Historically Significant Supreme Court Cases in American History

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Case	Hylton v. United States
Date	1796
Annotation	For the first time the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of a Congressional act.
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Case	Marbury v. Madison
Date	1803
Annotation	For the first time, the Supreme Court declares an act of Congress unconstitutional, declaring, “A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” The court does not strike down another federal law until the Dred Scott decision in 1857.
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Case	Martin v. Hunter's Lessee
Date	1816
Annotation	The Supreme Court asserts its right to review decisions of state courts.
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Case	Dartmouth v. Woodward
Date	1819
Annotation	The Supreme Court declares that a charter to a private corporation is a contract and that a state government cannot impair a contract by unilateral action.
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Case	McCullough v. Maryland
Date	1819
Annotation	The Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States and endorses a loose interpretation of the constitution. “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist[ent] with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”
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Case	Gibbons v. Ogden
Date	1824
Annotation	The Supreme Court invalidates a monopoly granted by New York State for the operation of steamboats on state waters on the grounds that it conflicts with congressional power under the Constitution’s commerce clause. The court establishes the principle that when federal and state laws conflict, federal law is supreme.
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Case	Cherokee Nation v. Georgia
Date	1831
Annotation	The Supreme Court refuses to issue an injunction against the state of Georgia after it declares the laws of the Cherokee nation null and void. The court rules that it lacks jurisdiction because the Cherokee comprise a “domestic dependent” nation rather than a foreign state.
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Case	Worcester v. Georgia
Date	1832
Annotation	The Supreme Court declares a Georgia law requiring white residents in Cherokee territory to obtain a license from the governor unconstitutional since it conflicts with a federal treaty. President Andrew Jackson is reported to have said: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!”
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Case	Barron v. Baltimore
Date	1833
Annotation	The Supreme Court rules that the Bill of Rights was intended to protect individuals against infringement of their rights by federal government and that the guarantees were not binding upon state governments.
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Case	Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge
Date	1837
Annotation	The Charles River Bridge Company contended that under a charter granted by the Massachusetts legislature, it had a right to be free from competition. The Supreme Court rules that rights granted in a legislative charter should be construed narrowly and any ambiguity should be interpreted in the public interest.
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Case	Amistad
Date	1841
Annotation	The Supreme Court frees Africans, who had been enslaved in violation of Spanish law, and who had revolted while being transported in a Spanish ship while in Cuba, a Spanish colony.
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Case	Prigg v. Pennsylvania
Date	1842
Annotation	The Supreme Court invalidated Pennsylvania’s “personal liberty” law which forbid the seize and removal of fugitive slaves from the state. But the court also declared that state authorities were under no obligation to assist in the return of runaway slaves to their owners.
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Case	License Cases
Date	1847
Annotation	The Supreme Court upholds Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island laws restricting and taxing the sale of alcoholic beverages even though the tax impinges on interstate commerce.
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Case	Luther v. Borden
Date	1849
Annotation	In a case involving armed rebellion in Rhode Island, the court rules that Congress has the power to determine which is the lawful government in the state and that this decision cannot be reviewed by the courts.
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Case	Passenger Cases
Date	1849
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court invalidates a head tax imposed by Massachusetts and New York on immigrants entering the states on the ground that the federal government had exclusive authority to regulate foreign commerce.
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Case	Dred Scott v. Sandford
Date	1857
Annotation	The Supreme Court rules that African Americans, slave or free, were not citizens of the United States and were not entitled to sue in federal court. It also rules that a slave’s residence in a free state or territory does not make him free upon his return to a slave state. It further rules that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional since a state could not deprive people of their property without due process of law.
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Case	Abelman v. Booth
Date	1859
Annotation	After the Wisconsin Supreme Court freed an abolitionist who had been convicted of violating the Fugitive Slave Act, the Supreme Court denies the right of state courts to interfere in federal cases.
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Case	Ex Parte Merryman
Date	1861
Annotation	After a Baltimore secessionist was arrested by military authorities, Chief justice Roger Taney issued a writ of habeas corpus, which was rejected by the military commander. Taney cited the commander for contempt and denied that the president had the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.
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Case	Prize Cases
Date	1863
Annotation	The Supreme Court upholds the legality of President Abraham Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate ports, ruling that it was legal for the Union to seize neutral shipping.
