Term
| McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) |
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Definition
• Court holds that: 1) Congress can charter a bank and 2) the states cannot tax that bank.
• “Necessary and proper” clause implies Congressional rights for implementing express powers and state action may not impede valid Const. exercises.
• If the ends are legitimate Congress may choose the means by which to achieve those ends. |
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Term
| U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (1995) |
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Definition
| • A state trying to impose term limits on its federal representatives is impermissibly trying to control an instrumentality of the federal government. |
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Term
| Debs v. United States (1919) |
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Definition
| • Upholds conviction of a leading opposition politician for antiwar speech under the “clear and present danger” justification. |
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Term
| Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) |
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Definition
| • Speech can only be suppressed “where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and likely to incite or produce such action.” |
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Term
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Definition
• Invokes “the great first principles of the social compact.”
• Court introduces natural law. |
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Term
| Marbury v. Madison (1803) |
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Definition
• Establishes judicial review.
• Constitution is supreme law, any non-supreme law that conflicts with it must declared invalid by the courts. |
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Term
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Definition
• A state cannot abrogate its own contracts, even if the contracts were the product of corruption.
• Relies on Commerce Clause but also “general principles which are common to our free institutions.” Future contracts can be regulated. |
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Term
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Definition
• NY can’t grant monopoly to steamboats to NJ. Power to regulate interstate commerce granted to Congress, and the definition of commerce includes navigation.
• Beginnings of the Dormant Commerce Clause. |
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Term
| Mayor of New York v. Miln (1837) |
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Definition
• Upholds statute that imposes heavy financial penalties on ships that land paupers in NY.
• Regulations of people don’t fall under the Commerce Clause because people aren’t commerce. |
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Term
| Crandall v. Nevada (1868) |
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Definition
| • Established that a state cannot inhibit people from leaving the state by taxing them. |
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Term
| Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc. (1970) |
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Definition
• Identifies the current law of the dormant commerce clause.
• State law burdens on interstate commerce are unconstitutional if they are clearly excessive in relation to local benefits. |
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Term
| Corfield v. Coryell (1823) |
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Definition
| • Individuals have the same fundamental rights of the citizens of any state they visit; |
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Term
| Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) |
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Definition
| • State law may not interfere with the operation of the fugitive slave clause of the Const. Reverses conviction under state law of slave-catcher who illegally kidnapped alleged fugitive slaves. |
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Term
| Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) |
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Definition
| • Blacks cannot be citizens. Slavery cannot be prohibited in the territories (deprivation of property); |
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Term
| Legal Tender Cases (1870-84) |
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Definition
• Affirmed constitutionality of paper money.
• Overruled Hepburn v. Griswold. |
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Term
| The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) |
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Definition
• Law granting slaughtering monopoly does not violate privileges and immunities of other butchers harmed by law.
• The Privileges and Immunities is removed as a basis for the application of the Bill of Rights to the states; |
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Term
| Bradwell v. Illinois (1873) |
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Definition
• Women do not have a constitutional right to attorneys.
• Privileges and immunities doesn’t help Bradwell (because they do not help anyone);
• Invalided on the basis of Slaughterhouse; |
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Term
| Strauder v. West Virginia (1880) |
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Definition
• Invalidates statute excluding blacks from jury service.
• Three formulations of invalidating class legislation:
o 1) classification on face of law,
o 2) motivation with which the law was passed,
o 3) law’s effects.
• Also creates a distinction between civil and political rights (although it remains unclear that this is); lays the groundwork for Plessy and The Black Codes; |
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Term
| The Civil Rights Cases (1883) |
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Definition
• Voids the Civil Rights Act which prohibited discrimination in public places (including those owned by private individuals);
• 14th Amend only prohibits state action;
• 13th only prohibits slavery (does not protect social rights);
• Private discrimination is not state action or slavery. Invalidates nondiscrimination provisions of Civil Rights Act of 1875. |
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Term
| Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) |
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Definition
| • Upholds statute requiring racially segregated railroad cars as reasonable exercise of police power. “Separate but equal” doctrine allows racial segregation of public facilities. |
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Term
| Lochner v. New York (1905) |
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Definition
• Invalidates a maximum hours law for bakers.
