Clinton v. City of New York (1998)

Executive Branch

• Background: 2 challenges to the constitutionality of two cancellations, made by President William J. Clinton, under the Line Item Veto Act
• Decision (Stevens): 
• 1) under the Presentment Clause, legislation that passes both Houses of Congress must either be entirely approved or rejected) by the President. 
• 2) POTUS basically "amended" the laws before him. Violated the legislative procedures of Article I.
• Importance: Line Item Veto Act would have authorized POTUS to create a law whose text was not voted on by either house.

Myers v. United States (1926)

Executive Branch

• Background: President Woodrow Wilson removed Myers, a postmaster first class, without seeking Senate approval, in violation of an 1876 law that required the advice and consent of the Senate for removal.
• Decision (Taft): Chief Justice Taft concluded that the power to remove appointed officers is vested in the President alone.
• To deny the President that power would not allow him to "discharge his own constitutional duty of seeing that the laws be faithfully executed."
• Importance: the President has the exclusive power to remove executive branch officials, and does not need the approval of the Senate or any other legislative body.

Implied Powers

• Background: The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 allowed the appointment of an "independent counsel" to investigate government officials for violations of federal laws.
• Decision (Rehnquist): it did not violate the separation of powers by increasing the power of one branch at the expense of another.
• Dissent (Scalia): (1) criminal prosecution is an exercise of "purely executive power" as guaranteed in the Constitution and (2) the law deprived the president of "exclusive control" of that power
• Importance: the Act didn't violate the separation of powers doctrine since it did not impermissibly interfere with the Executive Branch.

United States v. Nixon (1974)

Implied Powers

• Background: The Special Prosecutor subpoenaed Nixon's tapes. Nixon asserted that he was immune from the subpoena claiming "executive privilege." 
• Decision (Burger): The Court unanimously held that neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the generalized need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified, presidential privilege.
• Importance: crucial precedent limiting the power of any U.S. president. Nixon resigned shortly after the release of the tapes.

Clinton v. Jones (1997)

Implied Powers

• Background:  former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
• Decision (Stevens):Unanimously held that the Constitution and "separation of powers" do not mandate that federal courts delay all private civil lawsuits against the President until the end of his term of office.
• Importance: Established that Presidents don't have immunity from civil suits. Led to the Lewinsky scandal

In Re Neagle

Prerogative Power

• Background: The U.S. Attorney General appointed a bodyguard for a Judge. The bodyguard killed someone, and U.S. sought a writ of habeas corpus.
• Decision: The Court held that the Attorney General acted appropriately since assigning Neagle as Field's bodyguard assured that the nation's laws would be faithfully executed. 
• Importance: Established that the Executive branch's power to faithfully execute the law extends beyond the powers specifically enumerated in Article 2 of the Constitution.

Youngwtown Sheet & Tube Company v. Sawyer (1952)

Prerogative Power

• Background: President Truman authorized Secretary of Commerce Sawyer to take possession of the steel industry and keep the mills operating during a wartime strike.
• Decision (Black): The President does not have power under the war powers clause of the U.S. Constitution to authorize seizure of the nation’s steel mills.
• Concurrence (Jackson): In determining whether the executive has authority, there are three general circumstances:
  1. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, the President’s authority is at its greatest.
  2. When the President acts in the absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority. When this is the case, the test depends on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law.
  3. When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, the authority of the President is at its lowest.
• Importance: Notable check on executive power. Established the three part test set forth in Justice Jackson’s concurrence

The Prize Cases (1863)

Interbranch Distribution of Power

• Background: Abraham Lincoln did not ask Congress to declare war on the Confederate States of America as he believed this would be tantamount to recognizing the Confederacy as a nation. Instead, Lincoln instituted a naval blockade
• Decision: By the Acts of Congress of 1795 and 1807, the President is authorized to call out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States to suppress insurrection.
• Importance: Precedent allowing the POTUS to take certain emergency military actions without a Congressional declaration of war.

United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp. (1936)

Interbranch Distribution of Power

• Background:Curtiss-Wright was charged with conspiring to sell fifteen machine guns to Bolivia, violating a Joint Resolution of Congress and a proclamation by President Roosevelt.
• Decision: 1) Foreign affairs power was vested in the national government as a whole, and 2) the President of the United States had “plenary” powers in the foreign affairs field not dependent upon congressional delegation.
• Importance: Established the broader principle of executive supremacy in national security and foreign affairs

Missouri v. Holland (1920)

Foundation and Extent of the Foreign Affairs Power

• Background: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was enacted to give effect to a treaty with Britain. It regulated bird-hunting. Missouri contended that the law was an unconstitutional interference with the state’s Tenth Amendment rights and an invasion of the state’s sovereign rights.
• Decision (Holmes): Congress can give effect to a treaty authorized under the Executive’s treaty power (Article II Section 2), even if that legislation standing alone would be an unconstitutional interference with States’ rights.The Tenth Amendment is irrelevant here because the power to make treaties is delegated expressly. 
• Importance: Upheld Supremacy of Treaties over individual states' rights.

