Randal Exam 2 Review

Federal Judge Taking Power

• All federal judges are nominated by the president

- High 90% of the time the judge that they nominate match their party

• All judges must be confirmed by the Senate

- 51% of the vote needed to confirm a judge or justice

Term limits of Judges and Supreme Court Justices

• Both serve for life

Founding Fathers’s Opinion of Judiciary

• Weakest branch by far

• Reasoning: No power to enforce their decisions

• In reality it is just as strong as all the other branches

Tiered Court System

• The Supreme Court is the only court mentioned in the Constitution

• Congress created all other courts, it was their first act

Justice Thomas’s Allegations

• Anita Hill alleged that Justice Thomas sexually harassed her

Where do Supreme Court cases come from?

• Most cases come from the Federal court system

Rule of 4

• 4 justices have to want to hear a case for the case to be heard

Briefs

• A tool for interest groups to contact the Supreme Court and have their voices heard

Oral Argument Format

• Each side only gets 30 minutes to argue

- Sometimes expanded at the discretion of the court

Decision

• Who one and by what margin did they win

- Initial decision given the day the case if heard but justices can change their vote all the way up until the case goes public

Chief Justice Power

• If on the winning side, controls the written opinion of the court

- If not most senior justice on the winning side will write it

• Controls what cases the court will head and what cases it won’t

Most Common Decision Margin

• 9-0 “Unanimous”

Concurring Opinion

• An opinion that agrees with the majority but disagrees to why

Decenting Opinion

• An opinion that disagrees with the majority opinion

Judicial Review

• Court’s ability to strike down laws as unjust and unconstitutional

- Marbury v. Madison is the case that gave the court this power

Civil Liberties

• Located in the first 10 Amendment of the Constitution

• List of negative freedoms

Incorporation Doctrine

• Principal the Supreme Court used to apply the Amendments to and Constitutional law to the states

- Every Amendment was incorporated between 1925 and 1972

Seditious Speech

• Protected speech under the 1st Amendment that encourages rebellion against the government

- The speech that has been around since the beginning of America

The Sedition Act of 1798

• Laws passed by Congress during John Adam’s presidency

• Made criticizing the government illegal

- When Jefferson took power in 1800 it was overturned immediately and Jefferson both pardoned all the arrested journalists and gave them large sums of money

Schenck v. United States (1919)

• 1st Amendment case involving seditious speech

• Chief Justice Holmes

• Schenck distributed a large amount of pabnflits encouraging people to use their rights against the draft WW1 draft

• Court ruled unconstitutional because it posed a “clear and present danger”

Gitlow v. New York

• 1st Amendment case involving seditious speech

• Getlow is a communist who was encouraging people to overthrow the government and take power

• Incorporated the 1st Amendment of the Constitution to the states

- States were able to sensor speech that leads to “bad tendency” and not the “clear and present danger” threshold the federal government has

Symbolic Speech

• Protected speech under the 1st Amendment that encompasses nonverbal speech

• “Freedom of expression”

Tinker v Des Monines (1969)

• 1st Amendment case involving symbolic speech

• Court ruled this was illegal and that “speech” covers expressions as well

• Also said that children have less speech rights than adults

Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

• Case involving the establishment clause of the constitution

• New Jersey passed a law that allowed for reimbursement for travel to and from schools

- Eligible for both public and private religious schools

• Payment was given directly to the parents

• Everson sued saying that the state was supporting the religious private school and therefore establishing a religion

• Court ruled that the program had a primary secular purpose (providing transportation) but also incorporated the establishment clause to the state level

The Lemon Test

• Case involving the establishment clause of the constitution

• Criteria to determine if a state law is establishing religion

- Law must have a secular purpose

- Law must be neutral with no advancing or inhibiting of religion

- Law must not entangle the government excessively with religion

Reynolds v. United State (1878)

• Case involving the free exercise clause

• Mormons made the claim that polygamy was essential for their religious practice

• Supreme Court rules that polygamy is a practice and not a thought, therefore the gov. can regulate

Cantwell v, Connecticut (1940)

