Term
| Abington v. Schempp (1963) |
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Definition
| Abington Township students were required to read verses from the Bible and then recite the Lord’s Prayer. The Supreme Court found that this violated the First and Fourth Amendment, since the readings and recitations were essentially religious ceremonies and were "intended by the State to be so." |
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Term
| Adamson v. California (1947) |
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Definition
| _______ was convicted in ______ of murder in the first degree. During the trial, the prosecutor, in accordance with a _______ law, made comments to the jury which highlighted _______'s decision not to testify on his own behalf. Is a defendant's Fifth Amendment right not to bear witness against himself applicable in state courts and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause? A divided Court found that the the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause did not extend to defendants a Fifth Amendment right not to bear witness against themselves in state courts. Citing past decisions such as Twining v. New Jersey (1908), which explicitly denied the application of the due process clause to the right against self-incrimination, and _____ v. Connecticut (1937), Justice Reed argued that the Fourteenth Amendment did not extend carte blanche all of the immunities and privileges of the first ten amendments to individuals at the state level. In a lengthy dissent which included a deep investigation of the Fourteenth Amendment's history, Justice Black argued for the |
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Term
| Adarand Constructors v. Pena (1995 |
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Definition
| ______, a contractor specializing in highway guardrail work, submitted the lowest bid as a subcontractor for part of a project funded by the United States Department of Transportation. Under the terms of the federal contract, the prime contractor would receive additional compensation if it hired small businesses controlled by "socially and economically disadvantaged individuals." [The clause declared that "the contractor shall presume that socially and economically disadvantaged individuals include Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, and other minorities...." Federal law requires such a subcontracting clause in most federal agency contracts]. Another subcontractor, Gonzales Construction Company, was awarded the work. It was certified as a minority business; ______ was not. The prime contractor would have accepted ________'s bid had it not been for the additional payment for hiring Gonzales. Is the presumption of disadvantage based on race alone, and consequent allocation of favored treatment, a discriminatory practice that violates the equal protection principle embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment? Yes. Overruling Metro Broadcasting (497 US 547), the Court held that all racial classifications, whether imposed by federal, state, or local authorities, must pass strict scrutiny review. In other words, they "must serve a compelling government interest, and must be narrowly tailored to further that interest." The Court added that compensation programs which are truly based on disadvantage, rather than race, would be evaluated under lower equal protection standards. However, since race is not a sufficient condition for a presumption of disadvantage and the award of favored treatment, all race-based classifications must be judged under the strict scrutiny standard. Moreover, even proof of past injury does not in itself establish the suffering of present or future injury. The Court remanded for a determination of whether the Transportation Department's program satisfied strict scrutiny. |
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Term
| Argersinger v. Hamlin (1971) |
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Definition
| Jon ________ was an indigent charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a misdemeanor in the State of Florida. The charge carried with it a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. During the bench trial in which he was convicted and sentenced to serve ninety days in jail, ________ was not represented by an attorney. Do the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee a right to counsel to defendants who are accused of committing misdemeanors? In __________ v. Wainwright (1963) the Court found that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments required states to provide an attorney to indigent defendants in cases involving serious crimes. In this case, a unanimous Court extended that right to cover defendants charged with misdemeanors who faced the possibility of a jail sentence. Justice Douglas's plurality opinion described the intricacies involved in misdemeanor charges and the danger that unrepresented defendants may fall victim to "assembly-line justice." Thus, in order to guarantee fairness in trials involving potential jail time, no matter how petty the charge, the Court found that the state was obligated to provide the accused with counsel. |
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Term
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Definition
| retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that reapportionment (attempts to change the way voting districts are delineated) issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases. The defendants unsuccessfully argued that reapportionment of legislative districts is a "political question," and hence not a question that may be resolved by federal courts. |
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Term
| Barron v. Baltimore (1833) |
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Definition
| John ______ was co-owner of a profitable wharf in the harbor of _______. As the city developed and expanded, large amounts of sand accumulated in the harbor, depriving _____ of the deep waters which had been the key to his successful business. He sued the city to recover a portion of his financial losses. Does the Fifth Amendment deny the states as well as the national government the right to take private property for public use without justly compensating the property's owner? No. The Court announced its decision in this case without even hearing the arguments of the City of ________. Writing for the unanimous Court, Chief Justice Marshall found that the limitations on government articulated in the Fifth Amendment were specifically intended to limit the powers of the national government. Citing the intent of the framers and the development of the Bill of Rights as an exclusive check on the government in Washington D.C., Marshall argued that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction in this case since the Fifth Amendment was not applicable to the states. |
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Term
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Definition
| denied counsel to indigent defendants when prosecuted by a state. |
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Term
| Board of Education v. Mergens (1990) |
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Definition
| The school administration at Westside High School denied permission to a group of students to form a Christian club with the same privileges and meeting terms as other Westside after-school student clubs. In addition to citing the Establishment Clause, Westside refused the club's formation because it lacked a faculty sponsor. When the school board upheld the administration's denial, Mergens and several other students sued. The students alleged that Westside's refusal violated the Equal Access Act, which requiremes that schools in receipt of federal funds provide "equal access" to student groups seeking to express "religious, political, philosophical, or other content" messages. |
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Term
| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas (1954 |
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Definition
| By declaring that the discriminatory nature of racial segregation ... "violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws," Brown v. Board of Education laid the foundation for shaping future national and international policies regarding human rights. |
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Term
| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas (1955) |
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Definition
| The Court held that the problems identified in Brown I required varied local solutions. Chief Justice Warren conferred much responsibility on local school authorities and the courts which originally heard school segregation cases. They were to implement the principles which the Supreme Court embraced in its first Brown decision. Warren urged localities to act on the new principles promptly and to move toward full compliance with them "with all deliberate speed." |
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Term
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Definition
| case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a federal law which set limits on campaign contributions, but ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech, and struck down portions of the law. The court also stated candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns. |
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Term
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Definition
| Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in ___________, and concurrent with Vice President ______’s contest of the certification of Florida presidential election results, on December 8, 2000 the Florida Supreme Court ordered that the Circuit Court in Leon County tabulate by hand 9000 contested ballots from Miami-Dade County. It also ordered that every county in Florida must immediately begin manually recounting all "under-votes" (ballots which did not indicate a vote for president) because there were enough contested ballots to place the outcome of the election in doubt. Governor ________ and his running mate, ___________, filed a request for review in the U.S. Supreme Court and sought an emergency petition for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court's decision. The U.S. Supreme Court granted review and issued the stay on December 9. It heard oral argument two days later. |
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Term
| Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) |
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Definition
| Jesse _________ and his son were Jehovah's Witnesses; they were proselytizing a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Connecticut. The ________s distributed religious materials by travelling door-to-door and by approaching people on the street. After voluntarily hearing an anti-Roman Catholic message on the _________s' portable phonograph, two pedestrians reacted angrily. The _________s were subsequently arrested for violating a local ordinance requiring a permit for solicitation and for inciting a breach of the peace. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that while general regulations on solicitation were legitimate, restrictions based on religious grounds were not. Because the statute allowed local officials to determine which causes were religious and which ones were not, it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court also held that while the maintenance of public order was a valid state interest, it could not be used to justify the suppression of "free communication of views." The _________s' message, while offensive to many, did not entail any threat of "bodily harm" and was protected religious speech. |
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Term
| Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) |
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Definition
| ________, a Jehovah's Witness, called a city marshal a "God-damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" in a public place. He was arrested and convicted under a state law for violating a breach of the peace. Does the application of the statute violate _________'s freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment? No. Some forms of expression--among them obscenity and fighting words--do not convey ideas and thus are not subject to First Amendment protection. In this case, Chaplinsky uttered fighting words, i.e., words that "inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." |
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Term
| Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Co. v. Chicago (1897) |
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Definition
| In this case the Court unanimously held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause compelled the states to award just compensation when it took private property for public use. (Justice Brewer concurred on this point while dissenting from other parts of the judgment.) The case, which came to the Court as an appeal from a ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court upholding a jury award of one dollar when a street was opened across a _________, was among the earliest instances in which the Court applied the due process concept to protect substantive property rights. It was an important step in the Court's development of due process limits on state control of economic liberties. Yet this case remains good law despite its relation to the doctrine of laissez‐faire constitutionalism. In contemporary constitutional law, the case stands as an early example of the doctrine that the Fourteenth Amendments's Due Process Clause incorporates the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights (see Incorporation Doctrine). In a dissenting opinion, Justice David J. Brewer agreed that the Due Process Clause required the states to pay compensation when private property was taken, but argued that the jury verdict provided only nominal, rather than just, compensation to the _________. |
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Term
| Cruzan v. Director of Missouri Dept. of Health (1990) |
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Definition
| In 1983, Nancy Beth ______ was involved in an automobile accident which left her in a "persistent vegetative state." She was sustained for several weeks by artificial feedings through an implanted gastronomy tube. When ________'s parents attempted to terminate the life-support system, state hospital officials refused to do so without court approval. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state's policy over _______'s right to refuse treatment. Did the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permit ________'s parents to refuse life-sustaining treatment on their vegitated daughter's behalf? In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that while individuals enjoyed the right to refuse medical treatment under the Due Process Clause, incompetent persons were not able to exercise such rights. Absent "clear and convincing" evidence that _______ desired treatment to be withdrawn, the Court found the State of Missouri's actions designed to preserve human life to be constitutional. Because there was no guarantee family members would always act in the best interests of incompetent patients, and because erroneous decisions to withdraw treatment were irreversible, the Court upheld the state's heightened evidentiary requirements. |
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Term
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Definition
| On July 27, 1934, at a meeting held by the Communist Party, Dirk __________ addressed the audience regarding jail conditions in the county and a maritime strike in progress in Portland. While the meeting was in progress, police raided it. __________ was arrested and charged with violating the State's criminal syndicalism statute. The law defines criminal syndicalism as "the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, sabotage or any unlawful acts or methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political change or revolution." After being convicted, __________ moved for an acquittal, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to warrant his conviction. Disagreeing, the State Supreme Court distinguished that the indictment did not charge __________ with criminal syndicalism, but rather that he presided at, conducted and assisted in conducting an assemblage of persons, organization, society and group called by the Communist Party, which was unlawfully teaching and advocating in Multnomah county the doctrine of criminal syndicalism and sabotage. |
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Term
| Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) |
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Definition
| __________ was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in an area of the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, __________ sued unsuccessfully in the Missouri courts for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. __________ then brought a new suit in federal court. __________'s master maintained that no pure-blooded Negro of African descent and the descendant of slaves could be a citizen in the sense of Article III of the Constitution. Was ____________ free or slave? __________ was a slave. Under Articles III and IV, argued Taney, no one but a citizen of the United States could be a citizen of a state, and that only Congress could confer national citizenship. Taney reached the conclusion that no person descended from an American slave had ever been a citizen for Article III purposes. The Court then held the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, hoping to end the slavery question once and for all. |
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Term
| Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith (1988) |
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Definition
