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| 1964 - Incorporated the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause. |
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| 1961 - Incorporated a portion of the Fourth Amendment by establishing that illegally obtained evidence cannot be used at a trial. |
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| 1803 - Supreme Court case in which the Court first asserted the power of judicial review in finding that a congressional statue extending the Court’s original jurisdiction was unconstitutional. |
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| Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee |
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| 1816 - The Court’s power of judicial review in regard to state law was clarified in this case. |
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| 1869 - Post-Civil War case that reinforced Congress’s power to determine the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. |
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| 1987 - The Court ruled that the imposition of the death penalty did not violate the equal protection clause. |
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| 1991 - On this appeal of McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), the Court produced new standards designed to make it much more difficult for death-row inmates to file repeated appeals. |
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| 1819 - Supreme Court upheld the power of the national government and denied the right of a state to tax the bank. The Court’s broad interpretation of the necessary and proper clause paved the way for later rulings upholding expansive federal powers. |
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| 1973 - Case wherein the Supreme Court began to formulate rules designed to make it easier for states to regulate obscene materials and to return to communities a greater role in determining what is obscene. |
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| 1875 - The Supreme Court once again examined the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, ruling that voting was not a privilege of citizenship. |
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| 1966 - The Fifth Amendment requires that individuals arrested for a crime must be advised of their right to remain silent and to have counsel present. |
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| Morrison v. United States |
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| 2000 - The Court ruled that Congress has no authority under the commerce clause to enact a provision of the Violence Against Women Act providing a federal remedy to victims of gender-motivated violence. |
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| 1908 - Case that ruled Oregon’s law barring women from working more than ten hours a day was unconstitutional; also an attempt to define women’s unique status as mothers to justify their differential treatment. |
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| 1931 – By ruling that a state law violated the freedom of the press, the Supreme Court incorporated the free press provision of the First Amendment. |
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| 1992 – A section of the Low-Level Waste Act that required the states to dispose of radioactive waste within their borders was found unconstitutional because it would force states into the service of the federal government. |
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| New York Times Co. v. Sullivan |
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| 1964 – Supreme Court decision that simply publishing a defamatory falsehood is not enough to justify a libel judgment. “Actual malice” must be proved to support a finding of libel against a public figure. |
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| New York Times Co. v. United States |
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| 1971 – Also called the Pentagon Papers case; the Supreme Court ruled that any attempt to prevent expression carried “a heavy presumption” against its constitutionality. |
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| NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Co. |
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| 1937 – Case that upheld the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, marking a turning point in the Court’s ideology towards the programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. |
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| 1948 – Incorporated the Sixth Amendment’s right to a public trial. |
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| 1937 – Set the Court’s rationale of selective incorporation, a judicial doctrine whereby most but not all of the protections found in the Bill of Rights are made applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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| 1966 – Incorporated the Sixth Amendment’s right to an impartial trial. |
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| Planned Parenthood v. Casey |
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| 1992 – An unsuccessful attempt to challenge Pennsylvania’s restrictive abortion regulations. |
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| 1896 – Plessy challenged a Louisiana statue requiring that railroads provide separate accommodations for blacks and whites. The Court found that separate but equal accommodations did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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| 1965 – Incorporated the Sixth Amendment’s right to confrontation of witnesses. |
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| 1997 – The Court found that Congress lacks the authority to compel state officers to execute federal laws, specifically relating to background checks on handgun purchasers. |
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| Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove |
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| 1983 – The Supreme Court refused to review a lower court’s ruling upholding the constitutionality of a local ordinance banning handguns against a Second Amendment challenge. |
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| R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul |
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| 1992 – The Court concluded that St. Paul, Minnesota’s Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance violated the First Amendment because it regulated speech based on the content of the speech. |
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| 1971 – Turned the tide in terms of constitutional litigation, ruling that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited unreasonable classifications based on sex. |
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| Regents of the University of California v. Bakke |
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| 1978 – A sharply divided Court concluded that the university’s rejection of Bakke as a student had been illegal because of the use of strict affirmative action quotas was inappropriate. |
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| 1997 – The Court ruled that the 1996 Communications Decency Act prohibiting transfer of obscene or indecent materials over the Internet to minors violated the First Amendment because it was too vague and overboard. |
