Category: Supreme Court Decisions

As momentum builds for the U.S Supreme Court to address the legality of same-sex marriage bans, it is fitting to discuss the Court’s 1966 decision in Loving v. Virginia. By a unanimous vote, the justices struck down a Virginia law prohibiting inter...

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide an important U.S. foreign relations case next term. Zivotofsky v. Kerry involves whether the power to recognize foreign states and governments is exclusive to the President; or, as in this case, Congress also h...

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider an important Fourth Amendment case involving a police officer’s mistake of law. Given that law enforcement is not infallible, the decision in Heien v. North Carolina could have significant consequences....

In De Jonge v. Oregon, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that the right to peaceable assembly is equally as important as the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. The decision also highlights that the right to engage in political discussion ...

An Alabama voting rights case will once again take center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices recently agreed to consider two related cases involving how race was used to formulate Alabama redistricting plan. Last term, in Shelby v. Hol...

The U.S. Supreme Court may finally address the Constitutional right to same-sex marriage when its next term begins in October. Petitions challenging state laws in Utah, Virginia, and Oklahoma await the justices’ consideration. If the justices ag...

While the U.S. Supreme Court has not issued a ground breaking gun rights case since District of Columbia v. Heller, it continues to refine the scope of Second Amendment protection. The Court’s October 2013 session was no exception. In Abramski v. U...

In McCullen v. Coakley, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Massachusetts law establishing “buffer zones” around reproductive health care facilities violates the First Amendment. The justices concluded that even though the restriction is content ...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued an important decision regarding the free speech rights of public employees. The unanimous First Amendment decision clarifies that employees are protected when providing court testimony about matters outside the ...

A divided Supreme Court has withdrawn some of the discretion it gave to the states to determine when an individual convicted of murder is too intellectually incapacitated to be executed. The five to four majority held that states cannot use a fixed I...