| Two Native Americans who worked as counselors for a private drug rehabilitation organization, ingested peyote -- a powerful hallucinogen -- as part of their religious ceremonies as members of the Native American Church. As a result of this conduct, the rehabilitation organization fired the counselors. The counselors filed a claim for unemployment compensation. The government denied them benefits because the reason for their dismissal was considered work-related "misconduct." The counselors lost their battle in state court. But the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Oregon Supreme Court's judgment against the disgruntled employees, and returned the case to the Oregon courts to determine whether or not sacramental use of illegal drugs violated Oregon's state drug laws (485 U.S. 660 (1988)). On remand, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded that while Oregon drug law prohibited the consumption of illegal drugs for sacramental religious uses, this prohibition violated the free exercise clause. The case returned to the U.S. Supreme Court in this new posture. Does the state law violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment? No. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, observed that the Court has never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that government is free to regulate. Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion "would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind." Scalia cited as examples compulsory military service, payment of taxes, vaccination requirements, and child-neglect laws. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Board of Regents for the State of New York authorized a short, voluntary prayer for recitation at the start of each school day. This was an attempt to defuse the politically potent issue by taking it out of the hands of local communities. The blandest of invocations read as follows: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers, and our country." Does the reading of a nondenominational prayer at the start of the school day violate the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment? Yes. Neither the prayer's nondenominational character nor its voluntary character saves it from unconstitutionality. By providing the prayer, New York officially approved religion. This was the first in a series of cases in which the Court used the establishment clause to eliminate religious activities of all sorts, which had traditionally been a part of public ceremonies. Despite the passage of time, the decision is still unpopular with a majority of Americans. |
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Term
| Everson v. Board of Education (1947) |
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Definition
| A New Jersey law allowed reimbursements of money to parents who sent their children to school on buses operated by the public transportation system. Children who attended Catholic schools also qualified for this transportation subsidy. Did the New Jersey statute violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment? No. A divided Court held that the law did not violate the Constitution. After detailing the history and importance of the Establishment Clause, Justice Black argued that services like bussing and police and fire protection for parochial schools are "separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function" that for the state to provide them would not violate the First Amendment. The law did not pay money to parochial schools, nor did it support them directly in anyway. It was simply a law enacted as a "general program" to assist parents of all religions with getting their children to school. |
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Term
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Definition
| __________ was burglarizing a private home when a family member discovered him. He attempted to flee, and in doing so tripped and fell. The gun that he was carrying went off and killed a resident of the home. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death (Two other death penalty cases were decided along with __________: Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas. These cases concern the constitutionality of the death sentence for rape and murder convictions, respectively). Does the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments? Yes. The Court's one-page per curiam opinion held that the imposition of the death penalty in these cases constituted cruel and unusual punishment and violated the Constitution. In over two hundred pages of concurrence and dissents, the justices articulated their views on this controversial subject. Only Justices Brennan and Marshall believed the death penalty to be unconstitutional in all instances. Other concurrences focused on the arbitrary nature with which death sentences have been imposed, often indicating a racial bias against black defendants. The Court's decision forced states and the national legislature to rethink their statutes for capital offenses to assure that the death penalty would not be administered in a capricious or discriminatory manner. |
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Term
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Definition
| A New York state law gave two individuals the exclusive right to operate steamboats on waters within state jurisdiction. Laws like this one were duplicated elsewhere which led to friction as some states would require foreign (out-of-state) boats to pay substantial fees for navigation privileges. In this case a steamboat owner who did business between New York and New Jersey challenged the monopoly that New York had granted, which forced him to obtain a special operating permit from the state to navigate on its waters. Did the State of New York exercise authority in a realm reserved exclusively to Congress, namely, the regulation of interstate commerce? The Court found that New York's licensing requirement for out-of-state operators was inconsistent with a congressional act regulating the coasting trade. The New York law was invalid by virtue of the Supremacy Clause. In his opinion, Chief Justice Marshall developed a clear definition of the word commerce, which included navigation on interstate waterways. He also gave meaning to the phrase "among the several states" in the Commerce Clause. Marshall's was one of the earliest and most influential opinions concerning this important clause. He concluded that regulation of navigation by steamboat operators and others for purposes of conducting interstate commerce was a power reserved to and exercised by the Congress. |
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Term
| Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) |
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Definition
| __________ was charged in a Florida state court with a felony for breaking and entering. He lacked funds and was unable to hire a lawyer to prepare his defense. When he requested the court to appoint an attorney for him, the court refused, stating that it was only obligated to appoint counsel to indigent defendants in capital cases. __________ defended himself in the trial; he was convicted by a jury and the court sentenced him to five years in a state prison. Did the state court's failure to appoint counsel for __________ violate his right to a fair trial and due process of law as protected by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments? In a unanimous opinion, the Court held that __________ had a right to be represented by a court-appointed attorney and, in doing so, overruled its 1942 decision of Betts v. Brady. In this case the Court found that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of counsel was a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial, which should be made applicable to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Black called it an "obvious truth" that a fair trial for a poor defendant could not be guaranteed without the assistance of counsel. Those familiar with the American system of justice, commented Black, recognized that "lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries." |
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Term
| Gitlow v. New York (1925) |
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Definition
| __________, a socialist, was arrested for distributing copies of a "left-wing manifesto" that called for the establishment of socialism through strikes and class action of any form. __________ was convicted under a state criminal anarchy law, which punished advocating the overthrow of the government by force. At his trial, __________ argued that since there was no resulting action flowing from the manifesto's publication, the statute penalized utterences without propensity to incitement of concrete action. The New York courts had decided that anyone who advocated the doctrine of violent revolution violated the law. Does the New York law punishing the advocacy of overthrowing the government an unconstitutional violation of the free speech clause of the First Amendment? Threshold issue: Does the First Amendment apply to the states? Yes, by virtue of the liberty protected by due process that no state shall deny (14th Amendment). On the merits, a state may forbid both speech and publication if they have a tendency to result in action dangerous to public security, even though such utterances create no clear and present danger. The rationale of the majority has sometimes been called the "dangerous tendency" test. The legislature may decide that an entire class of speech is so dangerous that it should be prohibited. Those legislative decisions will be upheld if not unreasonable, and the defendant will be punished even if her speech created no danger at all. |
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Term
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Definition
| A jury found __________ guilty of armed robbery and murder and sentenced him to death. On appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence except as to its imposition for the robbery conviction. __________ challenged his remaining death sentence for murder, claiming that his capital sentence was a "cruel and unusual" punishment that violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Is the imposition of the death sentence prohibited under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments as "cruel and unusual" punishment? No. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that a punishment of death did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments under all circumstances. In extreme criminal cases, such as when a defendant has been convicted of deliberately killing another, the careful and judicious use of the death penalty may be appropriate if carefully employed. Georgia's death penalty statute assures the judicious and careful use of the death penalty by requiring a bifurcated proceeding where the trial and sentencing are conducted separately, specific jury findings as to the severity of the crime and the nature of the defendant, and a comparison of each capital sentence's circumstances with other similar cases. Moreover, the Court was not prepared to overrule the Georgia legislature's finding that capital punishment serves as a useful deterrent to future capital crimes and an appropriate means of social retribution against its most serious offenders. |
