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| 1803 - The case arose out of Jefferson’s refusal to deliver the commissions to the judges appointed by Adams’ Midnight Appointments. One of the appointees, Marbury, sued the Sect. of State, Madison, to obtain his commission. The Supreme Court held that Madison need not deliver the commissions because the Congressional act that had created the new judgships violated the judiciary provisions of the Constitution, and was therefore unconstitutional and void. This case established the Supreme Court's right to judicial review. Chief Justice John Marshall presided. |
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| 1810 - A state had tried to revoke a land grant on the grounds that it had been obtained by corruption. The Court ruled that a state cannot arbitrarily interfere with a person’s property rights. Since the land grant wass a legal contract, it could not be repealed, even if corruption was involved. |
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| 1816 - This case upheld the right of the Supreme Court to review the decisions of state courts. |
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| Darmouth College v. Woodward |
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| 1819 - This decision declared private corporation charters to be contracts and immune form impairment by states' legislative action. It freed corporations from the states which created them. |
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| 1819 - This decision upheld the power of Congress to charter a bank as a government agency, and denied the state the power to tax that agency. |
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| 1821 - This case upheld the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to review a state court's decision where the case involved breaking federal laws |
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1824 - This case ruled that only the federal government has authority over interstate commerce. |
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| Cherokee Nation v. Georgia |
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| 1831 - Supreme Court refused to hear a suit filed by the Cherokee Nation against a Georgia law abolishing tribal legislature. Court said Indians were not foreign nations, and U.S. had broad powers over tribes but a responsibility for their welfare. |
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1832 - Expanded tribal authority by declaring tribes sovereign entities, like states, with exclusive authority within their own boundaries. President Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. |
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| 1842 - A slave had escaped from Maryland to Pennsylvania, where a federal agent captured him and returned him to his owner. Pennsylvania indicted the agent for kidnapping under the fugitive slave laws. The Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for bounty hunters or anyone but the owner of an escaped slave to apprehend that slave, thus weakening the fugitive slave laws. |
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| A Missouri slave sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen. |
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| 1859 - Sherman Booth was sentenced to prison in a federal court for assisting in a fugitive slave's rescue in Milwaukee. He was released by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the grounds that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court overturned this ruling. It upheld both the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act and the supremacy of federal government over state government. |
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| Mississippi wanted the president to stop enforcing the Reconstruction Acts because they were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided that the Acts were constitutional and the states must obey them. |
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1961
Ms. Mapp was affirmed convicted having pornography "on her person" even though Ohio police obtained the material without a warrant. The Supreme Court ruled that there must be a warrant to search. |
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1963
Court decided that state and local courts must provide counsel for defendants in felony cases at the state's expense in any serious felony prosecution. Before, counsel was only appointed if the death penalty was involved. |
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1964
Court ruled that there was a right to counsel at the police station. This was needed to deter forced confessions given without the benefit of counsel. |
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1966
Court declared that police officers must inform persons they arrest of their rights: the right to remain silent and the right to counsel during interrogation. |
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1962
Local and state laws requiring prayer in public schools were banned on the grounds that such laws violated the First Amendment. |
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| School District of Abington Township v. Schempp |
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1963
Held that it should not be necessary to require prayer be said in school. School district was said to be violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments. |
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1962
Declared that the principle of "one person, one vote" must prevail at both state and national levels. Decision required that districts be redrawn as that each representative represented the same number of people. |
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1964
Supreme Court required states to draw their congressional districts so that each represented the same number of people. "As nearly as practical, one man's vote . . . is to be worth as much as another's". |
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1964
Supreme Court created the one person, one vote grounded in the Equal Protection Clause. |
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| Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S. |
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1964
Supreme Court said that there would be penalties for those who deprived others of equal enjoyment of places of accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. |
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| Swan v. Carlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education |
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1971
A unanimous decision that the busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation. |
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| Bakke v. Board of Regents, University of California at Davis |
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| Barred colleges from admitting students solely on the basis of race, but allowed them to include race along with other considerations when deciding which students to admit. |
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1971
Equal protection: the Supreme Court engaged in independent judicial review of a statute which discriminated between persons on the basis of sex, making it clear that the Supreme Court would no longer treat sex-based classifications with judicial deference. |
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1973
Supreme Court found that physicians consulted by pregnant women had standing to contest the constitutionality of the state's abortion law |
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1973
Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional most state statutes restricting abortion. It ruled that a state may not prevent a woman from having an abortion during the first 3 months of pregnancy, and could regulate, but not prohibit abortion during the second trimester. Decision in effect overturned anti-abortion laws in 46 states. |
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1980
Ruled that a man-made life form (genetic engineering) could be patented. |
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