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Case	Ex Parte Vallandigham
Date	1864
Annotation	After a civilian was arrested and tried by a military commission, the Supreme Court refused to review a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds that it did not have the authority to review the proceedings of a military commission.
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Case	Ex Parte Milligan
Date	1866
Annotation	The Supreme Court declares military courts unconstitutional in areas where the civil courts are in operation. The majority opinion says that the Constitution applies “equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.”
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Case	Ex Parte Garland
Date	1867
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court declares federal and state loyalty oaths, barring ex-Confederates from pursuing their occupations, unconstitutional, since they violate the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws and bills of attainder.
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Case	Cummings v. Missouri
Date	1867
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court declares federal and state loyalty oaths, barring ex-Confederates from pursuing their occupations, unconstitutional, since they violate the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws and bills of attainder.
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Case	Veazie Bank v. Fenno
Date	1869
Annotation	A majority of the court upholds a federal tax on state bank notes that was intended to eliminate state-chartered banks and promote a national banking system on the grounds that Congress had the power to provide for a sound currency.
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Case	Collector v. Day
Date	1871
Annotation	By an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not tax the income of a state official. This decision was not overturned until 1939.
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Case	Slaughterhouse Cases
Date	1873
Annotation	In its first decision involving the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment applied only to federal, and not state, violations of the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizens. It also held that the amendment’s equal protection clause applied only to state laws discriminating against African Americans.
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Case	Munn v. Illinois
Date	1877
Annotation	the court upholds an Illinois law setting maximum rates for grain storage, arguing that this represented a legitimate exercise of the state’s power to regulate businesses that involved the public interest.
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Case	Strauder v. West Virginia
Date	1879
Annotation	The court rules that the 14th Amendment prohibits states from excluding people from juries on account of race.
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Case	Ex Parte Virginia
Date	1879
Annotation	The court rules that the 14th Amendment prohibits states from excluding people from juries on account of race.
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Case	Springer v. United States
Date	1881
Annotation	The court upholds the federal income tax adopted during the Civil War.
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Case	Civil Rights Cases
Date	1883
Annotation	The Supreme Court strikes down the provisions of the 1875 Civil Rights Act that entitle all people to equal enjoyment of public accommodations and privileges on the ground that the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent wrongful acts by states and did not apply to the acts of individuals.
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Case	Ex Parte Yarbrough
Date	1884
Annotation	The Supreme Court holds Congress’ authority to make it illegal for individuals to interfere with the right of a citizen to vote in a federal election.
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Case	Santa Clara Co. v. Southern Pacific R.R. Co.
Date	1886
Annotation	The Supreme Court extends the protections of due process to corporations.
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Case	Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific R.R. v. Illinois
Date	1886
Annotation	The court strikes down an Illinois law regulating transportation contracts, ruling that it infringed on Congress’ exclusive control over interstate commerce.
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Case	Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Date	1886
Annotation	The Supreme Court invalidated a San Francisco ordinance that prohibited operating a laundry in a wooden building without the permission of the Board of Supervisors because the ordinance was administered in a manner that discriminated against Chinese immigrants. This was the first time that the court struck down a law that was not discriminatory on its face but which was applied in a discriminatory fashion.
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Case	Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Louis R.R. v. Minnesota
Date	1890
Annotation	The court invalidates a Minnesota law that establishes a commission to set rates for railroads and warehouses because it does not allow parties to appeal decisions to the courts.
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Case	U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co.
Date	1895
Annotation	In an 8-1 decision, the court rules that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act does not apply to manufacturers located within a single state.
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Case	Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co.
Date	1895
Annotation	By a 6-2 vote, the court rules that a federal tax on income from municipal bonds was invalid, since a municipality was created by a state. At a rehearing, the court, by a 5-4 vote, rules that a federal income tax, established by the Wilson-Gorham Tariff Act of 1894, violated the Constitutional prohibition against direct taxes.
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Case	In Re Debs
Date	1895
Annotation	The Supreme Court denied a writ of habeas corpus to Eugene Debs, president of the American Railroad Union, after he was cited for contempt for violating an injunction against the Pullman Strike. The court ruled that the strike interfered with the federal responsibility to transport the mails and its authority over interstate commerce
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Case	Plessy v. Ferguson
Date	1896
Annotation	By a vote of 8-1, the court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring African Americans and whites to use separate railroad cars did not deprive African Americans of equal protection under the 14th Amendment. The ruling gives judicial sanction to the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
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Case	U.S. v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association
Date	1897
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the court rules that an association of 18 railroads that set railroad rates violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
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Case	Holden v. Hardy
Date	1898
Annotation	By a 7-2 vote, the court upheld a Utah Law that set maximum work hours in mining, ruling that this was a reasonable exercise of the state’s police functions. This decision provided a precedent for later efforts by states to regulate working conditions.