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Term
| Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) |
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Definition
| __________ was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Both she and the Medical Director for the League gave information, instruction, and other medical advice to married couples concerning birth control. __________ and her colleague were convicted under a Connecticut law which criminalized the provision of counselling, and other medical treatment, to married persons for purposes of preventing conception. Does the Constitution protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple's ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives? Though the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicts with the exercise of this right and is therefore null and void. |
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Term
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Definition
| an important United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with provisions of state constitutions that set qualifications for voters. It found grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests to be unconstitutional. The Oklahoma Constitution, while appearing to treat all voters equally, allowed an exemption to the literacy requirement for those voters whose grandfathers had either been eligible to vote prior to January 1, 1866 or were then a resident of "some foreign nation", or were soldiers. It was an exemption that favored white voters while it disfranchised black voters, most of whose grandfathers had been slaves and therefore unable to vote before 1866. |
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Term
| Harris v. Forklift Systems (1993) |
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Definition
| Teresa __________ was sexually harassed by her employer. She filed suit in federal district court, claiming that the harassment created an "abusive work environment" in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The employer countered that the harassment had not been severe enough to seriously affect her psychologically or impair her ability to work, and that it therefore did not create an abusive work environment under the meaning of Title VII. The district court agreed, stating that the decision was a "close case" but that the harassment had not been severe enough to create an abusive work environment in violation of the Act. A Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed the district court's decision. Must sexual harassment "seriously affect [an employee's] psychological well being" in order to create an "abusive work environment" that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? No. In an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court found that the district court had been wrong to focus on whether or not the harassment had caused "concrete psychological harm." Instead, Justice O'Connor wrote that the court should have focused on whether the conduct was hostile or abusive. "Certainly Title VII bars conduct that would seriously affect a reasonable person's psychological well being, but the statute is not limited to such conduct. So long as the environment would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile or abusive... there is no need for it also to be psychologically injurious (in order to find that it violates Title VII)." |
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Term
| Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States (1964) |
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Definition
| Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by places of public accommodation if their operations affected commerce. The __________ Motel in Atlanta, Georgia, refused to accept Black Americans and was charged with violating Title II. Did Congress, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, exceed its Commerce Clause powers by depriving motels, such as the __________, of the right to choose their own customers? The Court held that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate local incidents of commerce, and that the Civil Right Act of 1964 passed constitutional muster. The Court noted that the applicability of Title II was "carefully limited to enterprises having a direct and substantial relation to the interstate flow of goods and people. . ." The Court thus concluded that places of public accommodation had no "right" to select guests as they saw fit, free from governmental regulation. |
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Term
| Hurley v. Irish American GLIB Association (1995) |
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Definition
| In 1993, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council was authorized by the city of Boston to organize the St. Patrick's Day Parade. The Council refused a place in the event for the ________. The group attempted to join to express its members' pride in their __________ heritage as openly __________, __________, and __________ individuals. The Massachusetts State Court ordered the Veterans' Council to include __________ under a state law prohibiting discrimination on account of sexual orientation in public accommodations. The Veterans' Council claimed that forced inclusion of __________ members in their privately-organized parade violated their free speech. Did a Massachusetts State Court's mandate to Boston's Veterans' Council, requiring it to include __________ members in its parade, violate the Council's free speech rights as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments? Yes. A unanimous court held that the State Court's ruling to require private citizens who organize a parade to include a group expressing a message that the organizers do not wish to convey violates the First Amendment by making private speech to the public accommodation requirement. Such an action "violate[s] the fundamental First Amendment rule that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message and, conversely, to decide what not to say." |
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Term
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Definition
| a United States Supreme Court decision handed down concerning Eugene V. __________ and labor unions. __________, president of the American Railroad Union, was involved in the Pullman Strike earlier in 1894 and challenged the federal injunction ordering the strikers back to work where they would face being fired. The injunction had been issued because of the violent nature of the strike. However, __________ refused to end the strike and was subsequently cited for contempt of court; he appealed the decision to the courts. The main question being debated was whether the federal government had a right to issue the injunction, which dealt with both interstate and intrastate commerce and shipping on rail cars. With an opinion written by Justice David Josiah Brewer, the court ruled in a unanimous decision in favor of the U.S. government. Joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Associate Justices Stephen Johnson Field, John Marshall Harlan, Horace Gray, Henry Billings Brown, George Shiras, Jr., Howell Edmunds Jackson, and Edward Douglass White, the court ruled that the government had a right to regulate interstate commerce and ensure the operations of the Postal Service, along with a responsibility to "ensure the general welfare of the public." |
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Term
| Klopfer v. North Carolina (1967) |
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Definition
| Petitioner's trial on a North Carolina criminal trespass indictment ended with a declaration of a mistrial when the jury failed to reach a verdict. After the case had been postponed for two terms, petitioner filed a motion with the trial court in which he petitioned the court to ascertain when the State intended to bring him to trial. While this motion was being considered, the State's prosecutor moved for permission to take a "nolle prosequi with leave," a procedural device whereby the accused is discharged from custody but remains subject to prosecution at any time in the future at the discretion of the prosecutor. Although petitioner objected that the trespass charge was abated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and that entry of the nolle prosequi order would violate his federal right to a speedy trial, the trial court, without stated justification, granted the prosecutor's motion. On appeal, the State Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's action, holding that, while a defendant has a right to a speedy trial if there is to be a trial, that right does not require the State to prosecute if the prosecutor, in his discretion and with the court's approval, elects to take a nolle prosequi. |
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Term