Medellin v. Texas (2008)

Foundation and Extent of the Foreign Affairs Power

• Background: Jose Medellin, a Mexican national, was convicted of 2 rapes/murders. He challenged the conviction on the basis of an ICJ decision that, by treaty, he should have been allowed to contact his consulate.
• Decision (Roberts): Decisions of the International Court of Justice are not binding domestic law; and that, absent an act of Congress or Constitutional authority, the President of the United States lacks the power to enforce international treaties or decisions of the International Court of Justice.
• Dissent:
• Importance: Precedent that prohibits Presidents from enforcing treaty law without Congress giving it effect.

Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

War and Individual Rights

• Background: Lambden P. Milligan was sentenced to death by a military commission in Indiana during the Civil War; he had engaged in acts of disloyalty. Milligan sought release through habeas corpus from a federal court.
• Decision (Davis): Trials of civilians by presidentially created military commissions are unconstitutional. Martial law cannot exist where the civil courts are operating.
• Importance: Protected individuals' rights to due process, even in wartime.

Korematsu v. United States (1944)

War and Individual Rights

• Background:During World War II, Presidential Executive Order 9066 gave the military authority to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from certain areas. Korematsu remained in San Leandro, California and violated the order.
• Decision (Black): the need to protect against espionage outweighed Korematsu's rights. Compulsory exclusion, though constitutionally suspect, is justified during circumstances of "emergency and peril."
• Dissent (Murphy): the exclusion of Japanese "falls into the ugly abyss of racism,"
• Importance: first instance of the Supreme Court applying the strict scrutiny standard to racial discrimination, and one of only a handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard.

Ex Parte Quirin (1942)

War and Individual Rights

• Background: Eight German saboteurs were arrested and sentenced to death by military commission. They filed for a writ of habeas corpus.
• Decision (Stone): The conspirators, as spies without uniform whose purpose was sabotage, violated the law of war and were therefore unlawful enemy combatants. Congress had, under the Articles of War, authorized trial by military commission for unlawful enemy combatants
• Dissent: The decision was unanimous
• Importance:  precedent for the trial by military commission of any unlawful combatant against the United States.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004)

War and Individual Rights

• Background:Hamdi, a US citizen, argued that the government had violated his 5th Amendment right to Due Process by holding him indefinitely and not giving him access to an attorney or a trial. The Executive Branch argued it had the right, during wartime, to declare people who fight against the United States "enemy combatants" and thus restrict their access to the court system.
• Decision (O'Connor): 5th Amendment due process guarantees give a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant the right to contest that detention before a neutral decisionmaker. The plurality rejected the government's argument that the separation-of-powers prevents the judiciary from hearing Hamdi's challenge.
• Dissent (Scalia): Court can't invent a new procedure. Must simply declare the detention unconstitutional.
• Importance: The Court recognized the power of the government to detain enemy combatants, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial judge.

Boumediene v. Bush

War and Individual Rights

• Background:  Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen ofBosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Habeas Corpus was suspended by the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006.
• Decision (Kennedy):1) The majority found that the constitutionally guaranteed right of habeas corpus review applies to persons held in Guantanamo and to persons designated as enemy combatants on that territory, establishing that Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 failed to provide an adequate substitute for habeas corpus.
• Dissent (Scalia): "the procedures prescribed by Congress in the Detainee Treatment Act provide the essential protections that habeas corpus guarantees." Also brought up security issues.
• Importance: prisoners, even enemy combatants, had a right to the habeas corpus under the United States Constitution and that the MCA was an unconstitutional suspension of that right

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

The Commerce Clause

• Background:  New York granted Livingston and Fulton exclusive steam boat navigation rights in NY. Livingstone assigned Ogden right to navigate between NYC and certain NJ ports. Ogden sues Gibbons attempting to restrain Gibbons from using steam ships in NY waters.
• Issues:
  
  • 1) May a state enact legislation that regulates a purely internal affair regarding trade or the police power, or is pursuant to a power to regulate interstate commerce concurrent with that of Congress, which confers a privilege inconsistent with federal law?
  • 2) Do states have the power to regulate those phases of interstate commerce which, because of the need of national uniformity, demand that their regulation, be prescribed by a single authority?
  • 3) Does a state have the power to grant an exclusive right to the use of state waterways inconsistent with federal law?
    
