Wallace v. Jaffree

Case Name: Wallace v. Jaffree

Year: 1985

Result: 6-3, favor Jaffree

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Establishment Clause, Freedom of Religion

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: The Court ruled that the Alabama law allowing teachers to pray in classrooms violated the establishment clause in the First Amendment. The Court upheld Jefferson's "wall of separation".

Quote from Majority Opinion: "The addition of "or voluntary prayer" indicates that the State intended to characterize prayer as a favored practice. Such an endorsement is not consistent with the established principle that the government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion."

Summary of the Dissent: The three separate dissents believed that authorizing prayer did not necessarily endorse it. They also pointed out many examples in which religious subjects are used in other governmental activities. The dissent argued that something so simple did not threaten the establishment clause or religious freedom.
Quote: "The statute does not remotely threaten religious liberty; it affirmatively furthers the values of religious freedom and tolerance that the Establishment Clause was designed to protect. Without pressuring those who do not wish to pray, the statute simply creates an opportunity to think, to plan, or to pray if one wishes - as Congress does by providing chaplains and chapels."

Six-word Summary: Prayer in schools violates Establishment Clause

Tinker v. Des Moines

Case Name: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

Year: 1969

Result: 7-2, favor Tinker

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Expression

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: This case was one of the few rulings in favor of the students as opposed to the school district. It established that the schools did not have absolute authority in First Amendment cases and is frequently referenced in other Court rulings. The power of the First Amendment was indirectly expanded.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent argued that children do indeed give up some degree of their First Amendment rights in school. They believed that the school had the right to regulate the wearing of the armbands. Supporting Tinker undermined the authority of the school officials.
Quote: "Iowa's public schools...are operated to give students an opportunity to learn, not to talk politics by actual speech, or by "symbolic" speech."

Six-word Summary: Students retain their freedom of expression

Thompson v. Oklahoma

Case Name: Thompson v. Oklahoma

Year: 1988

Result: 5-3, favor Thompson

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment VIII, Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: The Court was sympathetic when it came to Amendment VIII and did not allow the states to determine what is "cruel and unusual" for themselves. They did not allow 15-year-old Thompson to be executed due to his age, setting a new standard for the death penalty.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "Our task today...is to decide the case before us; we do so by concluding that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of a person who was under 16 years of age at the time of his or her offense."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that because Thompson was capable of understanding his crime and because the Oklahoma law and authority should be respected in this situation, Thompson should be executed and held to the death penalty.
Quote: "Placing restraints upon the manner in which the States make their laws, in order to give 15-year-old criminals special protection against capital punishment, may well be a good idea, as perhaps is the abolition of capital punishment entirely. It is not, however, an idea it is ours to impose."

Six-word Summary: People under 16 cannot be executed

Texas v. Johnson

Case Name: Texas v. Johnson

Year: 1989

Result: 5-4, favor Johnson

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Freedom of Expression

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: Texas did not have the right to outlaw flag burning as this violated the First Amendment. Even though the majority of people found flag burning to be offensive and agreed with the law, that did not triumph Johnson's constitutional rights.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "Johnson was not...prosecuted for the expression of just any idea; he was prosecuted for his expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of this country, expression situated at the core of our First Amendment values...If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that burning the American flag was harmful and states should be able to regulate this action. They believed that allowing flag burning damaged the idea of unity and that because the American flag is a symbol of the country it should be more protected than ordinary things.
Quote: "Uncritical extension of constitutional protection to the burning of the flag risks the frustration of the very purpose for which organized governments are instituted."

Six-word Summary: The states cannot outlaw flag burning

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Case Name: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Year: 1971

Result: 9-0, favor Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment XIV

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Rights

Significance/Precedent: The ruling established the authority of federal courts to oversee school desegregation following Brown v. Board of Education. Because schools and districts were not following the new policies, the government had the right to step in to try to fix these issues.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "This does not mean that federal courts are without power to deal with future problems; but, in the absence of a showing that either the school authorities or some other agency of the State has deliberately attempted to fix or alter demographic patterns to affect the racial composition of the schools, further intervention by a district court should not be necessary."

Summary of the Dissent: There was no dissent.

Six-word Summary: Government policies help with school integration.

Sheppard v. Maxwell

Case Name: Sheppard v. Maxwell 

Year: 1966

Result: 8-1, favor Sheppard

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment V, Amendment VI, Due Process

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: The public's freedom of speech could obstruct a trial and cause it to be unfair and unconstitutional. Because Sheppard was so covered on the news and in the media, the jurors were biased and his trial did not follow due process. 

Quote from Majority Opinion: "Due process requires that the accused receive a trial by an impartial jury free from outside influences. Given the pervasiveness of modern communications and the difficulty of effacing prejudicial publicity from the minds of the jurors, the trial courts must take strong measures to ensure that the balance is never weighed against the accused."

Summary of the Dissent: There was no dissent. 

Six-word Summary: The media can corrupt court trials

Schenck v. U.S.

