facts SC

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Facts: The Secretary of State under John Adams failed to deliver commissions to the confirmed "midnight appointees". The incoming Secretary of State under Jefferson refused to deliver them.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Facts: The chief administrative officer of one of the branches of the newly created Second Bank of the United States refused to pay the state-imposed tax designed to close the bank down.

United States v. Lopez (1995)

Facts: High School Senior convicted of bringing a gun to school in violation of the Gun Free School Zones Act.

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

Facts: New York students recite voluntary, but school-led non-denominational prayer.

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)

Facts: Students show up to school wearing armbands to protest American involvement in Vietnam, and are then suspended.

New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

Major newspapers leaked sensitive information about American involvement in Vietnam (Pentagon Papers). U.S. Attorney General under Nixon ordered the papers to cease, and then sued them for violating the Espionage Act.

Schenck v. United States (1919)

Facts: An American citizen who was a socialist distributed 15,000 flyers calling conscription (the draft) "involuntary servitude" and a violation of the 13th Amendment. He is charged with violating the Expionage Act of 1917.

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

Facts: Florida denied an indigent (poor) man's request for an appointed lawyer after he was accused of petty theft in a pool hall. He studied law in prison and filed a habeas corpus petition, arguing that he was denied his Sixth Amendment rights.

Roe v. Wade (1973)

Facts: An unmarried pregnant woman who wanted to terminate her pregnancy, but was prevented from doing so under Texas law, filed a lawsuit against the law.

McDonald v. Chicago (2010)

Facts: A city law required anyone who wanted to own a handgun to register it. In practice, most residents were banned from owning one. A retiree filed suit against the city arguing the Second Amendment as incorporated via the Fourteenth Amendment.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Facts: A young African-American girl and her sister had to cross a busy railroad switchyard to reach the bus stop for an all-black school. The city had elected to segregate schools by law, and the girls were prohibited from attending an all-white school nearby. The family of the girls filed suit arguing that the state law violated their constitutional rights.

Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

Facts: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform (McCain-Feingold) Act of 2002 prohibited corporations and unions from spending their own money on election campaigns. One such organization funded a movie that communicated that Hillary Clinton was unfit to be president in 2008. The law prevented the group from airing advertisements for the movie within 30 days of elections. The group filed suit asking the Court to decide whether the law violated Free Speech.

Baker v. Carr (1962)

Facts: Tennessee apportioned state representation based on 1900 census. By the 1950s the population had shifted dramatically, but the apportionment remained consistent with the earlier census. The impact was that some districts had far fewer people relative to other urban districts. A resident from Memphis filed suit saying that he was underrepresented in violation of the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Shaw v. Reno (1993)

Facts: White voters in North Carolina challenged a strangely drawn district that was created to give African-Americans a majority, and therefore, a representative in congress. They said the district map was motivated by racial discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)

Facts: A state law required students to attend school until age 16. Amish parents, whose children stopped formal education after the 8th grade, were convicted under the state law. They responded by filing suit challenging the state law on First Amendment religious grounds.