Category: Supreme Court Decisions

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws establishing racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which is...

What cuts Campaign Finance Reform and the First Amendment right down the middle? Why its the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), a sharply divided U.S. Supr...

What have been the Supreme Court's key abortion rulings? The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to again address the constitutionality of state laws restricting abortion. The state of North Carolina recently announced it would ask the country’s highest ...

Nebraska and Oklahoma are asking the Supreme Court to declare that Colorado violated the U.S. Constitution when it legalized marijuana. The suit, which evokes the Court’s original jurisdiction over disputes between states, specifically alleges t...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued its first major Fourth Amendment decision of this term. In Heien v. North Carolina, the justices held that a police officer’s reasonable mistake of law can provide reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendme...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to consider another significant First Amendment case. Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. involves whether state governments can limit the messages conveyed on specialty license plates. ...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether you should have paid taxes on your Cyber Monday purchases. The issue before the Court in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl is whether the federal courts can enjoin a tax scheme in Colorado that...

Later this term, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider another case related to campaign finance. This time, in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar the issue is whether a rule of judicial conduct that prohibits candidates for judicial office from persona...

Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama have issued executive orders to help facilitate the management of the country. Because such actions are often not expressly authorized by statute, but rather derived from the President’s executive p...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Yates v. United States. The case involves a Florida fisherman who was convicted of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act when he destroyed several dozen undersized fish. The specific issue before the...