| Korematsu v. United States (1944) |
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Definition
| During World War II, Presidential Executive Order 9066 and congressional statutes gave the military authority to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas deemed critical to national defense and potentially vulnerable to espionage. ________ remained in San Leandro, California and violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army. Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by implementing exclusion and restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent? The Court sided with the government and held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Korematsu's rights. Justice Black argued that compulsory exclusion, though constitutionally suspect, is justified during circumstances of "emergency and peril." |
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Term
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Definition
| This case was heard concurrently with two others, Earley v. DiCenso (1971) and _____ v. DiCenso (1971). The cases involved controversies over laws in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. In Pennsylvania, a statute provided financial support for teacher salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials for secular subjects to non-public schools. The Rhode Island statute provided direct supplemental salary payments to teachers in non-public elementary schools. Each statute made aid available to "church-related educational institutions." Did the Rhode Island and Pennsylvania statutes violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause by making state financial aid available to "church-related educational institutions"? Yes. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Burger articulated a three-part test for laws dealing with religious establishment. To be constitutional, a statute must have "a secular legislative purpose," it must have principal effects which neither advance nor inhibit religion, and it must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion." The Court found that the subsidization of parochial schools furthered a process of religious inculcation, and that the "continuing state surveillance" necessary to enforce the specific provisions of the laws would inevitably entangle the state in religious affairs. The Court also noted the presence of an unhealthy "divisive political potential" concerning legislation which appropriates support to religious schools. |
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Term
| Loving v. Virginia (1967) |
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Definition
| In 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard __________, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. The __________s returned to Virginia shortly thereafter. The couple was then charged with violating the state's antimiscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. The __________s were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail (the trial judge agreed to suspend the sentence if the __________s would leave Virginia and not return for 25 years). Did Virginia's antimiscegenation law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Yes. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that distinctions drawn according to race were generally "odious to a free people" and were subject to "the most rigid scrutiny" under the Equal Protection Clause. The Virginia law, the Court found, had no legitimate purpose "independent of invidious racial discrimination." The Court rejected the state's argument that the statute was legitimate because it applied equally to both blacks and whites and found that racial classifications were not subject to a "rational purpose" test under the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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Term
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Definition
| - __________ reversed the Court's long-standing view that the Fourteenth Amendment only required state courts to follow a policy of fundamental fairness towards criminal defendants. Here, for the first time, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was made applicable to state defendants. William __________ was initially arrested during a gambling raid in 1959 by Hartford, Connecticut, police. He pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of misdemeanor, and was sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of $500. After he had served 90 days, his sentence was suspended, and he was placed on probation for two years. About a year later, __________ was ordered to testify at a state inquiry into gambling and other crimes. When he was asked several questions about his arrest and conviction, __________ refused to answer "on the grounds it may tend to incriminate [him]." The Connecticut Superior Court ruled him in contempt of court and sent him to prison until he was willing to answer the questions put to him. __________ petitioned the superior court for a writ of habeas corpus—a request to be released on grounds that he had been unlawfully detained. The court rejected his petition, and this rejection was upheld on appeal. __________ then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of this decision. |
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Definition
| Dolree __________ was convicted of possessing obscene materials after an admittedly illegal police search of her home for a fugitive. She appealed her conviction on the basis of freedom of expression. Were the confiscated materials protected by the First Amendment? (May evidence obtained through a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment be admitted in a state criminal proceeding?) The Court brushed aside the First Amendment issue and declared that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by [the Fourth Amendment], inadmissible in a state court." __________ had been convicted on the basis of illegally obtained evidence. This was an historic -- and controversial -- decision. It placed the requirement of excluding illegally obtained evidence from court at all levels of the government. The decision launched the Court on a troubled course of determining how and when to apply the exclusionary rule. |
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Term
| Marbury v. Madison (1803) |
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Definition
| The case began on March 2, 1801, when an obscure Federalist, William __________, was designated as a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. __________ and several others were appointed to government posts created by Congress in the last days of John Adams's presidency, but these last-minute appointments were never fully finalized. The disgruntled appointees invoked an act of Congress and sued for their jobs in the Supreme Court. Is __________ entitled to his appointment? Is his lawsuit the correct way to get it? And, is the Supreme Court the place for __________ to get the relief he requests? Yes; yes; and it depends. The justices held, through Marshall's forceful argument, that on the last issue the Constitution was "the fundamental and paramount law of the nation" and that "an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void." In other words, when the Constitution--the nation's highest law--conflicts with an act of the legislature, that act is invalid. This case establishes the Supreme Court's power of judicial review. |
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Term
| McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) |
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Definition
| In 1816, Congress chartered The Second Bank of the United States. In 1818, the state of Maryland passed legislation to impose taxes on the bank. James W. __________, the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the bank, refused to pay the tax. The case presented two questions: Did Congress have the authority to establish the bank? Did the Maryland law unconstitutionally interfere with congressional powers? In a unanimous decision, the Court held that Congress had the power to incorporate the bank and that Maryland could not tax instruments of the national government employed in the execution of constitutional powers. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Marshall noted that Congress possessed unenumerated powers not explicitly outlined in the Constitution. Marshall also held that while the states retained the power of taxation, "the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme. . .they control the constitution and laws of the respective states, and cannot be controlled by them." |
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Term
| Miranda v. Arizona (1966) |
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Definition
