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Gibbons v. Ogden
A New York state law gave Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton a 20-year monopoly over navigation on waters within state jurisdiction. Aaron Ogden and other competitors tried to forestall the monopoly, but Livingston and Fulton largely succeeded in selling franchise or buying competitors’ boats.
The Question Does the Commerce Clause give Congress authority over interstate navigation?
unanimous decision for Gibbons majority opinion -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed suit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. The Question Was Dred Scott free or a slave? 7-2 decision for sanford majority opinion -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act, which required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Plessy – who was seven-eighths Caucasian – agreed to participate in a test to challenge the Act. The Question Does the Separate Car Act violate the Fourteenth Amendment?
7-1 decision for Ferguson majority opinion -
Korematsu v. United States
In response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, the U.S. government decided to require Japanese-Americans to move into relocation camps as a matter of national security. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, two months after Pearl Harbor. The Question Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent? 6-3 decision for united states majority opinion -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
This case was the consolidation of cases arising in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington D.C. relating to the segregation of public schools on the basis of race. In each of the cases, African American had been denied to go to school with white Americans
The Question Does the segregation of public education based solely on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? unanimous decision for brown ET AL. majority opinion -
Miranda v Arizona
This case represents the consolidation of four cases, in each of which the defendant confessed guilt after being subjected to a variety of interrogation techniques without being informed of his Fifth Amendment rights during an interrogation. The Question, Does the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination extend to the police interrogation of a suspect? 5–4 decision for Miranda
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Roe v. Wade
In 1970, Jane Roe filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she resided, challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life. The Question. Does the Constitution recognize a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion? 7-2 decision for Jane roe majority opinion. -
United States v. Nixon
A grand jury returned indictments against seven of President Richard Nixon's closest aides in the Watergate affair. The special prosecutor appointed by Nixon and the defendants sought audio tapes of conversations recorded by Nixon in the Oval Office. The Question Is the President's right to safeguard certain information, using his "executive privilege" confidentiality power, entirely immune from judicial review? unanimous decision majority opinion -
Texas v. Johnson
On March 23, 1986, Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr., who was 19, shot Jack Huddleston in the course of a convenience store robbery by telling Huddleston to get on the ground and then shooting Huddleston in the back of the neck. The Question Did the Texas capital sentencing statute unconstitutionally preclude the jury from fully considering the mitigating effect of the petitioner's youth at the time of the crime? 5-4 decision majority opinion -
Obergefell v. Hodges
Groups of same-sex couples sued their relevant state agencies in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee to challenge the constitutionality of those states' bans on same-sex marriage or refusal to recognize legal same-sex marriages that occurred in jurisdictions that provided for such marriages. The Question Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex? 5-4 decision for Obergefell majority opinion