Case Name: Schenck v. United States

Year: 1919

Result: 9-0, favor United States

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Freedom of Speech

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: This case established that Schenck could not mail out things contradicting the U.S. military draft. The government had the right to regulate and control his speech in this sense. This case created the clear and present danger test. It was the first case to establish the right of the government to limit speech.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done...When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."

Summary of the Dissent: There was no dissent.

Six-word Summary: Clear and present danger test created

Roe v. Wade

Case Name: Roe v. Wade

Year: 1973

Result: 7-2, favor Roe

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Fourteenth Amendment, Due Process

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Rights

Significance/Precedent: The Court held that abortion rights were part of a woman's right to privacy and established that the state could have no involvement in a woman's first trimester. In the second trimester, the state could only regulate abortion reasonably and in the third it could limit or even prohibit abortions, except in the case where the woman's life is endangered by the pregnancy. This was seen as a "pro-abortion" ruling and has attracted a lot of controversy surrounding abortion and women's rights.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent argued that abortion does not fall within the right to privacy or the Fourteenth Amendment and since the founders could not foresee this issue it could not be traced back to any sort of constitutional right.
Quote: "The decision here to break pregnancy into three distinct terms and to outline the permissible restrictions the State may impose in each one, for example, partakes more of judicial legisaltion than it does of a determination of the intent of the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Six-word Summary: Abortion falls within right to privacy

Reno v. ACLU

Case Name: Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union

Year: 1997

Result: 9-0, favor ACLU

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Freedom of Speech

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: It was not constitutional to restrict the Internet using broad and vague terms. This violated the Freedom of Speech outlined in Amendment I and was therefore not allowed. Censoring the Internet would do more harm than good.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "The record demonstrates that the growth of the Internet has been and continues to be phenomenal. As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."

Summary of the Dissent: There was no dissent.

Six-word Summary: The government cannot regulate the Internet

Plessy v. Ferguson

Case Name: Plessy v. Ferguson

Year: 1896

Result: 7-1, favor Ferguson

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment XIV

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Rights

Significance/Precedent: This Supreme Court ruling upheld racial segregation as one of the states' rights, not up to the federal government. They ruled it constitutional to impose racial segregation rules and policies. It established the doctrine of separate but equal. Not a great step for America.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced."

Summary of the Dissent: Harlan wrote the dissent, as he was the only one in favor of Plessy.
Quote: "But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of citizens when the civil rights of those citizens are involved. indeed, such legislation as that here in question is inconsistent not only with that equality of rights which pertains to citizenship, National and State, but with the personal liberty enjoyed by everyone within the United States."

Six-word Summary: State racial segregation, separate but equal

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Case Name: Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Year: 1992

Result: 5-4, favor Planned Parenthood

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment XIV

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Rights

Significance/Precedent: The Pennsylvania law could impose more restrictions on abortions as long as they were not judged to be an "undue burden". The only restriction declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was the notification of the spouse. This gave states more leeway into creating laws around abortions.

Quote from the Majority Opinion: "Constitutional protection of the woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy derives from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It declares that no State shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.'...Our law affords constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education...We think that under this standard, all the provisions at issue here except that relating to spousal notice are constitutional."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that all of the abortion laws Pennsylvania imposed were unconstitutional.
Quote: "Today, no less than yesterday, the Constitution and decisions of this Court require that a State's abortion restrictions be subjected to the strictest of judicial scrutiny...Under this standard, the Pennsylvania statute's provisions requiring content based counseling, a 24-hour delay, informed parental consent, and reporting of abortion related information must be invalidated.

Six-word Summary: States can impose constitutional abortion restrictions

NY Times v. US

Case Name: New York Times v. United States

Year: 1971

Result: 6-3, favor NY Times

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Freedom of the Press

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: The NY Times wanted to publish classified material, the Pentagon Papers, about Vietnam they had (leaked) from the Defense Department, but the government argued that this would jeopardize national security. The Court ruled in favor of the NY Times, not allowing the government to censor the press by restricting the information. The NY Times was allowed to publish the material, because prior restraint is unconstitutional.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "The Government 'thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a [expression restraint]...The District Court for the Southern District of New York, in the New York Times case...held that the Government had not met that burden. We agree."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that the First Amendment rights were not absolute and could be regulated by the government in certain situations. They also believed that the government had the right to stop these articles from being published before they were for the purpose of national security.
Quote: "In these cases, the imperative of a free and unfettered press comes into collision with another imperative, the effective functioning of a complex modern government, and, specifically, the effective exercise of certain constitutional powers of the Executive. Only those who view the First Amendment as an absolute in all circumstances - a view I respect, but reject - can find such cases as these to be simple or easy."

Six-word Summary: Prior restraint is unconstitutional, First Amendment

N.J. v. TLO

Case Name: New Jersey v. T.L.O.

