Term
| Cases get to the Supreme Court by which ways? |
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Definition
| request for review under the Court’s original jurisdiction or by three of the appellate routes; appeals, certification, and petitions for writs of certiori. |
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Term
| Do original jurisdiction cases account for many supreme court cases? |
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Definition
| No, about 1 in 5 cases per terms are jurisdiction cases. |
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Term
| What kind of cases is the Supreme Court obliged to hear? |
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Definition
Those from special three judge district courts. |
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Term
| What is the most common way that cases arrive at the Surpeme Court? |
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Definition
| Request for "writ of certiori" |
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Term
| How many writs of certioris (certs) does the court grant? |
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Definition
| Of approx. 8,000 cases, 1% are granted writs. |
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Term
| What type of original jurisdiction cases does the supreme court normally hear? |
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Definition
| States suing other states (usually over a disputed boundary) |
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Term
| What did the Cantwell v. Connecticut ruling accomplish? |
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Definition
| It was a decision holding that incorporated (enforced) the First Amendment's protection of religious free exercise against individual states (as opposed to federal actions). |
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Term
| When was the Cantwell cased ruled on? |
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Definition
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Term
| What were the facts of the case? |
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Definition
| Newton Cantwell (a Jehovah's Witness) and his two sons were arrested in New Haven, CT in 1938 for, among other things: (1) violation of a Connecticut statute requiring solicitors to obtain a certificate from the secretary of the public welfare council ("Secretary") before soliciting funds from the public, and (2) breach of the peace. |
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Term
| What did they do to get themselves arrested? |
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Definition
| They were proselytizing in a heavily-Roman Catholic neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. The Cantwells were going door to door, with books and pamphlets and a portable phonograph with sets of records. Each record contained a description of one of the books. One such book was "Enemies", which was an attack on organized religion in general and especially the Roman Catholic Church. |
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Term
| What statute did Connecticut cite the Cantwells of being in violation of? |
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Definition
| A Connecticut statute required licenses for those soliciting for religious or charitable purposes. The statute was an early type of consumer protection law: it required the Secretary, before issuing a certificate permitting solicitation, to determine whether the cause was. |
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Term
| What did the Cantwell's claim regarding the statute? |
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Definition
| They maintained the statute denied them their due process rights under the 14th Amendment, and it also denied them their freedom of speech and religious expression |
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Term
| What is the significance of the Cantwell case? |
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Definition
| Before the Cantwell decision, it was not legally clear that the First Amendment protected religious practitioners against restrictions at the state and local levels as well as federal. But the Supreme Court in Cantwell said it did, thereby ushering in an era of greatly strengthened religious freedom. |
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Term
| What was incorporated as a result of the Cantwell case? |
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Definition
| This case incorporated (enforced) the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause against the states, thereby protecting free exercise of religion from intrusive state action. |
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Term
| What case incorporated the Establishment Clause? |
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Definition
Everson v. Board of Education (1947) |
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Term
| What year is Sherbert v. Verner? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was the background of the case? |
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Definition
| Adell Sherbert, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, worked as a textile-mill operator. Two years after her conversion to that faith, her employer switched from a five-day to a six-day workweek, including Saturdays. Since according to her belief, God in Exodus 20:8-11 forbade working on Saturdays (seventh day is the Sabbath), she refused to work that day and was fired. Sherbert could not find any other work and applied for unemployment compensation. Her claim was denied and the Employment Security Commission's decision was affirmed by a state trial court and the South Carolina Supreme Court. |
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Term
| What was the ruling of the supreme court? |
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Definition
| The Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision reversed the Commission and the lower courts, finding that denying Sherbert's claim was an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise of her religion. The majority opinion effectively created the Sherbert Test, determining whether government action runs afoul of the Free Exercise Clause. |
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Term
| What are the 4 criteria of the Sherbert test? |
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Definition
*For the individual, the court must determine -whether the person has a claim involving a sincere religious belief, and -whether the government action is a substantial burden on the person’s ability to act on that belief. *If these two elements are established, then the government must prove -that it is acting in furtherance of a "compelling state interest," and -that it has pursued that interest in the manner least restrictive, or least burdensome, to religion. |
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Term
| What case limited the Sherbert ruling, what did this case hold? |
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Definition
| The Supreme Court sharply curtailed the Sherbert Test in the 1980s, culminating in the 1990 landmark case Employment Division v. Smith. In Smith, the court held that free exercise exemptions were not permitted from generally applicable laws. In response to the Smith decision, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to reinstate the Sherbert Test. |
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Term