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Case	Smyth v. Ames
Date	1898
Annotation	The court overturns a Nebraska act setting railroad rates, ruling that rates must be reasonable and provide companies with a fair return on their property.
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Case	Williams v. Mississippi
Date	1898
Annotation	The Supreme Court rules that literacy tests and poll taxes do not violate the 15th Amendment.
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Case	De Lima v. Bidwell
Date	1901
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote the court ruled that Puerto Rico was no longer a foreign nation after the Spanish-American War.
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Case	Downes v. Bidwell
Date	1901
Annotation	In a ruling involving the status of Puerto Rico, the court held that the Constitution and all the privileges of citizenship did not apply to the people of an annexed territory.
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Case	Champion v. Ames
Date	1903
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the court upheld a federal law prohibiting the states from sending lottery tickets through the mails.
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Case	Northern Securities Co. v. United States
Date	1904
Annotation	Upheld a government suit against a railroad holding company, ruling that an illegal combination in restraint of interstate commerce violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
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Case	Lochner v. New York
Date	1905
Annotation	The Supreme Court struck down a state law setting a 10-hour day for bakery workers because it interfered with the protection of liberty guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. This decision barred states from interfering with an employee’s right to contract with an employer. In a dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The 14th Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.”
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Case	Swift v. United States
Date	1905
Annotation	The court unanimously upheld the federal government’s prosecution of the “Beef Trust” under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
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Case	Adair v. United States
Date	1908
Annotation	By a 6-2 vote, the court struck down a provision of the 1898 Erdman Act that prohibited railroads from requiring workers to agree not to join a labor union.
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Case	Muller v. Oregon
Date	1908
Annotation	The court upheld an Oregon law setting maximum hours for women workers. The state’s attorney, Louis Brandeis, submitted the “Brandeis Brief,” which included statistical, sociological, and economic data as well as legal arguments.
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Case	Loewe v. Lawler
Date	1908
Annotation	The court unanimously ruled that a secondary boycott by a labor union was an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade and violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
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Case	Standard Oil of N.J. v. United States
Date	1911
Annotation	The Supreme Court ordered the breakup of the oil giant as a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. The court adopts the “rule of reason”—that a business combination was illegal only when it was engaged in unreasonable restraint of trade. The Court held that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act “should be construed in the light of reason, and as so construed, it prohibits all contracts and combinations which amount to an unreasonable or undue restraint of trade in interstate commerce.”
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Case	Guinn v. United States
Date	1915
Annotation	The court rules that grandfather clauses, exempting those who grandfathers could vote before the adoption of the 15th Amendment from poll taxes, literacy tests, or other voting restrictions, were unconstitutional.
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Case	Arver v. United States
Date	1918
Annotation	The court upheld the constitutionality of the World War I conscription act.
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Case	Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries
Date	1919
Annotation	The court upheld the wartime prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages as a legitimate exercise of the government’s war-making powers.
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Case	Schenck v. United States
Date	1919
Annotation	The court ruled unanimously that the World War I Espionage Act did not violate the 1st Amendment’s protection of free speech and free press, ruling that anti-war pamphlets encouraged resistance to the military draft and establishing the “clear and present danger” test.
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Case	Abrams v. United States
Date	1919
Annotation	The court upheld the 1918 Sedition Act, ruling that pamphlets criticizing the U.S. intervention in Siberia were not protected by the 1st Amendment. In his dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
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Case	Bailey v. Drexel Furniture
Date	1922
Annotation	The court struck down a 1919 federal law that levied a prohibitive tax on products produced by child labor.
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Case	Adkins v. Children's Hospital
Date	1923
Annotation	The court struck down a Congressional act authorizing a Wage Board for the District of Columbia from setting minimum wages for women workers. In a dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The criterion of constitutionality is not whether we believe the law to be for the public good.”
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Case	Gitlow v. New York
Date	1925
Annotation	For the first time the Supreme Court declares that the 14th Amendment makes 1st Amendment freedoms of speech and the press applicable to the states.