• Decision (Marshall):
  
  • 1) No. A state may not legislation inconsistent with federal law which regulates a purely internal affair regarding trade or the police power, or is pursuant to a power to regulate interstate commerce concurrent with that of Congress.
  • 2) No. States do not have the power to regulate those phases of interstate commerce which, because of the need of national uniformity, demand that their regulation, be prescribed by a single authority.
  • 3) No. A state does not have the power to grant an exclusive right to the use of state navigable waters inconsistent with federal law.
• Importance: The power to regulate commerce is general, and has no limitations other than those prescribed in the Constitution itself. It is exclusively vested in Congress and no part of it can be exercised by a State.
  
  

Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1852)

The Commerce Clause

• Background:
  
  • 1789 - Act of Congress provided that the pilots of ships in the interior waters of US would continue to be regulated in conformity with laws of states until Congress provided otherwise through legistlation
  • 1802 - Penn enacts law requiring ships entering/leaving port of Phili to engage in local pilot to guide through harbor and imposed penalty for noncompliance
  • B of W (Penn) brings action against Cooley for violating Penn law
• Issues:
  
  • Does the Commerce Clause deprive the States of all power to regulate interstate commerce such that Congress may not confer such power on the States through legislation?
  • In what ways may the states regulate interstate commerce notwithstanding Congress' exclusive authority to regulate it under the Constitution?
• Decision (Curtis):
  
  • No. The Commerce Clause does not deprive the States of all power to regulate interstate commerce
  • States may regulate those aspects of interstate commerce that are so local in character as to require diverse treatment
• Importance: Dormant Commerce Clause - The SC took a selective exclusive or intermediate approach and held that Congress does not have exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. While they have the right to regulate it, it does not deprive States of all power to regulate it.

United States v. E. C. Knight Company

The Commerce Clause

• Background: A bill was filed against the E. C. Knight Co., the Franklin Sugar Company, the Spreckels Sugar Refining Company, the Delaware Sugar House, and the American Sugar Refining Company charging the defendants with violating the stipulations of an act of Congress to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.
• Issue: Can a monopoly of the manufacturing of goods be suppressed under the July 2, 1890 bill approved by Congress to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies
• Decision (Fuller): In controlling the manufacturing of a particular product and indirect result might be the restraint of trade, but it is an indirect result. The defendants acquired companies in Philadelphia to refine sugar and had no direct relation to commerce or trade between states or nations, therefore, they did not engage in unlawful acts as expressed in the July 2, 1890 bill from Congress.
• Dissent (Harlan): Due to the bill approved by Congress on July 2, 1890, Congress has the power to regulate commerce. The power to regulate is the power to prescribe. Commerce is not merely the transportation of goods from state to state (or nation to state etc.), it is also the purchase and sale of products that will be transported between states and nations.
• Importance: A monopoly of manufacturing goods is not unlawful due to the July 2, 1890 bill approved by Congress to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies because it is not a monopoly over trade or commerce
  

National Labor relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937)

Commerce Clause

• Background: The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 determined that labor-management disputes were related to interstate commerce and could be regulated by the national government. The NLR board charged Jones & Laughlin Steel with discriminating against union employees.
• Decision (Hughes): the Act was narrowly constructed so as to regulate industrial activities which could restrict interstate commerce. The government was justified in penalizing corporations engaging in interstate commerce which "refuse to confer and negotiate" with their workers.
• Importance: greatly increased Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. Allowed actions that are intrastate when considered separately to be regulated by the national government under the commerce clause.

Wickard v. Filburn (1942)

Commerce Clause

• BG: The amount of wheat Filburn produced for his own consumption combined with the amount he sold exceeded the amount he was permitted to produce. He contended that the act sought to limit local commercial activity and therefore was unconstitutional because it exceeded the scope of Congress’s power 
• Decision (Jackson): Congress can regulate trivial local, intrastate activities that have an aggregate effect on interstate commerce via the commerce power, even if the effect is indirect.
• Importance:recognized and greatly expanded the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity under the commerce clause. Arguably marked the end to any limits on Commerce Clause powers.

Southern Pacific Company v. Arizona (1945)

Commerce Claws

• BG: Arizona banned operation of trains more than 14 passenger cars of 70 freight cars long.
• Decision: The Arizona law was an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce.
• Importance: Introduced Stone's use of an "interest-balancing" (weighing interests of state vs. of fed) standard of review, which proved more demanding than the earlier "rational basis" test.