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Definition
| the court struck down RFRA as applied to Constitutional interpretation. |
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Term
Despite the Court's misgivings about RFRA are there recent cases that upheld aspects of RFRA? |
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Definition
| In City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), the court found that RFRA, as applied to the Free Exercise Clause, impermissibly interfered with the judiciary's sole power to interpret the Constitution. However, this ruling didn't necessarily limit RFRA's effect on interpretation of federal statutes. In fact, the court upheld RFRA as applied to other federal statutes in Gonzales v. UDV, 546 U.S. 418 (2006). In UDV, the court applied the statutory Sherbert Test created by RFRA and found that the action in question—use of a Schedule I drug in a religious ritual—was protected under the First Amendment. |
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Term
| What does RFRA stand for? |
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Definition
| Religious Freedom Restoration Act |
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Term
| What was the final holding of the court in Sherbert v. Verner (1963)? |
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Definition
| The Free Exercise Clause mandates strict scrutiny for unemployment compensation claims. |
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Term
| What year was Wisconsin v. Yoder? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was the background on the case? |
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Definition
| Three Amish students from three different families stopped attending New Glarus High School in the New Glarus, Wisconsin school district at the end of the eighth grade, all due to their religious beliefs. The three families were represented by Jonas Yoder (one of the fathers involved in the case) when the case went to trial. They were convicted in the Green County Court, and that ruling was upheld in the appeals court. Each defendant was fined the sum of 5 dollars. Thereafter the Wisconsin Supreme Court found in Yoder's favor. At this point Wisconsin appealed that ruling in the U. S. Supreme Court. |
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Term
| What was the Supreme Court's decision in the Yoder case? |
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Definition
| "the evidence showed that the Amish provide continuing informal vocational education to their children designed to prepare them for life in the rural Amish community. The evidence also showed that respondents sincerely believed that high school attendance was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life and that they would endanger their own salvation and that of their children by complying with the law." |
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Term
| What was the Supreme Court's official holding in the case? |
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Definition
| The Wisconsin Compulsory School Attendance Law violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because required attendance past the eighth grade interfered with the right of Amish parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. Supreme Court of Wisconsin affirmed. |
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Term
| What was the legacy of the Yoder case decision? |
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Definition
| "Since Wisconsin v. Yoder, all states must grant the Old Order Amish the right to establish their own schools (should they choose) or to withdraw from public institutions after completing eighth grade. In some communities Amish parents have continued to send their children to public elementary schools even after Wisconsin v. Yoder. |
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Term
| What year was Braunfield v. Brown? |
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Definition
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Term
| What is the background of the Braunfield v. Brown case? |
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Definition
| Abraham Braunfeld and the other appellants were Pennsylvania merchants. As Orthodox Jews, the appellants were unable to do business on Friday evening or Saturday. They objected to a Pennsylvania law forbidding them from doing business on Sunday, arguing that the law unfairly discriminated against them by effectively forcing them to remain closed for one more day than competing Christian merchants. |
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Term
| What are two prior history cases that are important in the Braunfield v. Brown case? |
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Definition
Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc., v. McGinley and McGowan v. Maryland *both cases were decided in 1961 |
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Term
What was found in the Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc., v. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582 (1961) regarding the Pennsylvania statute? (prior history case for Braunfield v. Brown) |
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Definition
| In Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc., v. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582 (1961), the Court had previously ruled that the same Pennsylvania statute was not unconstitutional, either as (i) a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution or (ii) an impermissible establishment of religion under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Therefore, the only remaining issue in Braunfeld was whether the Pennsylvania statute was an unconstitutional interference in the plaintiff's religion. |
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Term
What was found in the McGowan v. Maryland (1961) regarding the Pennsylvania statute? (prior history case for Braunfield v. Brown) |
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Definition
| the Court had previously held that a similar (to Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown) Maryland statute was constitutional. |
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Term
| What was the Supreme Court's official holding on the Braunfield case? |
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Definition
| Where the "purpose or effect of a law is to impede the observance of one or all religions or is to discriminate invidiously between religions, that law is constitutionally invalid even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect." However, where "the State regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the State's secular goals, the statute is valid despite its indirect burden on religious observance unless the State may accomplish its purpose by means which do not impose such a burden." In this specific case, a law requiring all merchants to close on Sunday was not unconstitutional, despite indirect burdens on some Orthodox Jewish merchants. |
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Term
| What year was the Employment Division v. Smith case? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was determined in Employment Division v. Smith case? |
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Definition
| The US Supreme Court determined that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote, even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual. Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts done in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so. |
