Required Court Cases

McCulloch v. Maryland

• Congress’ bank, a federal facility, could not be taxed by the state it was established in

• The Necessary and Proper Clause and Supremacy Clause were reinforced, giving the Constitution and Congress’ federal laws superiority over state law

United States v. Lopez

• The possession of a gun in a school zone could not be controlled by Congress and federal law instead of state law

• Invalidated the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1990, which was (wrongfully) created via Congress’ power in the Commerce Clause

Engel v. Vitale

• Public schools cannot hold prayer, even if not tied to any one religion, according to the Establishment Clause

Wisconsin v. Yoder

• According to the free exercise clause, a state cannot prohibit the religious practice of pulling one’s children out of school after 8th grade for religious reasons

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

• Protest in the form of symbolic speech in public schools does not violate a student’s guaranteed freedoms of speech

• In this case, three students were sent home for wearing black armbands in support of a truce for the Vietnam War

New York Times v. United States

• The Nixon Administration tried to stop two newspapers from publishing a classified study; Nixon used prior restraint against the material to “protect national security”

• Nixon’s efforts violated the 1st Amendment, as his prior restraint couldn’t diminish the protections of freedom of the press

Schenck v. United States

• A socialist who distributed leaflets advocating to peacefully disobey the draft was convicted of violating the Espionage Act

• Espionage Act was ruled to be obeying the 1st Amendment’s freedom of speech

• ***Created the “clear and present danger test” for seeing what speech was and wasn’t protected***

Gideon v. Wainright

• A man could not afford a lawyer in a state criminal case, and was found guilty without one to represent him

• ***Ruled that the 6th Amendment’s right to counsel extends to felony cases in state courts due to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment***

McDonald v. Chicago

• Applied the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to the 2nd Amendment

• Resulted from various suers against their city’s handgun bans

Brown v. Board of Education

• Ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment

• School segregation is inherently unequal

• White and colored children were not equally protected under the laws which established school segregation, in contrast to “separate but equal”

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

• A corporation was convicted of violating the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act with its film for interfering with the upcoming election

• The corporation claimed this violated the 1st Amendment

• Ruled that corporations are also protected under the freedoms of speech

Baker v. Carr

• Ruled that a state’s (lack of) reapportionment efforts violated the Equal Protection Clause

• Established the one person, one vote doctrine, requiring states to reapportion in a way that represented all of its people

Shaw v. Reno

• A state’s congressional district was ruled to have been drawn in a way to pack as many black residents as possible into two districts

• The claim that these districts were racially gerrymandered under the Equal Protection Clause was found to be valid due to one of the district’s bizarre shapes

Marbury v. Madison

• An appointed judge ended up not receiving his commission, and tried to petition SCOTUS to grant a writ of mandamus to the Secretary of State

• However, SCOTUS found that Article 3 of the Constitution (which never mentioned writs of mandamus) was in conflict with an article of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (which allowed SCOTUS to write those writs in original jurisdiction cases)

• This case did not have original jurisdiction, so the article of the Judiciary Act was voided

• **Established Judicial Review**