in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). The Supreme Court ruled that a woman's choice to have an abortion was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor. For the most part, the Court has made these later rulings on the basis of Justice Harlan's substantive due process rationale. The Griswold line of cases remains controversial, and has drawn accusations of "judicial activism" by many conservatives. United States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144 (1938),[1] was an April 25, 1938 decision by the United States Supreme Court. The case dealt with a federal law that prohibited filled milk (skimmed milk compounded with any fat or oil other than milk fat, so as to resemble milk or cream) from being shipped in interstate commerce. The defendant argued that the law was unconstitutional on both Commerce Clause and due process grounds. The previous term, the Court, under pressure from the Roosevelt administration's courtpacking plan, had dramatically changed its Commerce Clause jurisprudence to enlarge substantially those activities considered to be in or to affect interstate commerce; however, it has been argued that the "switch in time that saved nine" followed the natural progression of Justice Roberts' earlier opinions (it was his swing vote in the New Deal 5-4 decisions that authorized the more intensive regulation of the economy).[citation needed] It had also altered its settled jurisprudence in the area of substantive due process, that is, the constitutional law dealing with rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. These changes meant that many New Deal programs that the Court would previously have invalidated would henceforth be found constitutional. The defendant company was charged with breaking the law described above, and at trial it had filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the law was unconstitutional. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois had granted the defendant's motion, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the District Court's ruling. Justice Harlan Stone, writing for the Court, found that the law, being "presumptively constitutional" was essentially a legislative judgment, and hence was not for the courts to overrule. Applying rational-basis review, the Court held that the law was supported by substantial public-health evidence, and was not arbitrary or irrational. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483 (1955), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that state laws regulating business will only be subject to rational basis review, and that the Court need not contemplate all possible reasons for legislation.
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Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973),[1] was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court held that the constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests for regulating abortions: protecting prenatal life and protecting the mother's health. Noting that these state interests become stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the mother's current trimester of pregnancy:

In the first trimester, the state's two interests in regulating abortions are at their weakest, and so the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion in any way. In the second trimester, there is an increase in the risks that an abortion poses to maternal health, and so the state may regulate the abortion procedure only "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health" (defined in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton). In the third trimester, there is an increase in viability rates and a corresponding greater state interest in prenatal life, and so the state can choose to restrict or proscribe abortion as it sees fit ("except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother").

In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States,[2] Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today, about issues including whether and to what extent abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the nation into pro-choice and pro-life camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a Texas three-judge District Court. The Supreme Court's decision held that a school-financing system based on local property taxes was not an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. The majority opinion stated that the appellees did not sufficiently prove that education is a fundamental right, that texturally existed within the US Constitution, and could thereby (through the 14th Amendment to the Constitution), be applied to the several States. The Court also found that the financing system was not subject to strict scrutiny. The District Court had decided that education is a fundamental right and that the financing system was subject to strict scrutiny

