Cases with holding/sig Separate

Wolf v. Colorado - Holding

The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, but states were not required to use the exclusionary rule.

Wolf v. Colorado - Significance

Wolf incorporated the Fourth Amendment's basic protection against the states, but Mapp v. Ohio later overruled its refusal to require the exclusionary rule.

Mapp v. Ohio - Holding

The exclusionary rule applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, so evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment generally cannot be used in state criminal prosecutions.

Mapp v. Ohio - Significance

Mapp overruled the contrary portion of Wolf v. Colorado and greatly strengthened enforcement of Fourth Amendment protections in state courts.

Florida v. Bostick - Holding

A police encounter on a bus is not automatically a seizure; the question is whether, under the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would feel free to refuse police requests or terminate the encounter.

Florida v. Bostick - Significance

Bostick is important for coercion and determining when a police encounter becomes a Fourth Amendment seizure.

Miranda v. Arizona - Holding

Before custodial interrogation, police must provide warnings protecting the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination, including the rights to silence and counsel.

Miranda v. Arizona - Significance

Miranda established constitutional safeguards for custodial interrogation, and Dickerson later confirmed that Congress could not legislatively overrule them.

Dickerson v. United States - Holding

Miranda announced a constitutional rule, so Congress could not replace it with a statutory voluntariness test.

Dickerson v. United States - Significance

Dickerson preserved Miranda and confirmed that Miranda warnings have constitutional status.

Gideon v. Wainwright - Holding

The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is fundamental, and states must appoint attorneys for indigent defendants charged with felonies.

Gideon v. Wainwright - Significance

Gideon expanded the right to appointed counsel and built on Powell v. Alabama's earlier protection of indigent capital defendants.

Batson v. Kentucky - Holding

The Equal Protection Clause prohibits prosecutors from intentionally excluding potential jurors because of race through peremptory challenges, and prosecutors must provide race-neutral explanations once discrimination is sufficiently shown.

Batson v. Kentucky - Significance

Batson placed a major constitutional limitation on racial discrimination in jury selection and developed protections related to earlier jury-discrimination cases such as Patton v. Mississippi.

Gregg v. Georgia - Holding

The death penalty is not automatically cruel and unusual punishment when a state uses guided discretion, individualized sentencing, and procedures designed to prevent arbitrary death sentences.

Gregg v. Georgia - Significance

Gregg allowed capital punishment to resume after Furman under redesigned procedures and created the modern framework later limited by Atkins and Roper.

Atkins v. Virginia - Holding

Executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Atkins v. Virginia - Significance

Atkins created a categorical restriction on death-penalty eligibility and helped establish the approach later extended in Roper.

Roper v. Simmons - Holding

The Eighth Amendment prohibits execution for crimes committed by people under eighteen.

Roper v. Simmons - Significance

Roper extended the categorical approach of Atkins and used evolving standards of decency to further restrict capital punishment.

Payne v. Tennessee - Holding

Victim-impact evidence may be considered during the sentencing phase of a capital trial.

Payne v. Tennessee - Significance

Payne overruled earlier precedent broadly barring victim-impact evidence and expanded what sentencing juries may consider.

Case v. Montana - Holding

The emergency-aid exception allows warrantless entry into a home when officers have an objectively reasonable basis for believing someone inside needs emergency assistance.

Case v. Montana - Significance

Case clarifies an important Fourth Amendment exception to the warrant requirement and emphasizes objective reasonableness during emergencies.

Plessy v. Ferguson - Holding

Government-mandated racial segregation was permitted under the Fourteenth Amendment under the separate-but-equal doctrine.

Plessy v. Ferguson - Significance

Plessy constitutionally legitimized segregation until Brown v. Board rejected the doctrine in public education.

Brown v. Board of Education I - Holding

State-mandated racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause because separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Brown v. Board of Education I - Significance

Brown I rejected Plessy's separate-but-equal doctrine in public education and established the constitutional violation later addressed remedially in Brown II.

Brown v. Board of Education II - Holding

Lower federal courts were directed to supervise school desegregation, and school systems were ordered to proceed with all deliberate speed.

Brown v. Board of Education II - Significance

Brown II dealt with remedy and implementation rather than the underlying constitutional violation and demonstrates the difficulty of enforcing major Supreme Court decisions.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke - Holding

A fixed racial admissions quota was unconstitutional, but race could be considered as one factor among many in pursuing educational diversity.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke - Significance

Bakke created the basic affirmative-action framework later developed in Grutter and Gratz and substantially altered by Students for Fair Admissions.

Grutter v. Bollinger - Holding

A university may use race as one factor in an individualized, holistic admissions process when diversity is treated as a compelling interest and the policy is sufficiently narrowly tailored.

Grutter v. Bollinger - Significance

Grutter approved holistic race-conscious admissions while Gratz rejected a mechanical points system; SFFA later substantially changed this framework.

Gratz v. Bollinger - Holding

An admissions system that automatically awards substantial points based on race violates equal-protection principles because it lacks sufficiently individualized consideration.

