Landmark United States Supreme Court Cases

Landmark United States Supreme Court Cases

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Issue: Who can ultimately decide what the law is?

Result: “It is explicitly the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.”  This decision gave the Court the ability to strike down laws on the grounds that they are unconstitutional (a power called judicial review).

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McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Issue: Can Congress establish a national bank, and if so, can a state tax this bank?

Result: The Court held that Congress had implied powers to establish a national bank under the “necessary and proper” clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court also determined that United States laws trump state laws and consequently, a state could not tax the national bank.   The McCulloch decision established two important principles for constitutional law that continue today: implied powers and federal supremacy.

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Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Issue: Can states pass laws that challenge the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce?

Result: The Court held that it is the role of the federal government to regulate commerce and that state governments cannot develop their own commerce-regulating laws. Further, the Court created a wide definition for “commerce,” reasoning that the term encompassed more than just selling and buying. In this case, the Court determined that regulating water navigation was in fact an act that regulated commerce.

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Schenck v. United States (1919)

Issue: Is certain speech, including sending antiwar pamphlets to drafted men, made in wartime and deemed in violation of the Espionage Act, protected by the First Amendment?

Result: No. Although the defendant would have been able to state his views during ordinary times, the Court held that in certain circumstances, like this case the nation being at war, justify such limits on the First Amendment.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Issue: Do racially segregated public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause?

Result: Yes. A unanimous Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and held that state laws requiring or allowing racially segregated schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court famously stated “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”  The Brown decision is heralded as a landmark decision in Supreme Court history, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson(1896) which had created the “separate but equal” doctrine. InPlessy, The Court held that even though a Louisiana law required rail passengers to be segregated based on race, there was no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause so long as the accommodations at issue were “separate, but equal.” By overturning this doctrine, the Brown Court helped lay the ground for the civil rights movement and integration across the country.