A few landmark Supreme Court decisions in the USA

What the title of a Supreme Court ruling (= decision) looks like :

Roe vs Wade
name of the respondent
name of the petitioner
or appealing party

It is usually followed by : 1. the number of the volume in which it was published (US Reports,
an equivalent of our Bulletin Officiel du gouvernement français)
2. and the date of adoption

hence : Roe vs (or v.) Wade 410 US 113 (1973)

1. Power and the balance of powers

➢ Marbury vs Madison (1803) : established the Supreme Court's power of judicial review
over Congress.
➢ McCulloch vs Maryland (1819) : established the federal government's implied powers over
the states, in particular as regards the creation of a national bank.
➢ Gibbons vs Ogden (1824) : determined that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution
grants the federal government the power to determine how interstate commerce is
conducted.
➢ United States v. Nixon (1974) : President cannot use executive privilege to withhold
evidence from criminal trial.

2. Individual rights

Race
➢ Plessy vs Ferguson (1896) : segregated facilities for blacks and whites are constitutional
under the doctrine of separate but equal.
➢ Brown vs Board of Education (1954) : this ruling overturned Plessy vs Ferguson.
Segregated schools in the states are unconstitutional because they violate the Equal
Protection Clause1 of the 14th Amendment, which covers any racial, national and ethnic
groups of the USA.
➢ Loving vs Virginia (State of Virginia) (1967) : laws that prohibit interracial marriage are
unconstitutional.

Discrimination based on sex

➢ United States vs Virginia (1996) : sex-based « separate but equal » military training
facilities violate the Equal Protection Clause.
➢ United States v. Windsor (2013) : federal government must provide benefits to legally
married same-sex couples.
➢ Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) : same-sex marriage is legalized across all 50 states.

1 The Equal Protection Clause is the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibits
any state from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Birth control and abortion
➢ Roe vs Wade (1973) : the Court ruled that a right to privacy under the 14th amendment
extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, but that this right must be balanced
against the state’s legitimate interest in protecting women’s health, and protecting the
potentiality of human life.

3. Criminal law

Arrest
➢ Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) : Criminal defendants have a right to an attorney even if they
cannot afford one.
➢ Miranda vs Arizona (1966) : police must advise criminal suspects of their rights under the
Constitution to remain silent, to consult with a lawyer. A police interrogation must stop if the
suspect states that he or she wishes to remain silent.

Terrorism
➢ Boumediene vs Bush (President G. W. Bush) (2008) : foreign terrorism suspects held at
Guantanamo Bay2 have the constitutional right to challenge their detention in US courts (i.e.
to take the US to court).

Death Penalty
➢ Furman v. Georgia (1972) : the arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty
violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment. This decision initiated a de facto moratorium on executions for four years.
➢ Coker vs Georgia (1977) : a death sentence may not be imposed for the crime of rape.
➢ Ford vs Wainwright (1986) : a death sentence may not be imposed on the insane.
➢ Roper vs Simmons (2005) : a death sentence may not be imposed on juvenile delinquents.
➢ Kennedy vs Louisiana (2008) : the death penalty is unconstitutional in all cases that do not
involve murder or crimes against the state such as treason.

4. First Amendment

Freedom of speech or of the press

➢ Near vs Minnesota (1931) : the case stopped journalists from being censored, and enabled
the press to fulfill its role as watchdog, including the printing of the Pentagon Papers in
1971.
➢ McCutcheon vs Federal Election Commission (2014) : putting limits on the total amount
of money that individuals can donate to political campaigns violates the First Amendment.
➢ Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 2010 Corporations and unions can spend
unlimited amounts in elections.

Religion
➢ Engel vs Vitale (1962) : government-directed prayer in public schools, even if it is
undenominational and non-mandatory, violates the Establishment Clause.

2 Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a US military prison located in a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba. The
camp was established under the presidency of George W. Bush in 2002 during the War on Terror following the 9/11
attacks. His successor, Barack Obama, promised that he would close it but strong bi-partisan opposition at Congress
stopped him from doing so. The operations of the camp have been repeatedly considered major breaches of human
rights since indefinite detention without trial and torture have taken place there.
 ➢ Edwards vs Aguillard (1987) : teaching creationism3 in public schools is unconstitutional.

5. Second Amendment

➢ District of Columbia vs Heller (2008) : the Second Amendment protects an individual right
to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use for traditionally lawful
purposes such as self-defence within the home.

6. Natives

➢ Williams vs Lee (1959) : state courts do not have jurisdiction on Indian reservations without
the authorization of Congress.
➢

3 Creationism is the belief that the universe and the various forms of life were created by God out of nothing (ex
nihilo). It is a response primarily to modern evolutionary theory, which explains the diversity of life without
recourse to the doctrine of God or any other divine power.