Tag: Scarinci Hollenbeck

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...

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the state of Maryland’s tax scheme is unconstitutional. Since it fails to recognize taxes paid in other states, the Court found that the state’s personal income tax system violates the...

In United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court held that violations of the Fourteenth Amendment can serve as grounds for criminal charges under a federal conspiracy law that makes it a crime to "injure, oppress, threaten, or i...

The “Speech or Debate Clause” provides powerful protection to members of Congress and prohibits the Executive Branch from prosecuting those with whom it does not agree. One of the first cases to interpret the Speech or Debate Clause is United St...

There are acceptable limits to free speech in some campaign finance laws for the Roberts Court, at least when it comes to judges elected by popular vote. In a case regarding campaign finance laws, Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, the majority of t...

In a brief per curium opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that lifetime monitoring of a convicted sex-offender could run afoul of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The decision in Torrey Dale Grad...

Privacy rights are not expressly addressed under the U.S. Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has nonetheless found that they protected under the Bill of Rights. Most notably, the Court has held that the notion of “liberty” under the Fourtee...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently announced that it would release audio recordings of the upcoming same-sex marriage hearing on the same day. Oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges are scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on April 28, 2015. Lawyers for both sides...

Later this term, U.S. Supreme Court will consider its first death penalty case since 2007. The issue in Glossip v. Gross is whether a new sedative used in lethal injections violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The drug at use, in ...