Supreme+Court+Cases

Supreme Court and (a few of the many) Significant Historical Cases General Supreme Court info:  ·   Justices are appointed for life  ·   Powers: o   Both original and appellate jurisdiction-can refuse cases; acts as saying the last court to handle it did fine, and no further appeal can be made.  §   Original: when involves a state directly (when one of the names is a state, it starts at the S.C. level), ambassadors, consuls, public ministers, etc.  §   Appellate when have passed through other federal courts (or sometimes highest state court) and is appealed Cases (info borrowed from unimportant other places):  ·   Marbury v. Madison (1803): In itself a minor case of a denied Presidential appointment, it established the principle of **judicial review**, giving the previously rather powerless court the right to rule on the constitutionality of an act, law, etc.  ·   Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Declared separate but equal accommodations to enforce racial **segregation**.  ·   Shenk v. U.S (1919): The US can restrict **free speech**, especially during wartime, when it is shown to present a “clear and present danger.”  ·   Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954): Laws enforcing **segregation** in schools are unconstitutional. States are ordered to desegregate at “all deliberate speed.”  ·   Furman v. Georgia (1972): All **death penalty** statutes, in all states, were unconstitutional as written due to subjectivity and arbitrariness. Re-written state statutes brought the death penalty back within a few years.  ·   Roe v. Wade (1973): Laws prohibiting **abortion**, except in the last trimester, are unconstitutional based on the 14th Amendment’s implied right of a woman’s privacy in decisions about her body. This comes from the following sentence in the amendment, based on what is called the privileges or immunities clause. // No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. //  ·    Bush, et al v. Gore, et al (2000): In a landmark 5/4 decision, the court overturns the ruling of the Florida State Supreme Court and cedes that state’s Electoral College votes, and the Presidency of the United States, to **George W. Bush**.  ·   Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989): States can restrict access to **abortions**, so long as they do not impose restrictions that would, in effect, outlaw them entirely.  ·   Gonzales v. Oregon (2006): Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 in favor of Oregon’s **doctor assisted suicide** law. Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking for the majority, said that “//It is difficult to defend the attorney general's declaration that the statute// [ the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 -- a law originally intended to fight illegal drugs] //impliedly criminalizes physicians-assisted suicide// ."