• Liberty of contract implicit in Due Process of 14th Amend.
• States cannot interfere with future contracts unless they have a compelling “police power” reason for doing so; |
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Term
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Definition
• Upholds act that prohibits interstate shipment of lottery tickets.
• Congress can prohibit carrying of noxious goods from one state to another;
o Even if it can’t have control of what happens inside a state, it can prohibit products from crossing state lines; effectively quarantine goods; |
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Term
| Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) |
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Definition
| • Invalidates a statute prohibiting the interstate shipment of the products of child labor. Congress cannot regulate manufacturing. |
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Term
| Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934) |
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Definition
| • Upholds a state law granting temporary relief from mortgage foreclosures. Court reasons that emergency conditions may justify interference with contracts. |
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Term
| Barron v. Baltimore (1833) |
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Definition
• Marshall held that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states.
• In the 20th century, the Court is increasingly persuaded that the Fourteenth Amendment changed this. |
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Term
| United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) |
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Definition
• Upholds statute prohibiting interstate shipment of milk substitute.
• Jackson’s Footnote 4 outlines the test for “strict scrutiny”:
o 1) Violates protected rights/provision of the Constitution
o 2) Restrict political process
o 3) Prejudice/Discriminate against discrete and insular minorities.
• First applied in Justice Black's opinion in Korematsu v. U.S. (1944). |
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Term
| Williamson v. Lee Optical Co. (1955) |
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Definition
• State laws regulating business subject to rational basis review.
• Court shows how extremely deferential it is to state law; |
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Term
| Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935) |
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Definition
• Strikes down National Industrial Recovery Act. because of insufficient effect on commerce (at the end of the commerce stream);
• Relies on direct/indirect distinction to hold that Act is not valid under commerce power. |
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Term
| Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (1936) |
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Definition
| • Invalidate Coal Conservation Act. Relies on manufacturing/commerce distinction and direct/indirect distinction to invalidate minimum coal prices, min wage, max hours, federal labor regulations. |
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Term
| United States v. Butler (1936) |
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Definition
• Invalidates Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.
• Congress cannot spend money for ends beyond its delegated powers; this seemed like a pretext for reaching intra-state activity; |
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Term
| NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937) |
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Definition
• The Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act and its application to steel industry;
• Congress has power, under Commerce Clause, to regulate labor relations.
• Upholds federal statute protecting workers’ right to organize a union.
• Substantially related test: if act substantially relates to interstate commerce → falls under the CC (magnitude not distance from interstate important);
o Abandons manufacturing/commerce distinction and direct/indirect distinction. |
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Term
| United States v. Darby (1941) |
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Definition
• Upholds federal minimum wage law.
• Congress has power to prohibit interstate shipment of goods produced by workers paid less than minimum.
• Hammer (child labor case) overruled. |
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Term
| Wickard v. Filburn (1942) |
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Definition
• Congress can regulate farmer’s personal production of wheat, even if wheat never leaves farm, because many others similarly situated cumulatively can have major impact on interstate commerce.
• Expands congressional power under Commerce Clause dramatically. |
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Term
| Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) |
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Definition
• Court held that U.S. Congress could use Commerce Clause to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
• Congress can regulate local incidents of interstate commerce. |
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Term
| Katzenbach v. McClung (1964) |
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Definition
• Regulates a barbeque that largely serves a local clientele.
• A rational basis for finding a connection with commerce is enough. |
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Term
| Katzenbach v. Morgan (1966) |
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Definition
• Upholds federal law enfranchising Spanish-speaking persons who had completed 6th grade in Puerto Rico.
• Brennan’s One way ratchet: Allows Congress acts pursuant to 14th Amendment Section 5 that increases the rights of citizens beyond that which the judiciary has recognized. |
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Term
| Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968) |
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Definition
• Upholds prohibition on private race discrimination in real estate.