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Term
| What was the background of the employent division v. smith case? |
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Definition
| Alfred Smith (an American Indian) and Galen Black (a white man) were members of the Native American Church and employees at a drug rehabilitation clinic who were fired because they had ingested peyote, a powerful hallucinogen, as part of their religious ceremonies as members of the Native American Church. Subsequently they filed for unemployment compensation but their claim was denied.The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, holding that denying them unemployment benefits for their religious use of peyote violated their right to exercise their religion. The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, again arguing that denying the unemployment benefits was proper because using peyote was a crime. |
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Term
| What was the US Supreme Court's reasoning in the Employment Division v. Smith case? |
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Definition
| The U.S. Supreme Court reasoned that if the state could punish the possession of peyote as a crime without infringing a person's right to exercise his religion, it could also withhold unemployment benefits from those who possess peyote without violating the right to exercise religion. |
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Term
| What was the official US Supreme Court holding on this case? |
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Definition
| "The Free Exercise Clause permits the State to prohibit sacramental peyote use and thus to deny unemployment benefits to persons discharged for such use." Neutral laws of general applicability do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. |
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Term
| What year was City of Boerne v. Flores decided? |
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Definition
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Term
| What did the City of Boerne v. Flores case concern? |
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Definition
| It concerned the scope of Congress's enforcement power under the fifth section of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case also had a significant impact on historic preservation. |
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Term
| How did the City of Boerne v. Flores case arise? |
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Definition
| The case arose when the Catholic Archbishop of San Antonio, Patrick Flores, applied for a building permit to enlarge his 1923 mission-style St. Peter's Church in Boerne, Texas. Local zoning authorities denied the permit, relying on an ordinance governing additions and new construction in a historic district which included the church as a contributing property. The Archbishop brought a lawsuit challenging the permit denial under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA, pronounced "rifra"). Archbishop Flores argued that his congregation had outgrown the existing structure. He claimed his ability to act on his beliefs were substantially burdened by the denial of his proposed addition. |
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Term
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Definition
Congress had enacted RFRA in direct response to the Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division v. Smith. Religious groups became concerned that this case would be cited as precedent, causing further regulation of common religious practices, and lobbied Congress for legislative protection. |
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Term
| What was the course by which the Boerne v. Flores case arrived at the US Supreme Court? |
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Definition
| The City of Boerne was successful at the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas; the judge struck down the RFRA as unconstitutional. Flores appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which found the RFRA constitutional and reversed the District Court's decision. Boerne filed a certiorari petition to the Supreme Court.The National Trust for Historic Preservation, among other preservation organizations, filed briefs in support of Boerne. |
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Term
| What was the ruling by the US Supreme Court in the City of Boerne v. Flores case? |
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Definition
| The Court, in an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, struck down RFRA as an unconstitutional use of Congress's enforcement powers. Because it was the Court that had the sole power of defining the substantive rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment—a definition to which Congress could not add and from which it could not subtract—and because RFRA was not legislation designed to have "congruence and proportionality" with the substantive rights that the Court had defined, Congress could not constitutionally enact RFRA. |
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Term
| What was the official holding of the US Supreme Court in the City of Boerne v. Flores case? |
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Definition
| Enactment of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 exceeded congressional power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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Term
| What are three important implications of the City of Boerne v. Flores case? |
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Definition
| One of them is that it introduced a completely new test for deciding whether Congress had exceeded its section-five powers: the "congruence and proportionality" test, a test that has proven to have great importance in the context of the Eleventh Amendment. Another reason was that it explicitly declared that the Court alone has the ability to state which rights are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet another was that it had First Amendment consequences too, in that it spelled the end for any legislative attempts to overturn Employment Division v. Smith. |
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Term
| What did the "congruence and proportionality" test that came out of the Boerne v. Florence case replace? |
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Definition
| The "congruence and proportionality" requirement replaced the previous theory advanced in Katzenbach v. Morgan (1966) that the Equal Protection Clause is "a positive grant of legislative power authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in determining the need for and nature of legislation to secure Fourteenth Amendment guarantees." Before the 1997 Boerne decision, Katzenbach v. Morgan was often interpreted as allowing Congress to go beyond, but not fall short of, the Court's interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause. |
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Term
| What is Katzenbach v. Morgan a prime example of? |
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Definition
| Judicial deference to Congressional authority |
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Term
What year was Lemon v. Kurtzman
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Definition
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Term
What was the ruling of the US Supreme Court in the Lemon case?
