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Mapp v. Ohio, 1961
The Court brushed aside the First Amendment issue and declared that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by [the Fourth Amendment], inadmissible in a state court." Mapp had been convicted on the basis of illegally obtained evidence. This was an historic -- and controversial -- decision. It placed the requirement of excluding illegally obtained evidence from court at all levels of the government. The decision launched the Court on a troubled course -
Baker v. Carr 1962
was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that reapportionment (attempts to change the way voting districts are delineated) issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases. The defendants unsuccessfully argued that reapportionment of legislative districts is a "political question," and hence not a question that may be resolved by federal courts. -
Engel v. Vitale, 1962
United States Supreme Court case that determined that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools. -
Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963
In the case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford their own attorneys. -
Reynolds v. Sims, 1964
Voters from Jefferson County, Alabama, had challenged the apportionment of the Alabama Legislature. The Alabama Constitution provided that there be at least one representative per county and as many senatorial districts as there were senators. Ratio variances as great as 41 to 1 from one senatorial district to another existed in the Alabama Senate.
Having already overturned its ruling that redistricting was a purely political question in Baker v. Carr, the Court went further -
Escobedo v. Illinois, 1964
was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. The case was decided a year after the court held in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) that indigent criminal defendants had a right to be provided counsel at trial. -
Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965
was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy". -
Roth v. United States, 1957
The constitutionality of a criminal obscenity statute is the question in each of these cases. In Roth, the primary constitutional question is whether the federal obscenity statute violates the provision of the First Amendment that "Congress shall make no law . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. " In Alberts, the primary constitutional question is whether the obscenity provisions of the California Penal Code invade the freedoms of speech as they may be incorrporated in fedral law -
Miranda v. Arizona, 1966
the Supreme Court ruled that detained criminal suspects, prior to police questioning, must be informed of their constitutional right to an attorney and against self-incrimination. The case began with the 1963 arrest of Phoenix resident Ernesto Miranda, who was charged with rape, kidnapping, and robbery. Miranda was not informed of his rights prior to the police interrogation. During the two-hour interrogation, Miranda allegedly confessed to committing the crimes.
