Supreme Court Flashcards: The Rulings

1. Supreme Court Flashcards: The Rulings The first slide features the ruling, the following slide identifies the case itself.

2. Findings/Significance • Established the principle of judicial review. • Strengthened the power of the judicial branch by giving the Supreme Court the authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.

3. Marbury v Madison (1803)

4. Findings/Significance • Confirmed the right of Congress to utilize implied powers to carry out its expressed powers. • Validated the supremacy of the national government over the states by declaring that states cannot interfere with or tax the legitimate activities of the federal government.

5. McCulloch v Maryland (1819)

6. Findings/Significance • Strengthened the power of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. • Established the commerce clause’s role as a key vehicle for the expansion of federal power.

7. Gibbons v Ogden (1824)

8. Findings/Significance • Struck down state-sponsored prayer in public schools. • Rules that the Regent’s prayer was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause.

9. Engel v Vitale (1962)

10. Findings/Significance • Struck down state funding for private religious schools. • Ruled that state aid to church-related school must meet three tests: a) the purpose of the aid must be secular, b) the govt’s action must neither help nor inhibit religion and c) the govt’s action must not foster an “excessive entanglement.

11. Lemon v Kurtzman (1971)

12. Findings/Significance • Banned polygamy. • Distinguished between religious beliefs that are protected by the Free Exercise Clause and religious practices that may be restricted • Rules that religious practices cannot make an act legal that would be otherwise illegal.

13. Reynolds v US (1879)

14. Findings/Significance • Banned the use of illegal drugs in religious ceremonies. • Ruled that the government can act when religious practices violate criminal laws.

15. Employment Division of Oregon v Smith (1990)

16. Findings/Significance • Ruled that free speech could be limited when it presents a “clear and present danger…” • Established the “clear and present danger” test to define conditions under which public authorities can limit free speech.

17. Schenk v US (1919)

18. Findings/Significance • Ruled that public officials cannot win a suit for defamation unless the statement is made with “actual malice.” • Established the “actual malice” standard to promote “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” public debate.

19. New York Times v Sullivan (1964)

20. Findings/Significance • Ruled that obscenity is not constitutionally protected free speech. • Created the “prevailing community standards” rule requiring a consideration of the work as a whole.

21. Roth v US (1951)

22. Findings/Significance • Protected some forms of symbolic speech. • Ruled that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

23. Tinker v Des Moines (1969)

24. Findings/Significance • Ruled that flag burning is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment.

25. Texas v Johnson (1989)

26. Findings/Significance • Ruled that the Bill of Rights cannot be applied to the states.

27. Barron v Baltimore (1833)

28. Findings/Significance • Established precedent for the doctrine of selective incorporation, thus extending most of the requirements of the Bill of Rights to the states.

29. Gitlow v New York (1925)

30. Findings/Significance • Established the exclusionary rule in federal cases. • Prohibited evidence obtained illegally from being admitted in court.

31. Weeks v US (1914)

32. Findings/Significance • Extended the exclusionary rule to the states. • Illustrated the process of selective incorporation through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

33. Mapp v Ohio (1961)

34. Findings/Significance • Ruled that the 6th Amendment right-to-counsel provision applies to those accused of major crimes under state laws. • Illustrated the process of selective incorporation through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

35. Gideon v Wainwright (1963)

36. Findings/Significance • Ruled that the police must inform criminal suspects of their constitutional rights before questioning suspects after arrest. • Required police to read the Miranda rules to criminal suspects.

37. Miranda v Arizona (1966)

38. Findings/Significance • Ruled that African Americans were not citizens and there fore could not petition the Supreme Court. • Overturned by the 14th Amendment.

39. Dred Scott v Sanford (1857)

40. Findings/Significance • Upheld Jim Crow desegregation by approving “separate but equal” public facilities for African Americans.

41. Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

42. Findings/Significance • Ruled that racially segregated school violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. • Reversed the principle of “separate but equal” from Plessey.

43. Brown v Board of Education I (1954)

44. Findings/Significance • Ordered the Medical School at UC Davis to admit Bakke. • Ruled that the medical school’s strict quota system denied Bakke the equal protection guaranteed by the 14th amendment. • Ruled that race could be used as one factor among others in the competition for available places.

45. Regents of the UC vs. Bakke (1978)

46. Findings/Significance • Upheld the affirmative action policy of the University of Michigan Law School. • Upheld the Bakke ruling that race could be a consideration in admissions policy but that quotas are illegal.

47. Grutter v Bollinger (2003)

48. Findings/Significance • Ruled that a Connecticut law criminalizing the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. • Established an important precedent for Roe v Wade.

49. Griswold v Connecticut (1965)

50. Findings/Significance • Ruled that a decision to obtain an abortion is protected by the right to privacy implied by the Bill of Rights.