Supreme Court

In 2022, the Supreme Court addressed whether Congress's exclusion of Puerto Rico residents from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program violated the Fifth Amendment. In an 8-1 decision in United States v. Vaello Madero, the Court held that it did not. The majority opinion reasoned that…

Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle was a U.S. Supreme Court case that addressed whether Puerto Rico and the federal government are separate sovereigns under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The case arose after two individuals were prosecuted by federal and Puerto Rican authorities for…

Torres v. Puerto Rico was a U.S. Supreme Court case that established that the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures apply to Puerto Rico. The case arose when Terry Torres was subjected to a warrantless and suspicionless search of his luggage at a Puerto…

Puerto Rico v. Shell Co. was a key U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the application of federal antitrust law to Puerto Rico. The case arose when Puerto Rico charged Shell Co. with violating its local antitrust law. Shell argued that the federal Sherman Act preempted Puerto Rico’s law,…

The 1901 Supreme Court case DeLima v. Bidwell marked the first of the Insular Cases. The dispute originated when the DeLima Sugar Importing Company contested the import taxes on sugar shipped from Puerto Rico to New York. The company argued that since Puerto Rico was transferred to U.S. control in…

The case of Downes v. Bidwell began in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York. Merchant Samuel Downes contested the constitutionality of tariffs levied on goods from Puerto Rico under the Foraker Act. He claimed these duties violated the Constitution’s Uniformity Clause. The…

Balzac v. Porto Rico was a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial does not apply in unincorporated U.S. territories. Jesús M. Balzac, a newspaper editor, was convicted of criminal libel and denied a jury trial under local law despite being a U.S. citizen…

Botiller v. Dominguez was a U.S. Supreme Court case that addressed the validity of Spanish and Mexican land grants in California following the Mexican-American War. Dominga Dominguez sued to recover Rancho Las Virgenes, based on an 1834 Mexican land grant. However, the grant had never been…

In the court case Arizona v. United States, the issue of state authority in immigration enforcement was addressed. The case scrutinized Arizona's S.B. 1070, a state law that introduced controversial provisions. These measures included criminalizing undocumented immigrants for failing to carry…

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca clarified the burden of proof for asylum applicants under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The Supreme Court held that to qualify for asylum under § 208(a) of the INA, an alien need only demonstrate a well‑founded fear of…

In Plyler v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Texas statutes and school‐district policies denying free public education to children not legally admitted into the United States violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court applied a rational‐basis standard and…

United States v. Brignoni-Ponce was a landmark Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously held that Border Patrol agents cannot stop a vehicle near the U.S.-Mexico border based solely on the occupants’ apparent Mexican ancestry. They argued that doing so violates the Fourth Amendment’s…

In a 5–4 vote, the Court held that the Constitution does not confer a fundamental right to education. They determined that a state system funding public schools primarily through local property taxes does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This remains true even if…

In Miranda v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court held that statements obtained during a police interrogation are inadmissible at trial unless the suspect first receives procedural warnings. This became known as the “Miranda warnings.” The Court based its ruling on the Fifth Amendment’s protection…

In the case of Katzenbach v. Morgan, the Supreme Court significantly affirmed Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling established Congress's authority to expand individual rights beyond judicial recognition. Specifically, the Court upheld Section 4(e) of…

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Hernandez v. Texas held that Mexican Americans and other nationality groups are entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. It struck down the systematic exclusion of them from jury service. The ruling marked the first time the Court…

March 9, 1937: Responding to criticism about his proposal to restructure the Supreme Court, Roosevelt criticizes conservative judges who blocked important New Deal programs and advocates a restructuring of the judiciary. Ultimately, the President's plan deteriorates, but, nonetheless,…

In 1935-36, the Supreme Court struck down eight of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, including the National Recovery Act (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). By 1937 the Court was widely regarded by the public as an enemy of working people.