• Section 2 of 13th Amend allows Congress to prohibit private acts of discrimination as among “badges and incidents of slavery” and define what those badges and incidents are. |
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Term
| United States v. Lopez (1995) |
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Definition
• Strikes down criminal statute prohibiting guns near schools as not “substantially relating” to commerce or economic activity.
• Declares three categories of commerce power. |
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Term
| United States v. Morrison (2000) |
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Definition
• Invalidates Violence Against Women Act.
• Indicates that Congress can regulate intrastate activity “only where that activity is economic in nature.” |
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Term
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Definition
• Upholds federal law criminalizing marijuana possession.
• Private possession may not be economic activity, but it’s part of a larger pattern of activity that Congress can legitimately regulate. |
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Term
| United States v. Comstock (2010) |
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Definition
• Upholds law authorizing civil commitment of mentally ill sexual predators who remain dangerous after completing their federal prison sentences.
• Test for Necessary and Proper Clause is “whether the statute constitutes a means that is rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power.” |
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Term
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Definition
• Obamacare individual mandate is not authorized by Commerce Clause or Necessary and Proper Clause, but is valid as an exercise of taxing power.
o Also holds that states may keep the old Medicaid without accepting the expansion.
• Medicare not valid because government cannot threaten to withdraw funds from and unrelated program to pass another; |
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Term
| Missouri v. Holland (1920) |
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Definition
• Court upholds Congressional limitation on taking of migratory birds, pursuant to a treaty with Canada.
• Treaty power implies that Congress can agree to some laws that it can’t otherwise enact. |
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Term
| City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) |
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Definition
• Holds RFRA unconstitutional as applied to state laws.
• Congress has no power under Section 5 of 14th Amendment to enact RFRA, which is not congruent and proportional to any pattern of state violation of constitutional rights.
• Under Section 5 of 14th A – Congress only has remedial (rather than substantive power) of enforcement clause;
o Remedial = congruent & proportional (narrowly tailored); |
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Term
| Shelby County v. Holder (2013) |
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Definition
• Invalidates two provisions of Voting Rights Act because coverage formula is based on data over 40 years old, violating principle of equal sovereignty of the states.
o Such an intrusion must be “justified by current needs.” |
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Term
| Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985) |
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Definition
• Overrules National League of Cities v. Usery (no limiting role of 10th Amendment).
• Congress has power under Commerce Clause to extend Fair Labor Standards Act (employee minimum wage and overtime pay) to state and local governments. |
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Term
| New York v. United States (1992) |
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Definition
• State legislatures are entitled to discretion in determining what legislation they are to pass, and they cannot be coerced by Congress to enact legislation.
o → Example: Congress can’t compel states to regulate waste.
• Because both options are unconstitutional, congress can’t force them to make a choice between two unconstitutional options. Congress can encourage states by giving them choices, but this isn’t a choice at all. |
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Term
| United States v. Cox (1965) |
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Definition
| • Executive has discretionary power not to prosecute, and a judge therefore cannot compel a prosecutor to prepare an indictment. |
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Term
| Loving v. Virginia (1967) |
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Definition
| • Prohibitions of interracial marriage are unconstitutional. They violate 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, even if it seems they target both whites and minorities; |
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Term
| Parents Involved v. Seattle School District (2007) |
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Definition
| • Prohibits assigning students by race for the purpose of achieving racial integration in unitary school districts. |
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Term
| Frontiero v. Richardson (1973) |
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Definition
è Sex classification gets heightened scrutiny because:
History of discrimination against women generally
Sex is an immutable trait
No relation between the trait and ability to perform/contribute to society
èPotential counter-majoritarian difficulty hereèjudges make the substantive determination about relation between ability and immutable characteristic. |
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Term
| Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) |
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Definition
• Goldberg: reviews the history of the 9th Amendment and relied upon it to justify invalidating a law prohibiting use of contraceptives.
• Douglas repudiates Lochner, but says that the enumerated rights "have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance." (1512)
• The purpose of the guarantees of the first, third, fourth, and fifth amendments is to protect the privacy of the home. This law could not be enforced without violating that privacy. |
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Term
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Definition
• Holds that there is a fundamental right to abortion, and that there is no state interest sufficiently compelling to override that fundamental right, at least in the early stages of pregnancy.