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DeShaney v. Winnebago County Question: Does a state's failure to protect an individual against private violence constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Conclusion: No. The Due Process Clause does not impose a special duty on the State to provide services to the public for protection against private actors if the State did not create those harms. "The Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security; while it forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, its language cannot fairly be read to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means." Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149 (1978) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States wherein the constitutionality of New York's Uniform Commercial Code provision, which allows a warehouse to enforce a lien upon repossessed goods by selling said goods, was challenged under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that the state-allowed re-sale provision did not constitute state action, and thus, the plaintiff did not possess a colorable federal due process claim. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (90) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.[2] Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976), was the first case in which a majority of the United States Supreme Court determined that statutory or administrative sex classifications had to be subjected to an intermediate standard of judicial review. (For more on different Equal Protection review standards, see the appropriate section in the article on the Equal Protection Clause.) United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Virginia Military Institute's long-standing male-only admission policy in a 7-1 decision. (Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself from the case, presumably because his son was enrolled at VMI at the time.) Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated that because VMI failed to show "exceedingly persuasive justification" for its sex-biased admissions policy, it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. In an attempt to satisfy equal protection requirements, the state of Virginia had proposed a parallel program for women, called the
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Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL), located at Mary Baldwin College, a private liberal arts women's college. However, Justice Ginsburg held that the VWIL would not provide women with the same type of rigorous military training, facilities, courses, faculty, financial opportunities, and/or alumni reputation and connections that VMI affords male cadets, a decision evocative of Sweatt v. Painter, when the Court ruled in 1950 that segregated law schools in Texas were unconstitutional, since a newly-formed black law school clearly did not provide the same benefits to its students as the state's prestigious and long-maintained white law school. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote a concurrence agreeing to strike down the male-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute, as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.[1][2] However, he declined to join the majority opinion's basis for using the Fourteenth Amendment, writing: "Had Virginia made a genuine effort to devote comparable public resources to a facility for women, and followed through on such a plan, it might well have avoided an equal protection violation."[2] This rationale supported separate but equal facilities separated on the basis of sex: "it is not the 'exclusion of women' that violates the Equal Protection Clause, but the maintenance of an all-men school without providing any -- much less a comparable -- institution for women... It would be a sufficient remedy, I think, if the two institutions offered the same quality of education and were of the same overall caliber."[2] Justice Scalia's lone dissent argued that the standard applied by the majority was closer to a strict scrutiny standard than the intermediate scrutiny standard applied to previous cases involving equal protection based on sex. Notably, however, the opinion for the Court eschewed either standard; its language did not comport with the "important governmental interest" formula used in prior intermediate scrutiny cases. Scalia argued that "if the question of the applicable standard of review for sex-based classifications were to be regarded as an appropriate subject for reconsideration, the stronger argument would be not for elevating the standard to strict scrutiny, but for reducing it to rational-basis review." With the VMI decision, the high court effectively struck down any law which, as Justice Ginsburg wrote, "Denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society." Following the ruling, VMI contemplated going private to exempt itself from the 14th Amendment, and thus this ruling. The Department of Defense warned the school that it would withdraw all ROTC programs from the school if this privatization took place. As a result of the DOD action, Congress amended 10 USC 2111a, to prohibit the military from withdrawing or diminishing any ROTC program at one of the six senior military colleges, including VMI. However, VMI's Board of Visitors had already voted 8-7 to admit women and did not revisit the issue after the law was amended. VMI was the last all-male public school in the United States.
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Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. The 54 decision was announced on June 23, 2003. Ricci v. DeStefano, 129 S. Ct. 2658, 2671, 174 L. Ed. 2d 490 (2009) is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States arising from a lawsuit brought against the city of New Haven, Connecticut by nineteen city firefighters alleging that the city discriminated against them with regard to promotions.[1] The firefighters, seventeen of whom are white and two of whom are Hispanic, had all passed the test for promotions to management. City of New Haven officials invalidated the test results because none of the black firefighters who passed the exam had scored high enough to be considered for the positions. They stated that they feared a lawsuit over the test's adverse impact on a protected minority. The complainants claimed they were denied the promotions because of their race a form of racial discrimination. The Supreme Court heard the case on April 22, 2009, and issued its decision on June 29, 2009. The Court held 5-4 that New Haven's decision to ignore the test results violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989) was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the city of Richmond's minority set-aside program, which gave preference to minority business enterprises (MBE) in the awarding of municipal contracts, was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court found that the city failed to identify both the need for remedial action and that other non-discriminatory remedies would be insufficient. Croson involved a minority set-aside program in the awarding of municipal contracts. Richmond, Virginia, with a black population of just over 50 percent had set a 30 percent goal in the awarding of city construction contracts, based on its findings that local, state, and national patterns of discrimination had resulted in all but complete lack of access for minority-owned businesses. The Supreme Court stated: "We, therefore, hold that the city has failed to demonstrate a compelling interest in apportioning public contracting opportunities on the basis of race. To accept Richmond's claim that past societal discrimination alone can serve as the basis for rigid racial preferences would be to open the door to competing claims for "remedial relief" for every disadvantaged group. The dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs. [Citing Regents of the University of California v. Bakke]. Courts would be asked to evaluate the extent of the prejudice and consequent harm suffered by various minority groups. Those whose societal injury is thought to exceed some arbitrary level of tolerability then would be entitled to preferential classification. We think such a result would be contrary to both the letter and the spirit of a constitutional provision whose central command is equality."
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New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case which established the actual malice standard which has to be met before press reports about public officials or public figures can be considered to be defamation and libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty in proving essentially what is inside a person's head, such caseswhen they involve public figuresrarely prevail. Before this decision there were nearly US$300 million in libel actions outstanding against news organizations from the Southern states and these had caused many publications to exercise great caution when reporting on civil rights, for fear that they might be held accountable for libel. After The New York Times prevailed in this case, news organizations were free to report the widespread disorder and civil rights infringements. The Times maintained that the case against it was brought to intimidate news organizations and prevent them from reporting illegal actions of public employees in the South as they attempted to continue to support segregation. "Actual malice" standard for press reporting about public figure to be libel Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment. The 54 decision, in favor of Citizens United, resulted from a dispute over whether the non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group could advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton's image, in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCainFeingold Act.[2] The decision reached the Supreme Court on appeal from a January 2008 decision by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The lower court decision upheld provisions of the McCainFeingold Act which prevented the film Hillary: The Movie from being shown on television within 30 days of 2008 Democratic primaries. The Court struck down a provision of the McCainFeingold Act that prohibited all corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting electioneering communications. [2] An "electioneering communication" was defined in McCainFeingold as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or thirty days of a primary. The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003).[4] McCainFeingold had previously been weakened, without overruling McConnell, in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007). The Court did uphold requirements for disclaimer and disclosure by sponsors of advertisements. The case did not involve the