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Case	Near v. Minnesota
Date	1931
Annotation	The Supreme Court ruled that “prior restraint” of the press violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. The court overturned a Minnesota law that prohibited continued publication of a newspaper that the court had deemed malicious, scandalous, and defamatory. This was the first time that the court struck down a state law for violating freedom of the press. “While reckless assaults upon public men…endeavoring faithfully to discharge official duties, exert a baleful influence and deserve the severest condemnation in public opinion,” said the court, “it cannot be said that this abuse is greater, and it is believed to be less, than that which characterized the period in which our institutions took shape.”
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Case	Powell v. Alabama
Date	1932
Annotation	The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African American youths who had been convicted in the rape of two white women in a railroad freight car, on the ground that they had been denied due process because of the hostile community atmosphere in which the case was tried and trial judge’s failure to provide them with a defense attorney. For the first time, the court applies constitutional protections for a fair trial to the states.
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Case	Nebbia v. New York
Date	1934
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that a state many regulate businesses in the public good, so long as the regulations were reasonable and effected through appropriate means.
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Case	Schechter v. United States
Date	1935
Annotation	The court unanimously invalidated the National Industrial Recovery Act on the grounds that it delegated excessive authority to the president and regulated businesses that operated wholly within individual states.
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Case	Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co.
Date	1935
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote the court struck down the Railroad Retirement Act which established pensions for railroad workers on the ground that it exceeded federal authority under the commerce clause.
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Case	Patterson v. Alabama
Date	1935
Annotation	In another case involving the Scottsboro Boys, the court rules that they had been denied a fair trial because African Americans had been excluded from the jury list.
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Case	Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority
Date	1936
Annotation	The court upheld a law establishing the TVA as a legitimate exercise of the federal government’s power to control navigable streams and provide for the national defense.
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Case	West Coast Hotel v. Parrish
Date	1937
Annotation	“The switch in time that saves nine.” In the face of President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal to expand the court’s membership, the court upheld a series of New Deal measures. By a 5-4 vote in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parris, the court upheld a Washington State minimum wage law, reversing its decision in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923).
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Case	NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin
Date	1937
Annotation	By 5-4 votes, the court, upheld the National Labor Relations Act in NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel and NLRB v. Friedman-Harry Marks Clothing Co.
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Case	NLRB v. Friedman- Harry Marks Clothing Co.
Date	1937
Annotation	By 5-4 votes, the court, upheld the National Labor Relations Act in NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel and NLRB v. Friedman-Harry Marks Clothing Co.
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Case	Steward Machine Co. v. Davis
Date	1937
Annotation	By 5-4 votes in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis and Helvering v. Davis, the court upheld the Social Security laws.
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Case	Helvering v. Davis
Date	1937
Annotation	By 5-4 votes in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis and Helvering v. Davis, the court upheld the Social Security laws.
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Case	DeJonge v. Oregon
Date	1937
Annotation	The court overturned the conviction under Oregon’s criminal syndicalist law, ruling that a speech presented in an orderly meeting did not constitute a “clear and present danger.”
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Case	Herndon v. Lowery
Date	1937
Annotation	The court reversed the conviction of a Communist organizer in Georgia for inciting insurrection.
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Case	Lovell v. Griffin
Date	1938
Annotation	The court upheld the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to distribute religious literature without a license.
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Case	Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada
Date	1938
Annotation	The court ruled that an African American had a right to be admitted to the state law school, since the state’s alternative—paying for black students to attend law school in another state—was not equal.
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Case	United States v. Carolene Products
Date	1938
Annotation	. In a footnote, Jusice Haran Fiske Stone said that the Supreme Court would give a higher level of constitutional protection to individual rights than to property rights. The footnote also says that the Surpeme Court will give a “presumption of constitutionality” to cases involving the powers of Congress and the states to regulate commerce.
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Case	Hague v. C.I.O.
Date	1939
Annotation	The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment prohibited states from interfering with peaceful assemblies. In this case, Jersey City, N.J.’s mayor “Boss” Hague had prevented the CIO from assembling in public forums.
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Case	Graves v. New York ex. rel. O’ Keefe
Date	1939
Annotation	The court ruled that a state tax on federal employees did not place an unconstitutional burden on the federal government.