Gratz v. Bollinger - Significance

Gratz illustrates the limits of race-conscious admissions and contrasts directly with the individualized system upheld in Grutter.

Hopwood v. Texas - Holding

The Fifth Circuit held that the University of Texas Law School could not use race in the challenged admissions process.

Hopwood v. Texas - Significance

Hopwood represented a restrictive lower-court approach to affirmative action that was later displaced by Grutter.

Powell v. Alabama - Holding

In the circumstances of a capital prosecution involving young indigent defendants, due process required meaningful assistance of counsel and a genuine opportunity to prepare a defense.

Powell v. Alabama - Significance

Powell was an important predecessor to Gideon and the expansion of the constitutional right to appointed counsel.

McCleskey v. Kemp - Holding

Statistical racial disparities in capital sentencing were insufficient to establish an Equal Protection violation without proof of discriminatory purpose in the defendant's own case, and the Eighth Amendment claim also failed.

McCleskey v. Kemp - Significance

McCleskey created a very high barrier to using system-wide statistical disparities to prove unconstitutional discrimination in an individual death-penalty case.

Milliken v. Bradley - Holding

A metropolitan-wide desegregation remedy generally cannot extend across multiple school districts without proof of an interdistrict constitutional violation.

Milliken v. Bradley - Significance

Milliken substantially restricted the geographic reach of Brown-era school-desegregation remedies.

Griswold v. Connecticut - Holding

A prohibition on contraceptive use by married couples violated a constitutional right to marital privacy derived from protections within the Bill of Rights.

Griswold v. Connecticut - Significance

Griswold became a major foundation of constitutional privacy doctrine and helped provide the doctrinal path to Roe.

Roe v. Wade - Holding

The Fourteenth Amendment protection of liberty and privacy included a constitutional right to choose abortion, subject to increasing state regulation under the trimester framework.

Roe v. Wade - Significance

Roe constitutionalized abortion rights, was modified by Casey's undue-burden framework, and was ultimately overruled by Dobbs.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization - Holding

The Constitution does not confer a constitutional right to abortion, and Roe and Casey were overruled.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization - Significance

Dobbs returned abortion regulation largely to elected governments and became a major modern case involving stare decisis and substantive due process.

Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health - Holding

A competent person has a protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment, but a state may require clear and convincing evidence of an incompetent patient's wishes.

Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health - Significance

Cruzan recognized an end-of-life liberty interest while permitting substantial state regulation and provides important background for Glucksberg and Vacco.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey - Holding

Roe's core pre-viability protection was reaffirmed, but the trimester framework was abandoned and replaced with the undue-burden test prohibiting substantial obstacles to obtaining a pre-viability abortion.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey - Significance

Casey preserved but modified Roe through stare decisis until both decisions were overruled by Dobbs.

Romer v. Evans - Holding

A Colorado constitutional amendment broadly preventing gay and lesbian people from receiving protection against discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Romer v. Evans - Significance

Romer became an important LGBTQ equal-protection precedent and preceded Lawrence's protection of private same-sex intimacy.

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services - Holding

Several Missouri abortion restrictions, including restrictions involving public facilities and fetal-viability testing, were constitutional without overruling Roe.

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services - Significance

Webster permitted greater state regulation under Roe and foreshadowed the changes that followed in Casey and Dobbs.

Lawrence v. Texas - Holding

The Due Process Clause protects consenting adults' liberty to engage in private same-sex intimate conduct, making Texas's criminal prohibition unconstitutional.

Lawrence v. Texas - Significance

Lawrence became a major substantive-due-process and LGBTQ-rights decision and expanded the constitutional protection of private intimate choices following Romer.

Patton v. Mississippi - Holding

Systematic exclusion of Black citizens from jury service violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Patton v. Mississippi - Significance

Patton reinforced the constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination in jury selection and provides important background for Batson.

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard - Holding

Harvard's race-conscious admissions program violated the equal-protection standards applicable through Title VI and sharply restricted the direct use of race as an admissions factor.

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard - Significance

SFFA substantially changed the affirmative-action framework developed through Bakke, Grutter, and Gratz.

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine - Holding

The plaintiffs challenging the FDA's actions concerning mifepristone lacked Article III standing, so the Court did not reach the legality of the FDA's actions.

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine - Significance

The case demonstrates that standing is a threshold requirement and can prevent the Supreme Court from deciding the substantive merits of a major dispute.

Washington v. Glucksberg - Holding

The Due Process Clause does not create a fundamental right to physician-assisted suicide, and claimed unenumerated rights must be carefully described and deeply rooted in American history and tradition.

Washington v. Glucksberg - Significance

Glucksberg established an influential methodology for substantive-due-process analysis and contrasts with broader privacy cases such as Griswold and Roe.

Vacco v. Quill - Holding

A state may prohibit physician-assisted suicide without violating Equal Protection because refusing life-sustaining medical treatment and actively assisting suicide are legally distinguishable.

Vacco v. Quill - Significance

Vacco complements Cruzan and Glucksberg by distinguishing the recognized right to refuse treatment from a claimed constitutional right to assistance in dying.