Year: 1985

Result: 6-3, favor New Jersey

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment IV, Search and Seizure

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: TLO was found smoking in high school and suspected of having cigarettes and drugs. Because the administrator at the school had reasonable cause to search TLO's purse, he did not violate her Fourth Amendment rights. The cigarettes she had were in plain view, which is exempt from the Fourth Amendment, and this gave him reasonable cause to continue searching her.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "...the court concluded that the search conducted by Mr. Choplick was a reasonable one. The initial decision to open the purse was justified by Mr. Choplick's well-founded suspicion that T.L.O. had violated the rule of forbidding smoking in the lavatory. Once the purse was open, evidence of marijuana violations was in plain view, and Mr. Choplick was entitled to conduct a thorough search to determine the nature and extent of TLO's drug-related activities."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent argued that searching TLO was not reasonable and explicitly violated her Fourth Amendment rights.
Quote: "Today's decision sanctions school officials to conduct full scale searches on a 'reasonableness' standard whose only definite content is that it is not the same test as the 'probable cause' standard found in the text of the Fourth Amendment."

Six-word Summary: Schools can search students when necessary

Miranda v. Arizona

Case Name: Miranda v. Arizona

Year: 1966

Result: 5-4, favor Miranda

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment V, Self-incrimination

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: This established the Miranda Rights, that police had to read you your rights and inform you of your right to stay silent, for a public defender, etc. Before this the police were just interrogating people in custody and these people did not even know they had the right to such things. Miranda Rights are still read today. If these rights are not read, confessions are considered invalid.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "In dealing with custodial interrogation, we will not presume that a defendant has been effectively apprised of his rights and that his privilege against self-incrimination has been adequately safeguarded on a record that does not show that any warnings have been given or that any effective alternative has been employed. Nor can a knowing and intelligent waiver of these rights be assumed on a silent record...he was compelled by persistent interrogation to forgo his Fifth Amendment Privilege."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that it was not necessary or helpful to inform the accused of their rights. They believed that requiring rights be read for a valid confession would lead to criminals getting away with their crimes.
Quote: "To warn the suspect that he may remain silent and remind him that his confession may be used in court are minor obstructions. To require also an express waiver by the suspect and an end to questioning whenever he demurs must heavily handicap questioning. And to suggest or provide counsel for the suspect simply invites the end of the interrogation."

Six-word Summary: Accused have to be read rights

Mapp v. Ohio

Case Name: Mapp v. Ohio

Year: 1961

Result: 6-3, favor Mapp

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment IV, Search and Seizure

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: The Supreme Court ruled that the evidence from Mapp's house could not be used in trial because it was illegally obtained. This put new pressure on police everywhere to make sure they had a warrant and followed due process. The exclusionary rule was officially incorporated.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "Since the Fourth Amendment's right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth, it is enforceable against them by the same sanction of exclusion as is used against the Federal Government."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that Ohio should still be able to use the evidence against Mapp in court. While they agreed that the police should have obtained a warrant, they did not think that this was cause to disregard the evidence that was obtained.
Quote: "I do not see how it can be said that a trial becomes unfair simply because a State determines that evidence may be considered by the trier of fact, regardless of how it was obtained, if it is relevant to the one issue with which the trial is concerned, the guilt or innocence of the accused."

Six-word Summary: Exclusionary rule incorporated, no illegal evidence

Lemon v. Kurtzman

Case Name: Lemon v. Kurtzman

Year: 1971

Result: 5-3, favor Kurtzman

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment I, Establishment Clause

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties

Significance/Precedent: The Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for the government to fund a religious school, because this violated the establishment clause outlined in the First Amendment. This emphasized the separation of the church from the government, specifically government spending. It followed Engel v. Vitale and reinforced the Supreme Court's ideas about the relationship between schools and religion. This case also established the Lemon test. The Lemon test added a third provision for the Court to consider in deciding whether or not something violates the establishment clause in Amendment I. The law cannot foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion". Because this is so broad and vague, it has been debated over.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "A given law might not establish a state religion, but nevertheless be one "respecting" that end in the sense of being a step that could lead to such establishment, and hence offend the First Amendment."

Summary of the Dissent: There was no official written dissent, but there were concurrences written that disagreed with specific parts of the majority opinion.

Six-word Summary: No government religious funding, Lemon Test

Korematsu v. US

Case Name: Korematsu v. United States

Year:

Result: 6-3, favor United States

Related Constitutional Issue/Amendment: Amendment V, Amendment XIV

Civil Rights or Civil Liberties: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Significance/Precedent: The Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for the United States to discriminate against Japanese Americans during World War II in order to maximize national safety and security. Korematsu's rights and the rights of all Japanese Americans were not as important as the nation as a whole. Japanese Americans were denied due process.

Quote from Majority Opinion: "Citizenship has its responsibilities, as well as its privileges, and, in time of war, the burden is always heavier...when, under conditions of modern warfare, our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger."

Summary of the Dissent: The dissent believed that this was clear and unconstitutional discrimination against Japanese Americans. They believed that discriminating against Japanese Americans was not permissible and that the government was violating their rights.
Quote: "...it is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States."

Six-word Summary: Compelling reason to imprison Japanese Americans