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Case	Minersville School District v. Gobitis
Date	1940
Annotation	By an 8-1 vote, the court upheld the expulsion of two Jehovah’s Witnesses, 12 year old Lillian Gobitis and her younger brother William, from school for refusing to salute the flag. At the time, 16 states had laws requiring students to salute the flag. In a dissent, Harlan Stone wrote that it was wrong to force citizens to say things they do not believe and that are forbidden by their religion.
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Case	Thornhill v. Alabama
Date	1940
Annotation	The court rules that the 14th Amendment prohibited states from interfering with peaceful picketing.
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Case	Edwards v. California
Date	1941
Annotation	. The court struck down a California “Anti-Okie” law designed to exclude indigent immigrants as an unconstitutional barrier to interstate commerce.
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Case	Korematsu v. United States
Date	1943
Annotation	By a 6-3 vote, the court upheld the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans. In Ex parte Endo, the court held that the government could not detain a person whose loyalty had been established.
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Case	West Virginia State School Board v. Barnette
Date	1943
Annotation	By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, and struck down state laws requiring students to salute the American flag. In a decision issued on Flag Day, Robert H. Jackson wrote that Americans could not be forced to demonstrate their allegiance to “what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion” and that this was true for the young as well as adults. “The very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials.”
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Case	Smith v. Allwright
Date	1944
Annotation	The Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that restricted participation in the Democratic primary elections to whites on the ground that primaries are central to the elector process.
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Case	Morgan v. Virginia
Date	1946
Annotation	The court prohibited buses engaged in interstate bus service from segregating passengers.
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Case	Hannegan v. Esquire
Date	1946
Annotation	The court restricted the Postmaster General’s authority to withhold mailing privileges for allegedly “offensive” materials.
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Case	Everson v. Board of Education
Date	1947
Annotation	: In a decision upholding school boards’ reimbursement of the cost of public transportation for students attending parochial schools, Justice Hugo Black declares: “In the words of Jefferson, the [1st Amendment]…was intended to erect a ‘wall of separation between church and State.’”
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Case	Illinois ex. rel. McCollum v. Board of Education
Date	1948
Annotation	The court ruled that an Illinois law permitting students to receive religion instruction on school property during school hours using private teachers was unconstitutional.
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Case	Shelley v. Kraemer
Date	1948
Annotation	The court struck down restriction covenants that prohibited the sale of real estate to people of Asian and African descent as a violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.
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Case	Communications Association v. Douds
Date	1950
Annotation	The court upheld a provision of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 requiring labor union officials to sign an affidavit that they were not Communists.
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Case	McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
Date	1950
Annotation	The court invalidated a Oklahoma law that required African American students to sit in designated areas in university classrooms, libraries, and cafeterias.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Sweatt v. Painter
Date	1950
Annotation	The Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that restricted the University of Texas to white students only, even though the state had set up a separate law school for African American students.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Dennis et al. v. United States
Date	1951
Annotation	The court upheld the Smith Act of 1946 that made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the government.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer
Date	1952
Annotation	The court ruled 6-2 that President Harry Truman exceeded his authority when he seized major steel companies to avoid a strike that would have disrupted steel production during the Korean war.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Rochin v. California
Date	1952
Annotation	The court reverses the conviction of a man whose stomach had been forcibly pumped for drugs on the ground that the Constitution’s due process clause bars “conduct that shocks the conscience.”
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Burstyn v. Wilson Artistic
Date	1952
Annotation	The court extends 1st Amendment protections to movies, overturning a 1915 ruling that movies “are a business, pure and simple.” The court holds that New York State’s denial of a license to the film “The Miracle” on the grounds of sacrilege violated the 1st Amendment.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Brown v. Board of Education
Date	1954
Annotation	The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that allowed for “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites. A unanimous court held that segregation stamped a badge of inferiority on military children and hindered their development no matter how equal the facilities. “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” Linda Brown was denied admission to a school simply because she was African American. She had to walk a mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her all-black elementary school., even though there was a school just seven blocks from her home.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Pennsylvania v. Nelson
Date	1956
Annotation	The court invalidated a Pennsylvania law punishing subversive activities on the grounds that this power was reserved to the federal government.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Watkins v. United States
Date	1957
Annotation	The court reversed the contempt conviction of a labor union official who refused to provide the names of individuals who had been members of the Communist party, holding that the question was not relevant to the committee’s work.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Yates v. United States
Date	1957
Annotation	The court ruled that the Smith Act of 1946 did not forbid individuals from advocating the violent overthrow of the government; it only prevent actions to achieve that aim.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Roth v. United States
Date	1957
Annotation	The court ruled that in order to be deemed obscene, a work had to be “utterly without redeeming social value.”