• Case involving the free exercise clause

• The Jehovah Whiteness wanted to solicit a catholic neighborhood with anti-catholic flyers

• Connecticut required they had permits

- Claim it was a law to stop consumer fraud

• Court struck this law down stating that it violated the free exercise clause

• The free exercise clause was incorporated to the states

Earl Warren

• Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

• Incorporated a great majority of modern day criminal rights

• Worked as a prosecutor for most of his career, believed that he had a guilty conscious from locking up people who were likely innocent but just had bad representation

Mapp v Ohio (1961)

• Involved the 4th Amendment

• Chief Justice Warren

• Ohio police were looking for a bombing suspect

• Police lied about having a search warrant to get search Mapp’s house

• Found pornographic magazines and pictures

• Warren incorporated the 4th Amendment protection again unreasonable search and seizure to the states

McCleskey v. Kemp (1987)

• Case involving the Georgia death penalty

• McCleskey, a black man, robbed a furniture store and then shot a white cop

• Defense made the claim that Georgia was seeking the death penalty against non-white criminals at a higher rate than white ones

- Violating the 14th and 8th Amendments, many studies were launched and supported these claims

• Supreme Court ruled that Georgia does have a racial bias as a whole but that there wasn't any bias in this case

- “Despite statistical oddities we find no evidence of racial bias against this particular defendant” - Rehenquest

Virginia v. Atkins (2002)

• Case involving the death penalty when it comes to the retarded

• Atkins had an IQ of 59 and was “intellectually disabled”

- Acted like a 5 year old

• Court referred to him as both intellectually disabled and mentally retarded as deemed his death warrant to be unconstitutional

• No standard definition of “intellectually disabled” or “mentally retarded” provided and it was left up to the states

Haul v. Florida (2014)

• Case involving the death penalty when it comes to the retarded

• The Florida law at the time allowed for the excisions of people who had at least an IQ of 70

- Most other states didn’t allow people in this range to be executed

• Court ruled that this law only had one dimension and was therefore to simplistic to use in order to determine death penalty eligibility

Trends in Executions

• Most excisions happen in the South

• Roughly half the states have the death penalty and half do not

Early Black People in America

• Most early black people came to the colonies as indentured servants

The Civil War Amendments

• 13th Amendment: Abolished slavery

• 14th Amendment: Gave black people citizenship

• 15th Amendment: Gave black people the right to vote

- Women had to wait 50 more years for this right

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• Case involving discrimination

• Louisiana passed a law that separated black and white people into separate train cars

• Court ruled this legal and set the president of “separate but equal”

- This president was used to quickly spread segregation to all other aspects of life in the South

De Jure Segregation

• Legally mandated segregation

De Facto Segregation

• Socially mandated segregation

• Rooted in economics, racial attitude, settlement patterns

Early Integration of Black and White People

• Truman desegregated the military in 1947

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964)

• Case involving desegregation

• The Heart of Atlanta Motel was a motel just off an interstate highway

• Congress argued that they were agents of interstate commerce and therefore under the commerce clause Congress could force them to desegregate

• The court agreed with them and force the motel to desegregate

Katzonbach v. McColung (1964)

• Supreme Court case addressing racial segregation in public accommodations

• The Court upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964, stating that Congress had the authority to enforce desegregation under the commerce clause.

Civil Rights Act (1965)

• Black voters from 1965 to 1970 shot up dramatically

- 900% in Mississippi

Affirmative Action

• UC Regents v. Bakke (1978) made it so schools can’t admit solely off of a racial quota

- Gratz and Gutter v. Ballinger (2003) both reinforced this precedent

Women’s Preference for their Boss

• Women strongly preferred a male boss over a female one

Jefferson’s Belief of Women and Politics

• “If you mix politics and women you get confusion” - Jefferson

Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)

• Case involving gender discrimination

• Bradwell was a woman who wanted to become a lawyer

• Illinois had a law that prevented this

• The court decided that women were only fit to be wives and mothers and the law was just

- A president that wasn’t challenged till 1971

Title 9

• Federal laws that bans discrimination on the basis of gender

- Especially visible in sports