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964)

Commerce Clause

• BG: Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by places of public accommodation if their operations affected commerce. The Heart of Atlanta Motel refused to accept Black Americans.
• Decision (Unanimous): The Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate local incidents of commerce, and that the Civil Right Act of 1964 passed constitutional muster. Because 75% of the Heart of Atlanta Motel's clientele came from out-of-state, and it was strategically located near two interstate highways, the Court found that the business clearly affected interstate commerce.
• Importance: Congress could use the Constitution's Commerce Clause power to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

United States v. Lopez (1995)

Commerce Clause

• BG:The Gun-Free School Zones Act made it unlawful to possess a gun in a school zone. Alfonso Lopez carried a concealed and loaded handgun into his high school and was arrested pursuant to the Act.
• Decision (Rehnquist): The Act exceeded Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause. "Possession is not commerce"
• The 3 categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power are: 
• the channels of interstate commerce
• the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce
• activities that substantially affect or substantially relate to interstate commerce
• Dissent (Breyer):
• The Commerce Clause included the power to regulate local activities so long as they "significantly affect" interstate commerce.
• A court must consider not only the individual act being regulated (i.e. a single case of gun possession) but rather the cumulative effect of all similar acts (i.e. the effect of all guns possessed in or near schools).
• A court must specifically determine only whether Congress could have had a "rational basis" for concluding that an act significantly affects interstate commerce.
• Importance: 1st Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clauseof the United States Constitution.

Gonzales v. Raich (2005)

Commerce Clause

• BG:California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act, legalizing marijuana for medical use. California's law conflicted with the federal Controlled Substances Act
• Decision (Stevens): the commerce clause gave Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary. Congress could ban local marijuana use because local use affected supply and demand in the national marijuana market(?).
• Dissent: O'Connor said decision violates federalism. Thomas said it extends the commerce power beyond any meaningful limits.
• Importance: Under the Commerce Clause, Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes.

Fletcher v. Peck (1810)

John Marshall and the Contract Clause

• BG: John Peck had purchased land that had previously been sold under the 1795 act and later sold this land to Robert Fletcher who then brought  suit against Peck in 1803, claiming that he did not have clear title to the land when he sold it, due to the repeals of 1796.
• Decision (MARSHALL): A law that negates all property rights established under an earlier law is unconstitutional for violating the Contract Clause (Article I, Section 10) of the United States Constitution. Also, since the Constitution did not permit ex post facto laws, the Court held that laws annulling contracts or grants made by previous legislative acts were constitutionally impermissible.
• Importance: The first case in which the Supreme Court ruled a state law unconstitutional, and lends further protection to property rights against popular pressures.

Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)

John Marshall and the Contract Clause

• BG: the president of Dartmouth College was deposed by its trustees, leading to the New Hampshire legislature attempting to force the college to become a public institution and thereby place the ability to appoint trustees in the hands of the governor.
• Decision:the College's corporate charter qualified as a contract between private parties, with which the legislature could not interfere.
• Importance: Marshall strengthened the Contract Clause and limited the power of the States to interfere with private charters, including those of commercial enterprises.

Proprietor of Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of Warren Bridge (1837)

The Decline of the Contract Clause

• BG:In 1785, the Massachusetts legislature incorporated the Charles River Bridge Company to construct a bridge and collect tolls. In 1828, the legislature established the Warren Bridge Company to build a free bridge nearby. Unsurprisingly, the new bridge deprived the old one of traffic and tolls. The Charles River Bridge Company filed suit, claiming the legislature had defaulted on its initial contract.
• Decision (Taney): 1) The legislature neither gave exclusive control over the waters of the river nor invaded corporate privilege by interfering with the company's profit-making ability. In balancing the rights of private property against the need for economic development, the Court found that the community interest in creating new channels of travel and trade had priority.
• Importance: Set precedent for a narrower interpretation of the Contract Clause, and stated that property rights should be weighed against community interest.

Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)

The Decline of the Contract Clause

• BG:In 1933, Minnesota enacted the Mortgage Moratorium Law to combat the economic emergency of the Great Depression. The law extended the time period in which borrowers could pay back their debts on property to lenders.
• Decision (Hughes):the sanctity of contracts and the Contract Clause had never been absolute or meant to be interpreted literally. Since the demands of the Great Depression were vital to all of the state's citizens, the law was a legitimate use of Minnesota's police power.
• Dissent (Sutherland): This reduction of the Contract Clause is unconstitutional, and it will ruin private interactions.
• Importance: Subordinated the Contract clause to police power and the demands of "emergencies."

United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey (1917)

The Glorious Revitalization of the Contract Clause

• BG:NY and NJ established a Port Authority to enhance water- bound business between the two states. Later, the states repealed a 1962 bond agreement which limited the Authority to administer commercial and passenger railroad subsidies.
• Decision: The repeal violated the Contract Clause. The states could have implemented a less drastic solution to encourage people to use commuter train services in lieu of driving their cars.
• Importance: Revitalized the Contract Clause. Re-established its primacy over mere convenience, requires that, whenever possible, legislators adopt measures which do not repeal contracts.