The Court held that the First Amendment did not prohibit New Jersey from spending tax-raised funds to pay the bus fares of parochial school pupils as a part of a general program under which it paid the fares of …
Petitioner parents applied for a writ of certiorari after the Court of Appeals of New York granted a judgment that upheld the school board's authority to use prayer in the public schools on the condition that no …
The Court concluded that state laws requiring readings from the Bible at the beginning of the school day amounted to requiring religious exercises and such exercises were being conducted in direct violation of the …
In a consolidated case from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and from the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, appellant citizens and taxpayers …
The parents practiced the Amish and Mennonite religions and argued that sending their children to public school after the eighth grade violated their religious beliefs and threatened their religious way of life. The …
The Court held that accommodating the Amish and Mennonite parents' religious objections to compulsory education after the eigth grade would not impair the physical or mental health of the child, result in an …
Petitioners, church and its president, applied for and received licensing, inspection and zoning approvals to establish a church including a ritual of animal sacrifice from respondent city. In response, an emergency …
Petitioner students brought an action against respondents alleging First Amendment violations for respondents' refusal to authorize payment of the printing costs of petitioners student publication based on its …
This action arose from a case in which U.S. Supreme Court held that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment barred a city from sending public school teachers into parochial schools to provide education to …
Defendants were convicted of conspiracy and other crimes under the Espionage Act for distributing leaflets that opposed the military draft. Defendants appealed their convictions on the basis that the Espionage Act …
Appellant was convicted under a New Hampshire statute for using offensive language towards another person in public. Appellant contended that the statute was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it placed …
Petitioners, New York and California mail-order businessmen, were convicted under federal and state statutes, of mailing obscene materials. Petitioners appealed on grounds that the federal statute violated the First …
The Court held that petitioner newspaper's constitutional guarantees to freedom of speech and of the press by the First and Fourteenth Amendments required a rule that prohibited a public official from recovering …
Petitioner was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan and was convicted under Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, which made it unlawful to advocate crime or methods of terrorism or to voluntarily assembly with any group to …
Petitioner high school students challenged the constitutionality of respondent school officials' suspension of petitioners for wearing black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War.
Appellee argued that the four-letter expletive imprinted on appellant's jacket, which he wore in the municipal courthouse as an expression of his feelings toward the Vietnam War and the draft, was "offensive …
In an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the United States government sought an injunction against the publication by the New York Times of the contents of a classified …
Defendant was convicted of distributing obscene matter. The Court held that the standard to determine whether material was obscene was whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, not …
The petitioner, a high school principal removed articles from the school newspaper. The Court found that public schools did not possess all of the attributes of traditional public forums. The school had an interest …
Petitioner magazine sought review of the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, affirming an award of monetary damages to respondent, a nationally known minister, for intentional …
Petitioner State requested a writ of certiorari to examine a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, which reversed the trial court's decision that convicted respondent of desecrating a flag after he …
The case was before the court on a writ of certiorari to United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which had concluded that nude dancing performed for entertainment was expression protected by the …
After Congress passed the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), appellees sought a declaratory judgment deeming it an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. The Court found that the CDA …
On writ of certiorari to Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Western District, petitioner city appealed judgment determining that petitioner's ordinance banning public nudity unconstitutionally burdened the expressive …
Defendants were indicted for transporting an unregistered double barrel 12-gauge shotgun in interstate commerce in violation of the National Firearms Act. Defendants filed a motion to quash the indictment alleging …
Respondent, a special policeman, filed the instant action after the District refused his application to register a handgun. The Court held that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home and its …
Defendant appealed from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio, which affirmed her conviction for possessing obscene literature in violation. Defendant contended that the evidence seized during a search and that …
Defendant sought review of a judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which, in affirming defendant's conviction for transmitting wagering information by telephone, rejected the …
Petitioner school district required student athletes to submit to drug testing, for which the student's parents had to sign consent forms. Respondents, a seventh grade student and his parents, refused to sign the …
Defendant's motion to suppress evidence of his cocaine use that was seized as a result of a warrantless search to which he explicitly did not consent, but to which his wife did consent, was initially denied, but the …
The inmate's charged offense was a felony under Florida law. He appeared in state court without funds and without a lawyer and asked the court to appoint counsel for him. The state court refused because only a …
Petitioner appealed the affirmation of his conviction of murder by the Supreme Court of Illinois, which held that petitioner's confession had been admissible even though it was obtained after he had requested and …
Certiorari was granted to review a judgment from the Supreme Court of Arizona for this and three other similar cases, to determine the admissibility of statements obtained from defendant, who was subjected to …
The Court disagreed with the lower court's conclusion that the child and his parents received due process after the child was taken into custody after a female neighbor complained of lewd phone calls while he was …
One whose conviction of crime in a Federal District Court was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit sought a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. In a per curiam …
The Court held that Eigth Amendment prohibited the execution of the insane and that the procedures used to determine petitioner's competency did not meet the requisite heightened standard of reliability where there …
The issue before the Court was whether the competency standard for pleading guilty or waiving the right to counsel was higher than the competency standard for standing trial. The court held that a defendant who …
The Court found that the key question was whether the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty under the laws applicable to the prisoners constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth …
The court granted certiorari to decide whether petitioner was correct in his assertion that the imposition of the death penalty violated his rights under the Eigth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court concluded that …
Defendant sought certiorari review of a decision of the Supreme Court of Florida, which affirmed defendant's sentence of death imposed following his conviction for murder.
The Court granted certiorari to consider the constitutionality of defendent's death sentence under Louisiana law which the defendant claimed violated the Eigth and Fourteenth Amendments.
On a grant of certiorari to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, the Court considered petitioner inmates' arguments that the Government's imposition of the death sentence on them for first degree murder violated …
Respondent juvenile committed murder at the age of 17. He was tried and sentenced to death. He filed a petition for state postconviction relief, arguing that the reasoning forbidding the execution of mentally …
The applicant and two others contended that the late President of the United States had nominated them to the Senate and that the Senate had advised and consented to their appointments as justices of the peace. At a …
Defendant appealed a judgment of the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland finding for plaintiff, who brought suit against defendant to recover certain penalties under a Maryland act imposing a tax on all banks …
The Court concluded that the state supreme court lacked the power to inquire into the custody of the federal prisoner even if it concluded that the such custody was unconstitutional. The Supremacy Clause was clothed …
The State brought a bill in equity, which challenged the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918 claiming that the treaty was an unconstitutional interference with appellant's sovereign rights under the Tenth …
Petitioners, the Little Rock School Board and School Superintendent (school authorities), asked a district court to postpone their program for desegregation mandated by the Brown v. Board of Education decision …
Cross-petitions were granted for immediate review of the denial of a motion to quash a third-party subpoena duces tecum issued by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia directing the President …
The Court affirmed held that: (1) the indirect imposition of a minimum drinking age through the reduction of federal highway funds otherwise allocable to a state if the state had a minimum drinking age below 21 was …
Petitioners challenged a decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court that affirmed a ruling of the trial court that declared unconstitutional an Arkansas Constitutional Amendment which limited the amount of terms that …
Respondent was convicted of violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 after carrying a concealed handgun and bullets to school. Respondent's conviction was reversed on appeal. In upholding the reversal, the …
Respondent, a private citizen, sought to recover damages from petitioner, the President of the U.S., based on actions that allegedly took place before his term began. Petitioner argued that in all but the most …
The Brady Act amended a detailed federal scheme that governed distribution of firearms established by the Gun Control Act of 1968. Interim provisions directed state law enforcement officers to participate in …