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Kent v. Dulles
Date	1958
Annotation	Ruling that the right to travel is protected by the 5th Amendment’s due process clause, the court rules that the State Department could not refuse to issue a passport to artist Rockwell Kent for refusing to sign an anti-communist affidavit.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Boyton v. Virginia
Date	1960
Annotation	The court ruled that a bus terminal may not segregate passengers who are traveling across interstate lines.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Mapp v. Ohio
Date	1961
Annotation	The court ruled that evidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizures must be excluded from trial.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Baker v. Carr
Date	1962
Annotation	The court ruled 6-2 that voters had a right to challenge the apportionment of state legislative districts in ways that overrepresented rural districts and diluted the voting power of urban voters
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Engel v. Vitale
Date	1962
Annotation	The court forbids non-denominational prayer in public schools, ruling that the Constitution prohibits government from “endorsing religion in general.” The court ruled that a prayer read in New York State schools violated the constitutional separation of church and state. “It is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers to be recited as a part of a religious program carried on by government.”
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	School District of Abington Township v. Schempp
Date	1963
Annotation	The court prohibited daily Bible readings and the reading of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Gideon v. Wainwright
Date	1963
Annotation	In a case involving a barely literate Florida man, Clarence Gideon, who was accused of breaking into a pool hall, the court ruled that indigent criminal defendants have a right to legal counsel at taxpayers’ expense.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	New York Times v. Sullivan
Date	1964
Annotation	When a white segregationist officials in the South tried to silence newspapers through huge libel suits, the Supreme Court ruled that public figures have a higher burden of proof in a libel case than private citizens, and must prove that a libelous statement is published with malicious intent and in reckless disregard for the truth. “Debate on public issues,” wrote Justice William J. Brennan, “ should be uninhibited, robust, wide-open, and …may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Escobedo v. Illinois
Date	1964
Annotation	The court throws out the confession of a man whose requests to have his attorney present during police interrogation were denied.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Griswold v. Connecticut
Date	1965
Annotation	Holding that a right to privacy is implicit in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, struck down a state law that prohibited the use of birth control by married couples.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Sheppard v. Maxwell
Date	1966
Annotation	The court reversed the murder conviction of Dr. Sam Sheppard on the grounds that massive publicity had deprived him of the right to a fair trial.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Miranda v. Arizona
Date	1966
Annotation	By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that truck driver Ernesto Miranda, who confessed to abducting and raping an 18-year-old girl, should have been informed by the police of his right to remain silent and to consult with an attorney.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	In Re Gault
Date	1967
Annotation	By a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles have the same rights to a fair trial as adults. 15-year-old Gerald Gault was accused of making an obscene phone call to a female neighbor and was sentenced to a reform school for up to six years. Under Arizona’s juvenile code, he had been denied notice of the charges against him, the right to counsel, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, and the privilege against self-incrimination.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Loving v. Virginia
Date	1967
Annotation	The court struck down a Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriages as a violation of the 14th Amendment.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Shapiro v. Thompson
Date	1969
Annotation	The court struck down state laws that required individuals to reside in a state for a year in order to receive welfare benefits, ruling that this violated the right to interstate travel.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Tinker v. Des Moines
Date	1969
Annotation	The court overturned the suspension of students who had worn black arm bands to protest the Vietnam war, declaring that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Williams v. Florida
Date	1970
Annotation	The court held that states could use 6-person juries in cases that did not involve capital punishment.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Griggs v. Duke Power
Date	1971
Annotation	The court ruled that unnecessary barriers to employment must be removed if they are unrelated to job skills and have a discriminatory impact. This decision upheld the use of statistics as a way of demonstrating discrimination.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Lemon v. Kurtzman
Date	1971
Annotation	The court states that in determining whether a law violates the Constitutional separation of church and state, a law must have a secular purpose, it must not promote or retard religious beliefs, and it must avoid “excessive entanglements” with religion.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	New York Times v. United States
Date	1971
Annotation	By a 6-3 vote the court denied the government’s request for a court order barring publication of a secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam War. The court said there was insufficient evidence to support a prior restraint on the press.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Furman v. Georgia
Date	1972
Annotation	The Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws that gave juries excessive discretion, allowing the death penalty to be arbitrarily and capriciously. It later struck down capital punishment laws that gave jurors no discretion or that barred jurors from considering mitigating facts about the murderer.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Johnson v. Louisiana
Date	1972
Annotation	The court ruled that the constitution did not require unanimous verdicts in criminal cases.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Apodaca v. Oregon
Date	1972
Annotation	The court ruled that the constitution did not require unanimous verdicts in criminal cases.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Eisenstadt v. Baird
Date	1972
Annotation	The court rules that laws prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults violates the Constitution’s equal protection
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Doe v. Bolton
Date	1973
Annotation	By a vote of 7-2, the Court invalidated provisions of a Georgia law that required that abortion be performed in a hospital; a woman secure the approval of three physicians and a hospital committee before obtaining an abortion; and a woman seeking to obtain an abortion be a resident of the state.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Roe v. Wade
Date	1973
Annotation	The Supreme Court invalidated a Texas law prohibiting abortion except to save a mother’s life. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that the 14th Amendment “protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.”