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Definition
| They ruled that Pennsylvania's 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools (most of which were Catholic) for teachers' salaries, textbooks and instructional materials, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The decision also upheld a decision of the First Circuit, which had struck down the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act providing state funds to supplement salaries at nonpublic elementary schools by 15%. As in Pennsylvania, most of these funds were spent on Catholic schools. |
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Term
What are the three prongs of the Lemon test?
1. The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion. |
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Definition
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Term
What is deemed if one of the three prongs is violated?
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Definition
| If any of these 3 prongs of the Lemon test are violated, the government's action is deemed unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. |
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Term
| What were some of the facts of the Lemon case, in terms of how many kids were in private-religious schools and what teachers were to receive benefits had the act not been deemed unconstitutional? |
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Definition
| 25% of the State's elementary students attended nonpublic schools, about 95% of those attended Roman Catholic schools, and the sole beneficiaries under the act were 250 teachers at Roman Catholic schools. |
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court’s official holding in the Lemon case (think of the Lemon test)?
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Definition
| For a law to be considered constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the law must have a legitimate secular purpose, must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and must not result in an excessive entanglement of government and religion. |
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Term
What year was the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case decided?
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Definition
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Term
| What did Zelman v. Simmons-Harris test? |
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Definition
It tested the allowance of school vouchers in relation to the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
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Term
What Ohio program was in question in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case?
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Definition
| The public schools in many of the poorer parts of Cleveland were deemed failures and the legislature enacted the Pilot Project Scholarship Program in an effort to address the problem. The program provided tuition vouchers for up to $2,250 a year to some parents of students in the Cleveland City School District to attend participating public or private schools in the city and neighboring suburbs. |
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Term
What percent of the schools participating in the Ohio Pilot Project Scholarship Program were religiously affiliated? What percent of voucher recipients went to religiously affiliated schools?
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Definition
| 82 percent of the participating private schools had a religious affiliation; none of the adjacent suburban public schools joined the program; and 96 percent of the students receiving vouchers were enrolled in religiously affiliated schools. |
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Term
What test came out of the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case?
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Definition
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Term
| What are the principles of the Private Choice Test (2002)? |
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Definition
1. the program must have a valid secular purpose,
2. aid must go to parents and not to the schools,
3. a broad class of beneficiaries must be covered,
4. the program must be neutral with respect to religion, and
5. there must be adequate nonreligious options.
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Term
| What year was Agostini v. Felton case decided? |
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Definition
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court’s holding in the Agostini v. Felton case?
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Definition
| Reverses Aguilar v. Felton (1985) in allowing public school teachers to instruct at religious schools, so long as the material was secular and neutral in nature and no "excessive entanglement" between government and religion was apparent. |
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Term
| What were the first piece of the petitioners argument in the Agostini v. Felton case? |
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Definition
| The tremendous costs involved with running their Title I program in accordance with Aguilar constituted a substantial change of fact. They argued that, because these costs were not expected to be so high at the start, it was now imprudent to force them to continue in this fashion. The respondents countered by saying that the costs of implementing the program were, in fact, known when Aguilar was decided, which would mean that no change in circumstances had occurred. |
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Term
| What were the second piece of the petitioners argument in the Agostini v. Felton case? |
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Definition
| Prevailing agreement in the judiciary had turned against Aguilar, with a majority of Justices having expressed their opinion that Aguilar should be reversed or, at least, reconsidered. |
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Term
| What were the third pieces of the petitioners argument in the Agostini v. Felton case? |
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Definition
| Subsequent Establishment Clause rulings by the Supreme Court had undermined the legal basis upon which Aguilar was decided. The argument was that, if the case's decision had been so considerably weakened over the years, it was no longer good law and should be reversed. |
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Term
| What year was Edwards v. Aguillard decided? In what state did the case originate? What was in question in the case? |
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Definition
1987. Louisiana. Intelligent Design
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court’s holding in Edwards v. Aguillard?