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| 1964 – In this case, the Court decided that every person should have an equally weighted voice in electing governmental representatives. |
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| 1962 – Incorporated the Eight Amendment’s right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. |
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| 1973 – The Supreme Court found that a woman’s right to an abortion was protected by the right to privacy that could be implied from specific guarantees found in the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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| 1996 – A Colorado Constitutional amendment precluding any legislative, executive, or judicial action at any state or local level designed to bar discrimination based on sexual preference was ruled out not rational or reasonable. |
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| 1957 – The Court held that in order to be obscene, material must be “utterly without redeeming social value.” |
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| Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe |
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| 2000 – The Court ruled that student-led, student-initiated prayer at high school football games violated the establishment clause. |
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| 1919 – Case in which the Supreme Court interpreted the First Amendment to allow Congress to restrict speech that was “of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” |
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| Seminole Tribe v. Florida |
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| 1996 – Congress cannot impose a duty on states forcing them to negotiate with Indian tribes; the state’s sovereign immunity protects it from a congressional directive about how to do business. |
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| 1993 – First in a series of redistricting cases in which the North Carolina legislature’s reapportionment of congressional districts based on the 1990 Census was contested because the plan included an irregularly-shaped district in which race seemed to be a dominant consideration. The Court ruled that districts created with race as the dominant consideration violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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| 1991 – The Court chastised Michael Sindram for filing his petition in forma pauperis to require the Maryland courts to expedite his request to expunge a $35 speeding ticket from his record. |
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| 1873 – The Court upheld Louisiana’s right to create a monopoly on the operation of slaughterhouses, despite the Butcher’s Benevolent Association’s claim that this action deprived its members of their livelihood and the privileges and immunities granted by the Fourteenth Amendment. |
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| 1987 – The Court ruled that it was permissible for the federal government to require states that wanted transportation fund to pass laws setting twenty-one as the legal drinking age. |
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| 2000 – The Court ruled that a Nebraska “partial birth” abortion statute was unconstitutionally vague and unenforceable, calling into question the laws of the twenty-nine other states. |
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| 1931 – The Court overturned the conviction of a director of a Communist youth camp under a state statute prohibiting the display of a red flag. |
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| Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg School District |
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| 1971 – The Supreme Court ruled that all vestiges of de jure discrimination must be eliminated at once. |
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| 1989 – Case in which the Court overturned the conviction of a Texas man found guilty of setting fire to an American flag. |
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| Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District |
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| 1969 – Upheld students’ rights to express themselves by wearing black armbands symbolizing protest of the Vietnam War. |
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| United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation |
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| 1936 – The Court upheld the rights of Congress to grant the president authority to act in foreign affairs and to allow the president to prohibit arms shipments to participants in foreign wars. |
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| 1995 – The Court invalidated a section of the Gun Free School Zones Act, ruling that regulating guns did not fall within the scope of the commerce clause, and therefore the powers of the federal government. Only states have the authority to ban guns in school zones. |
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| 1939 – The last time the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of the Second Amendment; ruled that the Amendment was only intended to protect a citizen’s right to own ordinary militia weapons. |
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| 1974 – In a case involving President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to turn over tape recordings of his conversations, the Court ruled that executive privilege does not grant the president an absolute right to secure all presidential documents. |
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| United States Term Limits v. Thornton |
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| 1995 – The Supreme Court ruled that states do not have the authority to enact term limits for federal elected officials. |
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| 1967 – Incorporated the Sixth Amendment’s right to a compulsory trial. |
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| Webster v. Reproductive Health Services |
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| 1989 – In upholding several restrictive abortion regulations, the Court opened the door for state governments to enact new restrictions on abortion. |
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| 1914 – Case wherein the Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule, which bars the use of illegally obtained evidence at trial. |
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| 1964 – Established the principle of one person, one vote for congressional districts. |
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| 1949 – The Court ruled that illegally obtained evidence did not necessarily have to be eliminated from use during the trial. |
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| Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer |
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| 1952 – The Court invalidated President Harry S. Truman’s seizure of the nation’s steel mills. |
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| 2002 – The Court concluded that governments can give money to parents to allow them to send their children to private or religious schools. |
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