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federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties.[5] United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990) was a United States Supreme Court case that invalidated a federal law against flag desecration as violative of free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution. It was argued together with the case United States v. Haggerty. The case involved a challenge to the 1989 Flag Protection Act, which forbade the burning or other desecration of the American flag, while allowing for burning as a means of proper disposal of worn or soiled flags. The Act was passed in response to the Court's controversial 1989 decision in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), which upheld flag burning as an act of protected speech under the First Amendment. The defendants in Eichman, Shawn Eichman, Dave Blalock and Scott Tyler (along with Gregory "Joey" Johnson, who was not arrested), had burned American flags on the steps of the United States Capitol to protest American foreign and domestic policy. In the jointly decided case, Mark Haggerty, Carlos Garza, Jennifer Campbell, and Darius Strong were charged (based on surveillance photos) for burning a flag at a mass demonstration in Seattle, Washington on the stroke of midnight when the Flag Protection Act went into effect. Federal District Courts in both cases ("Eichman" and "Haggerty") dismissed the charges on the basis of the unconstitutionality of the Flag Protection Act, relying on Texas v. Johnson. The government appealed both decisions. Under the terms of the Flag Protection Act, the appeals went directly to the Supreme Court (bypassing the Courts of Appeal). The Supreme Court was required to hear these appeals, without the choice of whether to grant certiorari, and was required to hear them on an expedited basis. The Supreme Court therefore scheduled a special session for oral argument on these cases, which were joined on appeal and argued together case alone on May 14, 1990, long after the conclusion of its normal calendar of oral argument for the term. In a 5-4 decision (with the justices voting the same way they did in Texas v. Johnson), the Court reaffirmed Johnson and struck down the law against flag burning. Brennan stated in the Court's opinion that "Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering." The defendants were represented in the Supreme Court by attorneys William Kunstler and David D. Cole, with the oral argument conducted by Kunstler. The United States was represented by Kenneth Starr, then Solicitor General. The defendants in the Washington, DC caseEichman, Blalock, and Tylerhad been charged only with flag desecration. The defendants in the Seattle caseHaggerty, Garza, Campbell, and Stronghad also been charged with destruction of government property, since one of the flags they were accused of burning was alleged to have been stolen from the Capitol Hill (Seattle)
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Post Office. On remand following the Supreme Court decision upholding the dismissal of the flag desecration charge, the four Seattle defendants pled guilty to the surviving charge of destruction of government property. All four were fined various amounts, and Garza and Strong, who had prior convictions on other charges, were sentenced to three days each in jail. R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) was a United States Supreme Court case involving hate speech and the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. A unanimous Court struck down St. Paul, Minnesota's Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, and in doing so overturned the conviction of a teenager, referred to in court documents only as R.A.V., for burning a cross on the lawn of an African American family. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006)[1], is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court involving the Federal Government's seizure of a sacramental tea, containing a Schedule I substance, from a New Mexican branch of the Brazilian church Unio do Vegetal (UDV). The church sued, claiming the seizure was illegal, and sought to ensure future importation of the tea for religious use. The United States District Court for New Mexico agreed and issued a preliminary injunction under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. 2000bb. The Government appealed to the Appeals Court for the Tenth Circuit which upheld the previous ruling, which was then appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments November 1, 2005, and issued its opinion February 21, 2006, finding that the Government failed to meet its burden under RFRA that barring the substance served a compelling government interest. The court also disagreed with the government's central argument that the uniform application of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) does not allow for exceptions for the substance in this case, as Native Americans are given exceptions to use peyote, another Schedule I substance. Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. Referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases[1] and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg, the Supreme Court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comport with the Eighth Amendment bar on "cruel and unusual punishments." The decision essentially overturned the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238 (1972). All five cases share the same basic procedural history. After the Furman decision, the states of Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Louisiana amended their death penalty statutes to meet the Furman guidelines. Subsequently, the five named defendants were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in their respective states. The respective state supreme court upheld the death sentence. The defendants then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their death sentence, asking the Court to go beyond Furman and declare once and for all the death
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penalty to be "cruel and unusual punishment" and thus in violation of the Constitution; the Court agreed to hear the cases. Writing for the 7-2 majority, Justice Potter Stewart had remarked that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual." The Court set out two broad guidelines that legislatures must follow in order to craft a constitutional capital sentencing scheme:

First, the scheme must provide objective criteria to direct and limit the death sentencing discretion. The objectiveness of these criteria must in turn be ensured by appellate review of all death sentences. Second, the scheme must allow the sentencer (whether judge or jury) to take into account the character and record of an individual defendant.

In Gregg, Proffitt, and Jurek, the Court found that the capital sentencing schemes of Georgia, Florida, and Texas, respectively, met these criteria; whereas in Woodson and Roberts, the Court found that the sentencing schemes of North Carolina and Louisiana did not. The July 2 Cases mark the beginning of the United States modern legal conversation about the death penalty. Major subsequent developments include forbidding the death penalty for rape (Coker v. Georgia), restricting the death penalty in cases of felony murder (Enmund v. Florida), exempting the mentally handicapped (Atkins v. Virginia) and juvenile murderers (Roper v. Simmons) from the death penalty, removing virtually all limitations on the presentation of mitigating evidence (Lockett v. Ohio, Holmes v. South Carolina), requiring precision in the definition of aggravating factors (Godfrey v. Georgia, Walton v. Arizona), and requiring the jury to decide whether aggravating factors have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt (Ring v. Arizona). In the July 2 Cases, the Court's goal was to provide guidance to states in the wake of Furman. In Furman only one basic idea could command a majority vote of the Justices: capital punishment, as then practiced in the United States, was cruel and unusual punishment because there were no rational standards that determined when it was imposed and when it was not. The question the Court resolved in these cases was not whether the death sentence imposed on each of the individual defendants was cruel, but rather whether the process by which those sentences were imposed was rational and objectively reviewable. Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), held that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbade the death penalty for the crime of rape of a woman. While serving several sentences for rape, kidnapping, one count of first degree murder, and aggravated assault, Erlich Anthony Coker escaped from prison. Coker broke into Allen and Elnita Carver's home near Waycross, Georgia, raped Elnita Carver and stole the family's vehicle. Coker was convicted of rape, armed robbery, and the other offenses. He was sentenced to death on the rape charge after the jury found two of the aggravating circumstances present for imposing such a
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sentence: that the rape was committed by a person with prior convictions for capital felonies, and that the rape was committed in the course of committing another capital felonythe armed robbery. The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the sentence. The main consequence of Coker was that the death penalty in the United States was largely restricted to crimes in which the defendant caused the death of another human being. Recently, however, some states are testing the limit of this restriction [1] by enacting death penalty statutes for repeat child rapists. In terms of the Court's capital punishment jurisprudence, Coker signaled the Court's commitment to employing a robust proportionality test for deciding when the death penalty would be an appropriate punishment. The Court would later use this same proportionality test to evaluate the propriety of the death penalty for felony murder (except for the actual killer), mentally retarded offenders, juvenile offenders, and eventually all crimes except murder and crimes against the state. The Court's proportionality jurisprudence is informed by objective evidence. This objective evidence comes from the laws enacted by state legislatures and the behavior of sentencing juries. In 1925, only 18 states authorized the death penalty for rape. In 1971, on the eve of the Court's Furman decision, only 16 states authorized the death penalty for rape. But when Furman forced the states to rewrite their capital sentencing laws, only three statesGeorgia, North Carolina, and Louisianaretained the death penalty for rape. In 1976, the capital sentencing laws of North Carolina and Louisiana were struck down for a different reason. In response to those reversals, the legislatures of North Carolina and Louisiana did not retain the death penalty for rape. Thus, at the time of the Coker decision, only Georgia retained the death penalty for the crime of rape of an adult woman. At the time of the Coker decision, the Supreme Court of Georgia had reviewed 63 rape cases. Only six of these involved a death sentence. The Georgia court had set aside one, leaving five death sentences for rape intact from among all the rape convictions obtained since Furman. From this statistical evidence, the Court concluded that in at least 90% of rape cases, the jury did not impose a death sentence. The objective evidence state death penalty laws and behavior of juries suggested that the death penalty for rape was rare indeed. But objective evidence does not dictate the outcome of the Court's proportionality analysis. The Court also brings to bear its estimation of how the death penalty in the circumstances in question would serve the goals of retribution and deterrence. Rape is a serious crime "short of homicide, it is the ultimate violation of self." It typically involves violence and injury, both physical and psychological, but the Court denied that it involves "serious" injury. "Rape is without doubt deserving of serious punishment; but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, it does not compare with murder, which does involve the unjustified taking of human life." In light of these facts, the Court concluded that death was an excessive punishment for "the rapist who, as such, does not take human life."