• Abortion is a matter of right in the first trimester, can be regulated for health reasons in the second, and can be prohibited in the third. |
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Term
| District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) |
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Definition
| • For the first time the court invalidated a law regulating guns and found that the Second Amendment is not limited to protecting a right to have firearms for militia service. |
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Term
| McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) |
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Definition
| • Court ruled that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments; |
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Term
| Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) |
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Definition
| Part 1: Abortion before viability remains legal. State may regulate throughout pregnancy as long as regulation does not pose an undue burden to the abortion decision. Part 2: Stare Decisis requires us to uphold the core principle in Roe. |
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Term
| Gonzales v. Carhart (2007) |
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Definition
| Federal prohibition of Dilation and Extraction procedure is constitutional even if it lacks an exception for the mother’s health. |
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Term
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Definition
| • Uphold a presidential proclamation blockading Confederate ports and confiscating ships carrying goods to them. President’s determination that a civil war exists is conclusive. |
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Term
| Korematsu v. United States (1944) |
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Definition
| • Laws that curtail civil rights of a single racial group are suspect and subject to the most rigid scrutiny. The internment of Japanese-Americans is justified by military necessity. |
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Term
| Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) |
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Definition
| • President acted beyond his authority in authorizing the Secretary of Commerce to take and operate the steel mills. Did not have authority either under Article 2 or congressional statute. Jackson’s concurrence outlined the three zones of executive power. |
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Term
| Brown v. Board of Education I (1954) |
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Definition
| • Racially segregated education is inherently unequal. Because education is important, the 14th Amend require that it be provided on equal terms. Separation produces feelings of inferiority, which impairs a child’s ability to learn which produces inferior education. |
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Term
| Brown v. Board of Education II (1955) |
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Definition
| • Desegregation need not occur forthwith. Courts “may find that additional time is necessary to carry out the ruling in an effective manner.” District Courts should proceed “with all deliberate speed.” |
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Term
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Definition
| • Nonjusticiable political questions include: the validity of amendments to the Const., the proper government of a state under the guaranty clause, impeachment, treaty termination, and, probably, decisions to make war. Redistricting of state legislative districts is not a political question, and thus is justiciable. |
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Term
| Powell v. McCormick (1969) |
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Definition
| Court holds that Congress must seat a duly elected representative. Congress cannot alter the requirements of its members if they fit the requirements. |
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Term
| United States v. Nixon (1974) |
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Definition
| • Communications relating to military, diplomatic and national security matters are absolutely privileged, but other communications are only presumptively privileged. Latter category must yield to a demonstrated specific need for essential evidence in a criminal trial. Nixon may not invoke executive privilege in this case. |
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Term
| Washington v. Davis (1976) |
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Definition
| • Disproportionate racial impact does not violate the 14th Amendment. In order for a facially neutral law to violate the Amendment, it must have a discriminatory purpose. |
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Term
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Definition
| • Invalidates legislative veto. Congress may not authorize one or both houses (or a congressional committee) to change decisions or rules delegated by Congress to executive departments or administrative agencies. |
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Term
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Definition
| • The appointment of “inferior officers” may be vested in departments other than the president. The independent counsel is an “inferior officer,” not a principal officer who must be appointed by the president. Appointment of independent prosecutors by the judiciary is permissible. |
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Term
| Edmond v. United States (1997) |
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Definition
| • One is an inferior officer only if his work is directed and supervised by other, superior officers nominated by the President. Upholds statute authorizing Secretary of Transportation to appoint civilian members o the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals. |
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Term
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Definition
| Substantive due process protects the liberty of consensual sex in the home between same sex partners. |
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Term
| United States v. Windsor (2013) |
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Definition
| Court invalidates DOMA because it violates the 5th Amendment DPC, which incorporates the EPC, on “bare desire to harm” and violation of state sovereignty grounds. |
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Term
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Definition
| • President can only use his recess appointment power when the Senate is actually in recess. Senate is in session when it says that it is, provided that it retains the capacity to transact Senate business. |
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