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Definition
| Teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional because it attempts to advance a particular religion. |
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Term
Who came to support Aguillard?
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Definition
In support of Aguillard, 72 Nobel prize-winning scientists, 17 state academies of science, and 7 other scientific organizations filed amicus briefs which described creation science as being composed of religious tenets.
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Term
What were the implications of the Edwards v. Aguillard case?
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Definition
| It only affected state schools, with independent schools, home schools, Sunday schools and Christian schools free to still teach creationism. These schools went on to teach “intelligent creation design,” a teaching that was found to be unconstitutional establishment as a result of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. |
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Term
What year was Abdington School District v. Schempp decided?
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Definition
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Term
| What was the US Supreme Court holding in Abdington School District v. Schempp? |
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Definition
The Court decided 8-1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, and declared sanctioned organized Bible reading in public schools in the United States to be unconstitutional.
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Term
What did Schempp (Abdington School District v. Schempp) declare was unconstitutional about reading the bible in school?
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Definition
Schempp specifically contended that the statute violated his and his family's rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
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Term
| What was an important precedent for Abdington School District v. Schempp? |
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Definition
The Court explicitly upheld Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court ruled that the sanctioning of a prayer by the school amounted to a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".
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Term
What had happened in the 2 decades leading up to the Schempp case in terms of the Bill of Rights?
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Definition
| Over the previous two decades, the Supreme Court, by incorporating specific rights into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, had steadily increased the extent to which rights contained in United States Bill of Rights were applied against the states. |
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Term
What precedents specifically were in important Abdington School District v. Schempp case?
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Definition
The precedents in Cantwell v. Connecticut (310 U.S. 296 (1940)), Everson v. Board of Education (330 U.S. 1 (1947)), and McCollum v. Board of Education (333 U.S. 203 (1948)).
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Term
What subsequent cases did the Abdington School District v. Schempp affect?
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Definition
Board of Education v. Allen and Lemon v. Kurtzman in the decades that followed. The three part Lemon test had its basis in the jurisprudence of Abington v. Schempp. Under the test, a given church-state law is subjected to three criteria: sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the government in religious activity. Failure in any one of those realms allow the measure to be declared unconstitutional.
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Term
What year was Lee v. Weisman decided?
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Definition
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court Holding in Lee v. Weisman?
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Definition
| Including a clergy-led prayer within the events of a public high school graduation violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. |
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Term
| What was the background in the Lee v. Weisman case? |
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Definition
When the principal of Nathan Bishop Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, Robert E. Lee, invited a Jewish rabbi to deliver a prayer at the 1989 graduation ceremony of Deborah Weisman, her parents requested a temporary restraining order seeking to bar the rabbi from speaking.
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Term
What year was VanOrden v. Perry decided?
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Definition
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court ruling in VanOrden v. Perry?
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Definition
| A Ten Commandments monument erected on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol did not violate the Establishment Clause, because the monument, when considered in context, conveyed a historic and social meaning rather than an intrusive religious endorsement. |
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Term
| What was interesting about VanOrden v. Perry in terms of similar cases that were decided that day? |
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Definition
| The Supreme Court ruled on June 27, 2005, by a vote of 5 to 4, that the display was constitutional. No majority opinion emerged from the case. The similar case of McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky was handed down the same day with the opposite verdict (also with a 5 to 4 decision). The "swing vote" between these two cases was Justice Stephen Breyer. |
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Term
| What was in question in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris? |
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Definition
| Whether the Cleveland voucher program offend the Establishment Clause of the Constitution? |
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Term
| What year was VanOrden v. Perry decided? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was the US Supreme Court ruling in VanOrden v. Perry? |
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Definition
A Ten Commandments monument erected on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol did not violate the Establishment Clause, because the monument, when considered in context, conveyed a historic and social meaning rather than an intrusive religious endorsement.
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Term
What was interesting about VanOrden v. Perry in terms of similar cases that were decided that day?
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Definition
The Supreme Court ruled on June 27, 2005, by a vote of 5 to 4, that the display was constitutional. No majority opinion emerged from the case. The similar case of McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky was handed down the same day with the opposite verdict (also with a 5 to 4 decision). The "swing vote" between these two cases was Justice Stephen Breyer.