| The Court was called upon to consider the constitutionality of a number of instances, ruled on jointly, in which defendants were questioned "while in custody or otherwise deprived of [their] freedom in any significant way." In Vignera v. New York, the petitioner was questioned by police, made oral admissions, and signed an inculpatory statement all without being notified of his right to counsel. Similarly, in Westover v. United States, the petitioner was arrested by the FBI, interrogated, and made to sign statements without being notified of his right to counsel. Lastly, in California v. Stewart, local police held and interrogated the defendant for five days without notification of his right to counsel. In all these cases, suspects were questioned by police officers, detectives, or prosecuting attorneys in rooms that cut them off from the outside world. In none of the cases were suspects given warnings of their rights at the outset of their interrogation. Does the police practice of interrogating individuals without notifiying them of their right to counsel and their protection against self-incrimination violate the Fifth Amendment? The Court held that prosecutors could not use statements stemming from custodial interrogation of defendants unless they demonstrated the use of procedural safeguards "effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination." The Court noted that "the modern practice of in-custody interrogation is psychologically rather than physically oriented" and that "the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition." The Court specifically outlined the necessary aspects of police warnings to suspects, including warnings of the right to remain silent and the right to have counsel present during interrogations. |
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Term
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Definition
| As part of its strategy to enjoin the __________ from operating, Alabama required it to reveal to the State's Attorney General the names and addresses of all the __________'s members and agents in the state. Did Alabama's requirement violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Yes. The unanimous Court held that a compelled disclosure of the __________'s membership lists would have the effect of suppressing legal association among the group's members. Nothing short of an "overriding valid interest of the State," something not present in this case, was needed to justify Alabama's actions. |
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Term
| National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937) |
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Definition
| With the __________ Act of 1935, Congress determined that labor-management disputes were directly related to the flow of interstate commerce and, thus, could be regulated by the national government. In this case, the __________ Board charged the _______ with discriminating against employees who were union members. Was the Act consistent with the Commerce Clause? Yes. The Court held that the Act was narrowly constructed so as to regulate industrial activities which had the potential to restrict interstate commerce. The justices abandoned their claim that labor relations had only an indirect effect on commerce. Since the ability of employees to engage in collective bargaining (one activity protected by the Act) is "an essential condition of industrial peace," the national government was justified in penalizing corporations engaging in interstate commerce which "refuse to confer and negotiate" with their workers. |
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Term
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Definition
| Jay __________ published a scandal sheet in Minneapolis, in which he attacked local officials, charging that they were implicated with gangsters. Minnesota officials obtained an injunction to prevent __________ from publishing his newspaper under a state law that allowed such action against periodicals. The law provided that any person "engaged in the business" of regularly publishing or circulating an "obscene, lewd, and lascivious" or a "malicious, scandalous and defamatory" newspaper or periodical was guilty of a nuisance, and could be enjoined (stopped) from further committing or maintaining the nuisance. Does the Minnesota "gag law" violate the free press provision of the First Amendment? The Supreme Court held that the statute authorizing the injunction was unconstitutional as applied. History had shown that the protection against previous restraints was at the heart of the First Amendment. The Court held that the statutory scheme constituted a prior restraint and hence was invalid under the First Amendment. Thus the Court established as a constitutional principle the doctrine that, with some narrow exceptions, the government could not censor or otherwise prohibit a publication in advance, even though the communication might be punishable after publication in a criminal or other proceeding. |
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Term
| New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) |
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Definition
| _____ was a fourteen-year-old; she was accused of smoking in the girls' bathroom of her high school. A principal at the school questioned her and searched her purse, yielding a bag of marijuana and other drug paraphernalia. Did the search violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments? No. Citing the peculiarities associated with searches on school grounds, the Court abandoned its requirement that searches be conducted only when a "probable cause" exists that an individual has violated the law. The Court used a less strict standard of "reasonableness" to conclude that the search did not violate the Constitution. The presence of rolling papers in the purse gave rise to a reasonable suspicion in the principal's mind that _____ may have been carrying drugs, thus, justifying a more thorough search of the purse. |
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Term
| Palko v. Connecticut (1937) |
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Definition
| Frank _____ had been charged with first-degree murder. He was convicted instead of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The state of Connecticut appealed and won a new trial; this time the court found _____ guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. Does _____'s second conviction violate the protection against double jeopardy guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment because this protection applies to the states by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause? The Supreme Court upheld _____'s second conviction. In his majority opinion, Cardozo formulated principles that were to direct the Court's actions for the next three decades. He noted that some Bill of Rights guarantees--such as freedom of thought and speech--are fundamental, and that the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause absorbed these fundamental rights and applied them to the states. Protection against double jeopardy was not a fundamental right. _____ died in Connecticut's electric chair on April 12, 1938. |
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Term
| Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) |
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Definition
| The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph _____--who was seven-eighths Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment? No, the state law is within constitutional boundaries. The majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not part of the opinion.) Justice Brown conceded that the 14th amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. But Brown noted that "in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either." In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination. |
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Term
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Definition
| Nine black youths -- young, ignorant, and illiterate -- were accused of raping two white women. Alabama officials sprinted through the legal proceedings: a total of three trials took one day and all nine were sentenced to death. Alabama law required the appointment of counsel in capital cases, but the attorneys did not consult with their clients and had done little more than appear to represent them at the trial. This cases was decided together with Patterson v. Alabama and Weems v. Alabama. Did the trials violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Yes. The Court held that the trials denied due process because the defendants were not given reasonable time and opportunity to secure counsel in their defense. Though Justice George Sutherland did not rest the Court holding on the right-to-counsel guarantee of the Sixth Amendment, he repeatedly implicated that guarantee. This case was an early example of national constitutional protection in the field of criminal justice. |
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Term
| R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1985) |
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Definition
| involving 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 ____, for burning a cross on the lawn of an African American family. |
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Term
| Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) |
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Definition
