Author: DONALD SCARINCI

The U.S. Supreme Court first reviewed the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873). In a 5-4 decision, the majority adopted a narrow construction of the Amendment’s Privileges and Immuniti...

By a vote of 5-4 in Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when...

In March of 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise - a federal statute that regulated slavery in several western territories of the country - in the infamous Dred Scott Decision, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). ...

In Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the power to recognize foreign states and governments is exclusive to the President. The 6-3 decision, which rested almost exclusively on the Constitution’s separation of powers, highlights t...

In Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824), the U.S. Supreme Court first held that Congress has the authority to regulate any form of commerce that crosses state lines. The opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Marshall, is considered the most influenti...

In the NSA privacy debate leading up to the expiration of several key provisions of the Patriot Act, an overturned U.S. Supreme Court case popped up more than once. The decision in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) highlights that while...

In McCulloch v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Congress has broad discretionary authority to implement the powers enumerated in the Constitution under the Necessary and Proper Clause. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819) is reg...

While many were hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court would address whether existing precedent that excludes threatening speech from First Amendment protection applies to online speech, the justices elected to resolve Elonis v. United States on purely s...

In Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810), the Marshall Court ruled that an act of the Georgia State legislature that nullified a prior land grant they passed violated the U.S. Constitution. It was the first case in which the U. S. Supreme Court held...

Amidst growing distrust of police officers, the U.S. Supreme Court recently addressed the use of force when attempting to subdue a mentally disabled person in San Francisco v. Sheehan The Court’s narrow decision held that two San Francisco police ...