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The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland.
This fundamental case established the following two principles:
• that the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government, and
• that state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government. |
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| Planned Parenthood v. Casey |
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| huge decision that let down both sides saying that some restrictions were ok but that you couldn’t outlaw abortion and was based in large part on stare decisis (SDO) |
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| Involved a New York law that limited the number of hours a baker could work each week. By a 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the law was necessary to protect the health of bakers, calling it an "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract." |
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| The Roe Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to the standard of strict scrutiny. The opinion of the Roe Court, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, declined to adopt the district court's Ninth Amendment rationale, and instead asserted that the "right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." |
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The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Byron White, ruled that the right for gays to engage in sodomy was not protected by the Constitution, that the Georgia law was legal, and that the charges against Hardwick would stand. The Court first argued that the fundamental "right to privacy," as protected by the Constitution's Due Process Clause against the states, does not confer "the right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy." While the "right to privacy" protects intimate aspects of marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing from state interference, it does not protect gay sodomy because "no connection between family, marriage, or procreation on the one hand and homosexual activity on the other has been demonstrated."
The Court argued that the clause zealously protects from state interference only activities that constitute "fundamental rights," |
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In the 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down the sodomy law in Texas. The court had previously addressed the same issue in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute, not finding a constitutional protection of sexual privacy.
Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The majority held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court concluded that, "Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled." |
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| Youngstwon Steel Co. v. Sawyer |
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| Justice Black wrote decision which declared the actions of President Truman were outside of his constitutional rights when he took over the private property of Youngstown Steel Co. by force to end the strike. |
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| University of California Regents v. Bakke |
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| ruled 5-4 saying race could be one but only one factor used by discriminatory boards like college admissions boards. Quotas insulated minority applicants from competition from regular applicants and were therefore unconstitutional because they discriminated against regular applicants. However, universities could use race as a plus factor. |
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- in 5-4 decision, court ruled that suburban school districts didn’t practice de jure segregation (legal separation of the races practiced in the South)
- Constitution forbids segregation but does not require a racial balance so rejected Bradley’s argument that the whole metropolitan area be desegregated. The state didn’t intentionally segregate the school districts, but rather the segregation happened as a result of people choosing where to live – the blacks in one area, the whites in another |
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- Barbara Grutter argued she had been denied admission to the University of Michigan’s law school because of an affirmative action system that considered race as a key factor in creating a diverse student body.
- The law school viewed race as a plus because diversity yields educational benefits.
- Race is allowed as a plus factor, but not the sole determining factor for an individual. |
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| Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants if they are unable to afford their own. This was a case in the selective incorporation process which confirmed the rights of defendants in criminal proceedings. |
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| reinforced freedom of the press to publish the Pentagon Papers illustrating gov. mistakes during Vietnam |
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| Boy Scout of America v. Dale |
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| The Supreme Court held that the lower court's decision unconstitutionally violated the rights of BSA, specifically the freedom of association, which allows a private organization to exclude whomever it wishes. Enforced freedom of public assembly |
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| ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy". |
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