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The fact that the jury had found that two aggravating factors applied to Coker's crime his prior convictions and the fact that the rape was committed during the course of a robbery did not change the Court's conclusion. The rape may have been committed during the course of another crime, and by a hardened criminal, but the rape did not escalate into a killing. Finally, even a deliberate killing does not merit a death sentence under Georgia law absent the finding of aggravating factors. These facts bolstered the Court's conclusion that the death penalty was a constitutionally excessive punishment for rape. Justice White wrote the plurality opinion in this case, on behalf of Justices Stewart, Blackmun, and Stevens. The plurality opinion denied that rape causes serious injury: "Although it may be accompanied by another crime, rape by definition does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person." Justices Brennan and Marshall concurred in the judgment because the case struck down a death penalty, in keeping with their view that the death penalty is per se cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Powell concurred in the judgment, but emphasized that the death penalty may be appropriate for rape if there are aggravating circumstances. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)[1], was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government, [2] ruling that the exclusion order was constitutional. The opinion, written by Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu's individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. (The Court limited its decision to the validity of the exclusion orders, adding, "The provisions of other orders requiring persons of Japanese ancestry to report to assembly centers and providing for the detention of such persons in assembly and relocation centers were separate, and their validity is not in issue in this proceeding.") The decision in Korematsu v. United States has been very controversial.[2] Indeed, Korematsu's conviction for evading internment was overturned on November 10, 1983, after Korematsu challenged the earlier decision by filing for a writ of coram nobis. In a ruling by Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted the writ (that is, it voided Korematsu's original conviction) because in Korematsu's original case, the government had knowingly submitted false information to the Supreme Court that had a material effect on the Supreme Court's decision. The Korematsu decision has not been explicitly overturned. Indeed, the Korematsu ruling is significant both for being the first instance of the Supreme Court applying the strict scrutiny standard to racial discrimination by the government and for being one of only a tiny handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard.
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Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba.[1][2][3] Guantanamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, the latter nation retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the former nation exercises complete jurisdiction and control.[4] The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States and challenged the legality of Boumedienes detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined case were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007. On June 12, 2008, Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for the 5-4 majority holding that the prisoners had a right to the habeas corpus under the United States Constitution and that the MCA was an unconstitutional suspension of that right. The Court applied the Insular Cases, by the fact that the United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control, maintains "de facto" sovereignty over this territory, while Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, to hold that the aliens detained as enemy combatants on that territory were entitled to the writ of habeas corpus protected in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The lower court expressly indicated that no constitutional rights (not merely the right to habeas) extend to the Guantanamo detainees rejecting petitioners' arguments. This Court's case precedent recognized that fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution extend to Guantanamo.[5][6] Along with Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, this is a major case in the Court's controversial detainee jurisprudence. Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain Question: Does the Alien Tort Statute permit private individuals to bring suit against foreign citizens for crimes committed in other countries in violation of the law of nations or treaties of the United States? May an individual bring suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act for a false arrest that was planned in the United States but carried out in a foreign country? Conclusion: No and No. On the Alien Tort Statute claim, the Court unanimously ruled that the ATS did not create a separate ground of suit for violations of the law of nations. Instead, it was intended only to give courts jurisdiction over traditional law of nations cases - those involving ambassadors, for example, or piracy. Because Alvarez-Machain's claim did not fall into one of these traditional categories, it was not permitted by the ATS. On the FTCA claim, the Court ruled that the arrest had taken place outside the United States and therefore was exempted from the Act. It rejected Alvarez-Machain's argument that the exemption should not apply because the arrest had been planned in the United States.

Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) was a decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes
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committed while under the age of 18. The 5-4 decision overruled the Court's prior ruling upholding such sentences on offenders above or at the age of 16, in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), overturning statutes in 25 states that had the penalty set lower. Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down the sodomy law in Texas. The court had previously addressed the same issue in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute, not finding a constitutional protection of sexual privacy. Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The majority held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that purport to criminalize sodomy between consenting same-sex adults acting in private. It also invalidated the application of sodomy laws to heterosexual sex. The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs were filed. Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates, who hoped that further legal advances might result as a consequence.

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