In times of war, courts are sometimes asked to reconcile individual rights with public safety. What lessons can be drawn from the tensions that arise from this case? To learn more, read Korematsu v. United States Decision: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the New York law was unconstitutional. The court said the law interfered with the contract between an employer and its employees. The Case: After Kenneth Donaldson told his parents he thought his neighbor was poisoning his food, he was examined and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Against his will, he was admitted to a public hospital for the next 15 years. Meanwhile, two different people volunteered to be in charge of him, but the hospital refused to release him. He filed a lawsuit, claiming that hospital staff had “deliberately and maliciously deprived him of his right to liberty.” However, the Court does not always follow its precedents. In 1932, Judge Louis Brandeis stated in his dissent in Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co. “Stare decisis is generally the wise policy, because in most cases it is more important that the prevailing rule of law be regulated than that it be properly regulated,” Brandeis wrote.
“But in cases where it is the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is virtually impossible, this court has often overturned its previous decisions.” It is one of the most cited Supreme Court decisions of all time, and this standard has become known as the “chevron defense.” Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). A divided court declared parts of two earlier decisions, Thornburgh and Akron I, invalid because they were inconsistent with Roe v. Wade. The case: The Heart of Atlanta Motel in Georgia refused to provide accommodation for blacks, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited the practice. Two hours after the law was passed, the motel asked the court to stop applying a Title II clause prohibiting racial discrimination by public accommodation facilities. The motel argued that it was beyond the power of Congress. Katz v. United States (1967).
In a 7-1 decision (Judge Thurgood Marshall did not participate in the case), the court ruled that a man in a phone booth could not be tapped by authorities without a judicial warrant. The decision overturned two earlier Supreme Court decisions: Olmstead v. United States (1928) and Goldman v. United States (1942). Since the first publication of this list of the Supreme Court`s most famous and controversial cases, we wanted to include another one that has had a significant impact on society and our education system. Brown vs. The Board of Education is by far one of the most famous cases in our country`s history. In it, the Supreme Court said that “separate but equal” had no place in public education.
The court effectively ended segregation in public schools, claiming that segregated educational institutions inherently provided unequal education to white and black students at the expense of black students. For the Court, these black students were deprived of the same protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. Long before there were mobile apps for lawyers, Marbury v. Madison was one of the most important Supreme Court cases because it established the Supreme Court`s power of judicial review (the right to declare a law unconstitutional) over Congress. He also helped define the boundary between the executive branch and the judiciary of the U.S. government. The decision: The judges ruled unanimously that Madison`s refusal was illegal and that the law under which Marbury filed a lawsuit was also unconstitutional. More importantly, this decision concluded that the Supreme Court had the power to “judicially review” to decide whether a law or executive measure is constitutional.
This essentially gave the Supreme Court legal authority for any decision it would make in the future. It was the first time the court had ruled on a right to die case. It did not establish national guidelines and left the decision from one State to another. In the month following the case, 300,000 pre-form requests were made, allowing people to know in advance what would happen to them if they became unable to work. Police in Cleveland, Ohio, believed Dollree Mapp was hiding an alleged suicide bomber in her home. On May 23, 1957, police forcibly entered Mapp`s apartment without a search warrant. Upon entering, police searched his home and found no suspects, but several inappropriate photos and books that violated Ohio regulations. Meanwhile, Mapp`s lawyer came to her home and was denied access to her client. In addition, Mapp was handcuffed and taken to a bedroom after demanding an arrest warrant and “resisting” the police when she tried to retrieve the “arrest warrant”. Mapp was eventually arrested for having the photos in her possession and convicted by the court.
The Case: This case arose from a lawsuit filed by a Missouri slave named Dred Scott. Scott had lived in the Illinois Free State for a while. When his master died in 1849, he sued the widow, arguing that his stay in the slave-free state had made him a free man. South Dakota v. Wayfair (2018). In another 5-4 decision by Judge Kennedy, the court said that sellers who do significant business in a state may have to pay taxes even if the company does not have a physical presence in the tax state. The judgment was overturned by Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (1992). The decision of March 1803 established the principle of judicial review or the power of the Federal Court to declare legislative and executive acts unconstitutional.
In this case, President John Adams appointed several judges, including William Marbury before the end of his term. With the introduction of new Secretary of State James Madison, these appointments were rejected. Marbury and his counterparts eventually filed a lawsuit to reclaim their designated positions, losing with a 6-0 decision. This decision was widely condemned. Over the next three decades, the court struck down minimum wage laws, organizational rights, and child safety laws using Lochner as a precedent before changing course and allowing such laws. The Library of Congress follows the historical list of cases overturned by the Supreme Court in its report, The Constitution Annotated. By 2020, the court had set its own precedents in about 232 cases since 1810, according to the library. Admittedly, this list could be open to interpretation, as it includes the 1943 Korematsu case, which the judges rejected but never formally annulled. But among scientists, there are a handful of cases that are considered truly revolutionary decisions that have set other precedents. The case: Homer Plessy, who was black under Louisiana law at the time, boarded a train and sat in a car reserved for white passengers. When he refused to move, he was arrested.
Plessy argued that the Separate Car Act, which required all railways to provide equal but separate housing, violated his rights under the equality clause of the 14th Amendment. Norma MCorvery, portrayed in court documents as Jane Roe, was pregnant when she filed a class action lawsuit against the state of Texas. In 1971, Roe challenged the law enforced by Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade that abortions are otherwise illegal unless they save a mother`s life. The constitutional right to privacy is called into question by this case and, ultimately, constitutes a violation of a woman`s Fourteenth Amendment clause. In its final conclusion, the Court ruled in 1973 that states can restrict abortion only towards the end of pregnancy to protect the life of the woman or fetus. Here is a short list of these seminal cases, as reported by the Congressional Research Service and the Library of Congress: Mapp v. Ohio (1961). Überstimmen von Wolf v.
Colorado (1949), the court stated in a 6-3 decision that evidence gathered by authorities through searches and seizures that violated the Fourth Amendment could not be presented in state court — also known as the “exclusion rule.” McCulloch v. Maryland is one of the most famous Supreme Court cases because it established the implicit powers of the federal government over the states. The Supreme Court made this decision when the state of Maryland began imposing a tax on all non-Maryland-chartered bank notes. Since the Second Bank of the United States was the only non-state bank that existed in Maryland at the time, it was interpreted as an attack on the Bundesbank. As a result, the tax bill was declared unconstitutional because it was an attempt to violate the powers of the federal government in one of the previous landmark Supreme Court cases. West Coast Hotel Company v Parrish (1937). In a 5-4 decision, the Hughes court overturned a decision from the previous year and has now declared that the establishment of the minimum wage for women was constitutional. The decision was seen as the end of the Lochner era of the court. The decision: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that separate educational institutions were inherently unequal.
A second decision called on the lower courts and school authorities to proceed with the abolition of racial segregation. This decision struck the doctrine of “separate but equal” in Plessy v. Ferguson, which had allowed Métis schools, transportation, and facilities to exist as long as they were “equal.” Gideon v. Wainwright has to list famous court cases because they establish a defendant`s right to have a lawyer, even if he personally could not afford to pay for one. In this famous Supreme Court case, the Court unanimously ruled that under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, states are required to provide counsel to defendants who cannot afford it.