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Term
Schenck v. United States
In what year was Schenck v. United States decided? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was the US Supreme Court Holding in Schenck v. United States? |
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Definition
Defendant's criticism of the draft was not protected by the First Amendment, because it created a clear and present danger to the enlistment and recruiting practices of the U.S. armed forces during a state of war.
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Term
| What did Schenck’s pamphlets say? |
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Definition
"Do not submit to intimidation", "Assert your rights", "If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain."
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Term
| What did Justice Holmes say about Shenck’s speech? |
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Definition
| The First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging insubordination, since, "when a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right." In other words, the court held, the circumstances of wartime permit greater restrictions on free speech than would be allowable during peacetime. |
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Term
How did Justice Holmes present the “clear and present danger test?
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Definition
"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
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Term
| In subsequent jurisprudence (i.e. Whitney v. California) what test was used? |
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Definition
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Term
| What year was Abrams v. US decided? |
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Definition
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Term
What was involved in the Abrams v. US case?
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Definition
the 1918 Amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917, which made it a criminal offense to criticize the U.S. federal government.
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Term
| What was the US Supreme Court’s holding in Abrams v. US? |
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Definition
Defendants' criticism of U.S. involvement in World War I was not protected by the First Amendment, because they advocated a strike in munitions production and the violent overthrow of the government.
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Term
| What test was used in Abrams v. US? |
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Definition
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Term
| When was Abrams v. US overturned? |
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Definition
The case was overturned during the Vietnam War era in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).
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Term
| What year was Gitlow v. New York decided? |
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Definition
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Term
What was the official US Supreme Court Holding in Gitlow v. New York?
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Definition
Though the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from infringing free speech, the defendant was properly convicted under New York's criminal anarchy law for advocating the violent overthrow of the government, through the dissemination of Communist pamphlets.
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Term
What is of great historical importance in Gitlow v. New York?
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Definition
The Supreme Court previously held, in Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 (1833), that the Constitution's Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government, and that, consequently, the federal courts could not stop the enforcement of state laws that restricted the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Gitlow v. New York's partial reversal of that precedent began a trend towards nearly complete reversal; the Supreme Court now holds that almost every provision of the Bill of Rights applies to both the federal government and the states.
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Term
| When was Dennis v. United States decided? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was the holing of the US Supreme Court in Dennis . US? |
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Definition
Defendants' convictions for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government by force through their participation in the Communist Party were not in violation of the First Amendment. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
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Term
| Under which act was the defendant in Dennis v. US tried? |
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Definition
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Term
| What did the Smith Act criminalize? |
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Definition
Knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association.
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Term
| What year was this case decided? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was the holding of the US Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio? |
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Definition
Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute violated the First Amendment, as applied to the state through the Fourteenth, because it broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence rather than the constitutionally unprotected incitement to imminent lawless action.
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Term
What did the US Supreme court do for Brandenburg?
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Definition
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law violation.
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Term
What group was Bradenburg affiliated with?
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Definition
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Term
What test came out of Brandenburg v. Ohio?
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Definition
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Term
| What is notable about the composition of the case opinion? |
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Definition
It was a per curiam case.
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Term
| What year was US v. O’Brien decided? |
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Definition
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court’s holding in US v. O’Brien?
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Definition
A criminal prohibition against burning draft cards did not violate the First Amendment, because its effect on speech was only incidental, and it was justified by the significant government interest in maintaining an efficient and effective military draft system. First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded.
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Term
What did O’Brien do to get arrested?
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Definition
On the morning of March 31, 1966, David Paul O'Brien and three companions burned their draft cards on the steps of the South Boston Courthouse, in front of a crowd that happened to include several FBI agents.
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Term
In what year was Whitney v. California decided?
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Definition
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Term
What was the US Supreme Court’s holding in Whitney v. California?
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Definition
Defendant's conviction under California's criminal syndicalism statute for membership in the Communist Labor Party did not violate her free speech rights as protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, because states may constitutionally prohibit speech tending to incite to crime, disturb the public peace, or threaten the overthrow of government by unlawful means.
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Term
| What test was used to uphold the Conviction in Whitney v. California? |
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Definition
Clear and present danger, however, Justice Holmes brought the bad tendency test into play in this case.
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