| Allan _____, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had twice applied for admission to the _____ Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times. The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part of the university's affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession. _____'s qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years _____'s applications were rejected. _____ contended, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race. Did the _____ violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of _____'s application for admission to its medical school? No and yes. There was no single majority opinion. Four of the justices contended that any racial quota system supported by government violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., agreed, casting the deciding vote ordering the medical school to admit _____. However, in his opinion, Powell argued that the rigid use of racial quotas as employed at the school violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The remaining four justices held that the use of race as a criterion in admissions decisions in higher education was constitutionally permissible. Powell joined that opinion as well, contending that the use of race was permissible as one of several admission criteria. So, the Court managed to minimize white opposition to the goal of equality (by finding for _____) while extending gains for racial minorities through affirmative action. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1961, M.O. _____, David J. Vann (Vann v. Baggett), John McConnell (McConnell v. Baggett), and other voters from Jefferson County, Alabama, challenged the apportionment of the state legislature. The Alabama Constitution prescribed that each county was entitled to at least one representative and that there were to be as many senatorial districts as there were senators. Population variance ratios of as great as 41-to-1 existed in the Senate. Did Alabama's apportionment scheme violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by mandating at least one representative per county and creating as many senatorial districts as there were senators, regardless of population variances? In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court upheld the challenge to the Alabama system, holding that Equal Protection Clause demanded "no less than substantially equal state legislative representation for all citizens...." Noting that the right to direct representation was "a bedrock of our political system," the Court held that both houses of bicameral state legislatures had to be apportioned on a population basis. States were required to "honest and good faith" efforts to construct districts as nearly of equal population as practicable. |
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Term
| Robinson v. California (1962) |
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Definition
| A California statute made it a criminal offense for a person to "be addicted to the use of narcotics." Lawrence _____ was convicted under the law, which required a sentence of at least ninety days in jail. A state appellate court affirmed _____'s conviction on appeal. Was the California law an infliction of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment? In a 6-to-2 decision, the Court held that laws imprisoning persons afflicted with the "illness" of narcotic addiction inflicted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court likened the law to one making it a criminal offense "to be mentally ill, or a leper, or to be afflicted with a venereal disease," and argued that the state could not punish persons merely because of their "status" of addiction. The Court noted that the law was not aimed at the purchase, sale, or possession of illegal drugs. |
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Term
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Definition
| _____, a Texas resident, sought to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. Texas law prohibited abortions except to save the pregnant woman's life. After granting certiorari, the Court heard arguments twice. The first time, _____'s attorney -- Sarah Weddington -- could not locate the constitutional hook of her argument for Justice Potter Stewart. Her opponent -- Jay Floyd -- misfired from the start. Weddington sharpened her constitutional argument in the second round. Her new opponent -- Robert Flowers -- came under strong questioning from Justices Potter Stewart and Thurgood Marshall. Does the Constitution embrace a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion? The Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy (recognized in __________ v. Connecticut) protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling. |
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Term
| Roth v. United States (1957) |
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Definition
| __________ operated a book-selling business in New York and was convicted of mailing obscene circulars and an obscene book in violation of a federal obscenity statute. __________'s case was combined with Alberts v. California, in which a California obscenity law was challenged by Alberts after his similar conviction for selling lewd and obscene books in addition to composing and publishing obscene advertisements for his products. Did either the federal or California's obscenity restrictions, prohibiting the sale or transfer of obscene materials through the mail, impinge upon the freedom of expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment? In a 6-to-3 decision written by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., the Court held that obscenity was not "within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press." The Court noted that the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance or form of expression, such as materials that were "utterly without redeeming social importance." The Court held that the test to determine obscenity was "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest." The Court held that such a definition of obscenity gave sufficient fair warning and satisfied the demands of Due Process. Brennan later reversed his position on this issue in Miller v. California (1973). |
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Term
| Schelchter Poultry Co. v United States (1935) |
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Definition
| Section 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act empowered the President to implement industrial codes to regulate weekly employment hours, wages, and minimum ages of employees. The codes had standing as penal statutes. Did Congress unconstitutionally delegate legislative power to the President? The Court held that Section 3 was "without precedent" and violated the Constitution. The law did not establish rules or standards to evaluate industrial activity. In other words, it did not make codes, but simply empowered the President to do so. A unanimous Court found this to be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. |
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Term
| Schenck v. United States (1919) |
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Definition
| During World War I, _____ mailed circulars to draftees. The circulars suggested that the draft was a monstrous wrong motivated by the capitalist system. The circulars urged "Do not submit to intimidation" but advised only peaceful action such as petitioning to repeal the Conscription Act. _____ was charged with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act by attempting to cause insubordination in the military and to obstruct recruitment. Are _____'s actions (words, expression) protected by the free speech clause of the First Amendment? Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Court, concluded that _____ is not protected in this situation. The character of every act depends on the circumstances. "The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." During wartime, utterances tolerable in peacetime can be punished. |
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Term
| SlaughterHouse Cases (1873) |
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Definition
| Louisiana had created a partial monopoly of the slaughtering business and gave it to one company. Competitors argued that this created "involuntary servitude," abridged "privileges and immunities," denied "equal protection of the laws," and deprived them of "liberty and property without due process of law." Did the creation of the monopoly violate the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments? No. The involuntary servitude claim did not forbid limits on the right to use one's property. The equal protection claim was misplaced since it was established to void laws discriminating against blacks. The due process claim simply imposes the identical requirements on the states as the fifth amendment imposes on the national government. The Court devoted most of its opinion to a narrow construction of the privileges and immunities clause, which was interpreted to apply to national citizenship, not state citizenship. |
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Term
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Definition
| the Court ruled 7-2 that a 1919 California statute banning red flags was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision is considered a landmark in the history of First Amendment constitutional law, as it was one of the first cases where the Court extended the Fourteenth Amendment to include a protection of the substance of the First Amendment, in this case symbolic speech, from state infringement. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1946, Herman Marion _____, a black man, applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School. State law restricted access to the university to whites, and _____'s application was automatically rejected because of his race. When _____ asked the state courts to order his admission, the university attempted to provide separate but equal facilities for black law students. Did the Texas admissions scheme violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause required that _____ be admitted to the university. The Court found that the "law school for Negroes," which was to have opened in 1947, would have been grossly unequal to the University of Texas Law School. The Court argued that the separate school would be inferior in a number of areas, including faculty, course variety, library facilities, legal writing opportunities, and overall prestige. The Court also found that the mere separation from the majority of law students harmed students' abilities to compete in the legal arena. |
