Landmark Cases

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) is one of the most important Supreme Court cases regarding federal power. In a unanimous decision, the Court established that Congress had implied constitutional power to create a national bank and that individual states could not tax a federally chartered bank. The Court stated Congress was authorized to pass laws "necessary and proper" in order to carry out its duties.

Civil Rights Cases (1883) were a series of five cases that were decided en bloc. Despite the post-Civil War Reconstruction Period, the Court in an 8-1 decision held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was not constitutional under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. This set the tone for the legality of the Jim Crow era of segregation for African Americans.

Yick Wo v. Hopkins The Court's decision in this was seen as trailblazing -- it struck down legislation aimed at closing Chinese-operated laundries in San Francisco and guaranteed non-citizens the Constitution's protections. It was the first case to use the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. In a unanimous decision the Supreme Court ruled laws with discriminatory intent were unconstitutional. This landmark case has been cited over 150 times since the Court's decision.

In Plessy v. Ferguson the Court infamously ruled it was within constitutional boundaries for the state of Louisiana to enforce racial segregation in public facilities. In a 7-1 ruling (one of the nine Justices didn't consider the case due to the unexpected death of one of his daughters), the Court established that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to enforce racial equality, not to eliminate the distinction based on color. Under that reasoning, the Court ruled segregation could not be considered unconstitutional. The decision was the birth of the "separate but equal" doctrine that African Americans lived under for decades until it was later overturned with the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Gideon v. Wainwright is responsible for changing the criminal justice system by granting criminal defendants the right to an attorney, even if they can't afford one on their own. The Court ruled that under the Sixth Amendment, state and federal courts were to respect the rights of the accused and allow them the opportunity to defend themselves.

Griswold v. Connecticut struck down a Connecticut law, applied to married couples, that banned contraceptives and the ability to receive information about the use of contraceptives. In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that the Connecticut law violated the right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Katz v. United States extended the Fourth Amendment's "unreasonable searches and seizures" protection to include recordings of conversations, not just personal effects. The Court held that wiretapping violated the privacy of the criminal defendant, Charles Katz -- privacy that he expected to have once entering a phone booth and closing the door.

Brandenburg v. Ohio established the Imminent Lawless Action test used to determine when speech protected under the First Amendment can be lawfully restricted. In Brandenburg, the Court held that hate speech is protected under the First Amendment as long as it does not provoke violence.

Tinker v. Des Moines determined it was a First Amendment violation for public schools to punish students for expressing themselves. In a 7-2 decision, the Court concluded that the rights of children are parallel to the rights of adults and that "students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views."

New York Times v. United States, better known as the “Pentagon Papers” case, was a decision expanding freedom of the press and limits on the government's power to interrupt that freedom. President Richard Nixon used his executive authority to prevent the New York Times from publishing top secret documents pertaining to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the President’s attempt to prevent the publication was a violation of First Amendment protections for press freedom.

Gregg v. Georgia held that Georgia's death penalty statute was constitutional. The Court claimed the statute did not constitute a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments. This case established a constitutional basis for the death penalty, but also established limits to how it could be carried out.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke was a controversial case challenging the legal grounding of affirmative action programs in college admissions. A difficult decision for the Justices, the Court decided that affirmative action in college admissions was constitutional, but that racial quotas like those used by the University of California at the time, were not.