Many…

The series of anti-federalist writing which most nearly paralleled and confronted The Federalist was a series of sixteen essays published in the New York Journal from October, 1787, through April, 1788, during the same period The Federalist was appearing in New York newspapers, under the pseudonym…

United States v. Paradise (1987) was a landmark Supreme Court case that addressed the issue of racial discrimination in employment practices, specifically in relation to affirmative action policies. The case involved the Alabama Department of Public Safety, which had a history of discriminatory…

Loving v. Virginia (1967) was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case arose when Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in Washington, D.C., in 1958 but were later arrested in their home state of…

One of the most important cases in United States history ended the legalization of segregated learning which resulted in the overruling of "separate but equal" from the 'Plessy v. Ferguson' case of 1896. This case ensured that state-sanctioned segregation in public schools…

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation under the doctrine of "separate but equal." The case originated in Louisiana, where state law required separate railway cars for Black and white passengers. Homer Plessy, a man of mixed racial…

This landmark Supreme Court ruling decided that Ohio's school voucher program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, allowing states to give parents tuition vouchers to allow their children to attend public or private schools as long as they do not promote religious…

This landmark Supreme Court case decided that that is unconstitutional for state officials to encourage prayer in public schools due to violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. The Court stated that the reading of a denominational prayer at the start of a school day violates the…

This landmark Supreme Court decision overturned the Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922, which required that all parents and guardians send their children to public school with few exceptions. The Supreme Court decided that the Act violated the liberty of parents to decide the education of…

This case arose from a challenge to Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, which mandated segregated railway cars for Black and white passengers. Homer Plessy, who was of mixed race but legally classified as Black under Louisiana law, deliberately sat in a whites-only railcar to test the law’s…

Ernesto Miranda was arrested after an alleged assault. When questioned, the police failed to inform him of his 5th and 6th Amendment rights. He confessed to the crime, however, his attorney later argued that his confession should not have been used at his trial.

In 1846 Dred Scott sued for his and his wife's freedom; it became an 11-year battle that was one of the factors for the Civil War. The Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States, thus not receiving protection from federal and local government.

Due to pressure from Southern politicians, the 1793 fugitive slave act was revisited and reintroduced in 1850 with harsher penalties for helpers who harbored and more imposed laws on the enslaved. A group of bills was proposed to help quiet the rise of southern succession.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 required enslaved people who escaped the North to be brought back to their masters if recaptured. it annulled the thirteenth amendment's abolition of slavery and gave local and state laws the authority to do so; in doing so, it also declared it unconstitutional…

The 1961 landmark Supreme Court case, Mapp v. Ohio, established that the exclusionary rule applies to state courts, meaning that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures) cannot be used in state prosecutions. This decision…

In the landmark 1963 Gideon v. Wainwright case, the Supreme Court confirmed the right of criminal defendants to have an attorney appointed to them, even if they could not afford one. The ruling applied to both state and federal courts.

Clarence Earl Gideon was charged in Florida…

In Topeka, Kansas, in the 1950s, schools were segregated by race. Each day, Linda Brown and her sister had to walk through a dangerous railroad switchyard to get to the bus stop for the ride to their all-Black elementary school. There was a school closer to the Brown’s house, but it was only for…

A group of commercial fishermen who regularly participate in the Atlantic herring fishery sued the National Marine Fisheries Service after the Service promulgated a rule that required industry to fund at-sea monitoring programs at an estimated cost of $710 per day. The fisherman argued that the…

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Did the President, as he claimed, lose a battle but win a war in his attempt to pack the Supreme Court? Historical perspective suggests another answer</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Was it, as Navy Secretary Welles believed, “a conspiracy to overthrow the government”?</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> GIBBONS v. OGDEN</span> </p>

<p>President Washington appointed John Jay to be Chief Justice because the eloquent partisan of the Constitution shared a desire to strengthen the machinery of the central government and to bring about conformity to treaty obligations among the states.</p>

<p><span class="deck">When one weary woman refused to be harassed out of her seat in the bus, the whole shaky edifice of Jim Crow began to totter</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> …<span class="typestyle"> and grew, and grew, and grew</span> … </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Behind-the-scenes records reveal how the Supreme Court reached its fateful desegregation decisions</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> In forty years of scraping and scrapping for women’s rights, Abigail Scott Duniway never lost her nerve or wicked tongue</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> He was promising at 25, prominent at 45, esteemed at 65, venerated at 85</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Nobody was murdered or maimed, but nobody backed down for twenty years in the struggle over school integration in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Who finally won?</span> </span></p>