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Term
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Definition
| _____ and two other men were observed by a plain clothes policeman in what the officer believed to be "casing a job, a stick-up." The officer stopped and frisked the three men, and found weapons on two of them. _____ was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to three years in jail. Was the search and seizure of _____ and the other men in violation of the Fourth Amendment? In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court held that the search undertaken by the officer was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the weapons seized could be introduced into evidence against _____. Attempting to focus narrowly on the facts of this particular case, the Court found that the officer acted on more than a "hunch" and that "a reasonably prudent man would have been warranted in believing [_____] was armed and thus presented a threat to the officer's safety while he was investigating his suspicious behavior." The Court found that the searches undertaken were limited in scope and designed to protect the officer's safety incident to the investigation. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1984, in front of the Dallas City Hall, Gregory Lee _____ burned an American flag as a means of protest against Reagan administration policies. _____ was tried and convicted under a Texas law outlawing flag desecration. He was sentenced to one year in jail and assessed a $2,000 fine. After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction, the case went to the Supreme Court. Is the desecration of an American flag, by burning or otherwise, a form of speech that is protected under the First Amendment? In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that _____'s burning of a flag was protected expression under the First Amendment. The Court found that _____'s actions fell into the category of expressive conduct and had a distinctively political nature. The fact that an audience takes offense to certain ideas or expression, the Court found, does not justify prohibitions of speech. The Court also held that state officials did not have the authority to designate symbols to be used to communicate only limited sets of messages, noting that "[i]f 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." |
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Term
| Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) |
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Definition
| defined the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's disciplinary actions violate students' First Amendment rights. |
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Term
| Twining v. New Jersey (1908) |
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Definition
| _____, a bank director, was charged with a misdemeanor (deceiving a bank examiner). _____ declined to testify at his trial. Under New Jersey law, the prosecutor commented upon _____'s failure to testify. A jury convicted _____; he appealed. Does comment upon a defendant's failure to testify violate the Fourteenth Amendment? Neither the Privileges and Immunities Clause nor the Due Process Clause embraces the right against self-incrimination found in the Fifth Amendment. Moody rested the Court's opinion on the historical record, which led him to the view that the right against self-incrimination was not fundamental. |
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Term
| United States v. Lopez (1995) |
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Definition
| Alfonzo _____, a 12th grade high school student, carried a concealed weapon into his San Antonio, Texas high school. He was charged under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. The next day, the state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged _____ with violating a federal criminal statute, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. The act forbids "any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that [he] knows...is a school zone." _____ was found guilty following a bench trial and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and two years' supervised release. Is the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act, forbidding individuals from knowingly carrying a gun in a school zone, unconstitutional because it exceeds the power of Congress to legislate under the Commerce Clause? Yes. The possession of a gun in a local school zone is not an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The law is a criminal statute that has nothing to do with "commerce" or any sort of economic activity. |
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Term
| United States v. Nixon (1974) |
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Definition
| A grand jury returned indictments against seven of President Richard _____'s closest aides in the Watergate affair. The special prosecutor appointed by _____ and the defendants sought audio tapes of conversations recorded by _____ in the Oval Office. _____ asserted that he was immune from the subpoena claiming "executive privilege," which is the right to withhold information from other government branches to preserve confidential communications within the executive branch or to secure the national interest. Decided together with _____ v. United States. Is the President's right to safeguard certain information, using his "executive privilege" confidentiality power, entirely immune from judicial review? No. The Court 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. The Court granted that there was a limited executive privilege in areas of military or diplomatic affairs, but gave preference to "the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of justice." Therefore, the president must obey the subpoena and produce the tapes and documents. _____ resigned shortly after the release of the tapes. |
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Term
| Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) |
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Definition
| An Alabama law authorized teachers to conduct regular religious prayer services and activities in school classrooms during the school day. Three of _____'s children attended public schools in Mobile. Did Alabama law violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause? Yes. The Court determined the constitutionality of Alabama's prayer and meditation statute by applying the secular purpose test, which asked if the state's actual purpose was to endorse or disapprove of religion. The Court held that Alabama's passage of the prayer and meditation statute was not only a deviation from the state's duty to maintain absolute neutrality toward religion, but was an affirmative endorsement of religion. As such, the statute clearly lacked any secular purpose as it sought to establish religion in public schools, thereby violating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Colorado Supreme Court upheld a number of convictions in which evidence was admitted that would have been inadmissible in a prosecution for violation of a federal law in a federal court. Were the states required to exclude illegally seized evidence from trial under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments? In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not subject criminal justice in the states to specific limitations and that illegally obtained evidence did not have to be excluded from trials in all cases. The Court reasoned that while the exclusion of evidence may have been an effective way to deter unreasonable searches, other methods could be equally effective and would not fall below the minimal standards assured by the Due Process Clause. Civil remedies, such as "the internal discipline of the police, under the eyes of an alert public opinion," were sufficient. |
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Term
| Woodson v. North Carolina (1976) |
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Definition
| The state of North Carolina enacted legislation that made the death penalty mandatory for all convicted first-degree murderers. Consequently, when James _____ was found guilty of such an offense, he was automatically sentenced to death. _____ challenged the law, which was upheld by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Did the mandatory death penalty law violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments? In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that the North Carolina law was unconstitutional. The Court found three problems with the law: First, the law "depart[ed] markedly from contemporary standards" concerning death sentences. The historical record indicated that the public had rejected mandatory death sentences. Second, the law provided no standards to guide juries in their exercise of "the power to determine which first-degree murderers shall live and which shall die." Third, the statute failed to allow consideration of the character and record of individual defendants before inflicting the death penalty. The Court noted that "the fundamental respect for humanity" underlying the Eighth Amendment required such considerations. |
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