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	United States v. Nixon
Date	1974
Annotation	The court orders President Richard Nixon to turn over to a special prosecutor subpoenaed tapes relating to the Watergate break-in.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Milliken v. Bradley
Date	1974
Annotation	. By a 5-4 vote, the court struck down a district court order that required the busing of African American schoolchildren in Detroit to the city’s suburbs on the grounds that there was no proof that the suburbs had engaged in intentional segregation.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	O'Connor v. Donaldson
Date	1975
Annotation	The court rules that mental illness could not justify a non-violent person’s indefinite, involuntary confinement.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth
Date	1976
Annotation	By a vote of 6-3, the Court invalidated provisions of a Missouri statute that required a married woman to obtain the consent of her husband prior to obtaining an abortion; required a physician to preserve the life and health of the fetus at every stage of pregnancy; and prohibited the use of saline amniocentesis as a method of abortion. By a vote of 5-4, the Court struck down a requirement that an unmarried minor woman obtain the written consent of one parent before obtaining an abortion because the statute provided no alternative to parental consent such as judicial waiver of the consent requirement.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Carey v. Population Services
Date	1977
Annotation	By a vote of 7-2, the Court invalidated a New York law prohibiting the sale or distribution of contraceptives to minors.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Coker v. Georgia
Date	1977
Annotation	The Supreme Court forbade the death penalty for rape, ruling that the punishment was disproportionate to the crime.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Plyler v. Doe
Date	1982
Annotation	The court ruled that states may not deny public education to the children of illegal immigrants.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Hustler Magazine v. Falwell
Date	1982
Annotation	The court extended 1st Amendment protections of free speech and free press to parodies and satires.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Bowers v. Hardwick
Date	1986
Annotation	The court upholds the states’ authority to regulate homosexual relations in private between consenting adults.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Texas v. Johnson
Date	1989
Annotation	The court ruled invalidated a Texas law that prohibited desecration of the flag on the ground that it was an unconstitutional restriction of expressive conduct.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, Minnesota
Date	1992
Annotation	A unanimous court strikes down a local law banning the display of any symbol “that arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender."
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Date	1992
Annotation	The court reaffirms its “central holding” in Roe v. Wade, that abortions prior to viability cannot be made criminal offenses.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Lee v. Weisman
Date	1992
Annotation	The court rules that an officially-sanctioned prayer at a public school graduation violates the Constitution.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Date	1992
Annotation	By a vote of 7-2, the Court upheld provisions of a Pennsylvania statute that required (1) physicians to provide patients with anti-abortion information, including pictures of fetuses at various stages of development, to discourage women from obtaining abortions; (2) a mandatory 24-hour delay following these lectures; (3) the filing of reports, available for public inspection and copying, including the name and location of any facility performing abortions that receives any state funds; and (4) a one-parent consent requirement for minors with a judicial bypass.
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)
Case	Stenberg v. Carhart
Date	2000
Annotation	By a vote of 5-4, the Court invalidated a Nebraska law that prohibited so-called "partial birth" abortion unless the procedure is necessary to save the life of the woman, in part because it lacked any exception to protect women's health
URL	Web site (NOTE: this link is not on Digital History; it opens in a new window)