Criminal Justice / Law: Notable Cases

From The American Economy: A Historical Encyclopedia
Controversial 5 to 4 decision handed down June 28, 1978, in which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional rigid racial quotas, or “set-asides,” for admission to a university medical school.

A legal case in which on 17 May 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

US Supreme Court decision of 1857 which denied ‘blacks’ (African Americans) US citizenship and made slavery legal in all US territories.

The controversy that occurred with the treason conviction (1894) of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935), a French general staff officer.

From The Reader's Companion to American History
In Marbury v. Madison (1803) the Supreme Court announced for the first time the principle that a court may declare an act of Congress void if it is inconsistent with the Constitution.

Case decided in 1819 by the U.S. Supreme Court, dealing specifically with the constitutionality of a Congress-chartered corporation, and more generally with the dispersion of power between state and federal governments.

U.S. Supreme Court case (1966) in the area of due process of law (see Fourteenth Amendment). The decision reversed an Arizona court's conviction of Ernesto Miranda on kidnapping and rape charges.

From The Hutchinson unabridged encyclopedia with atlas and weather guide
US Supreme Court decision of 1974 dealing with the extent to which a US president may exercise executive privilege in a criminal investigation. During the Watergate investigations, President Nixon cited this privilege in refusing to produce certain tape recordings that had been subpoenaed by Special Prosecutor Jaworski.

After World War II, the trials of the 24 chief Nazi war criminals November 1945-October 1946 by an international military tribunal consisting of four judges and four prosecutors: one of each from the USA, UK, USSR, and France.

From Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
The 1995 murder trial of former football star, actor, and television commentator O.J. Simpson revealed an abiding racial polarization in American society and brought fundamental issues of race and crime to the forefront of national discourse.

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
When Homer Plessy boarded an intrastate Louisiana train on June 7, 1892, his purpose was to challenge Section 2, Act III, passed by the Louisiana state legislature on July 10, 1890, which prescribed “equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored races” on its intrastate railroads.

From Dictionary of American government and politics
In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which had prohibited the transmission over the Internet of any 'patently offensive' material, including 'any … image or other communication which is obscene or indecent, knowing that the recipient is … under 18 years of age'. It argued that the Act lacked precision and thereby infringed rights under the First Amendment.

Case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
On Apr. 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Mass., and his guard were shot and killed by two men who escaped with over $15,000.

Series of trials that took place near Salem, part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1692, in which more than 150 men and women were accused and 19 found guilty of practising witchcraft, then a crime punishable by death.

From Science in the Early Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia
William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) believed in 1925 that evolution and Christianity were dueling to the death. In the most famous contest between science and religion in the United States, the former presidential candidate represented fundamentalist Christians.

In 1931 nine black youths were indicted at Scottsboro, Ala., on charges of having raped two white women in a freight car passing through Alabama. In a series of trials the youths were found guilty and sentenced to death or to prison terms of 75 to 99 years.

From Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History
Noted 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case involving three high school students from Des Moines, Iowa, whose symbolic protest against the Vietnam War resulted in expanded First Amendment protections for expressive speech in public education.

First Federal constitution of the USA, drafted by the Continental Congress in 1777.

US legislation that outlawed discrimination on the grounds of a person's colour, race, national origin, religion, or sex. Rights protected under the act include a person's freedom to seek employment. The act is considered the USA's strongest civil-rights legislation since Reconstruction.

(1966), law requiring that U.S. government agencies release their records to the public on request, unless the information sought falls into a category specifically exempted, such as national security, an individual's right to privacy, or internal agency management.

Bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. By 1854 the organization of the vast Platte and Kansas river countries W of Iowa and Missouri was overdue.

A series of acts of Parliament, the first of which was passed in 1381, that attempted to restrict to English ships the right to carry goods to and from England and its colonies.

In US history, the period 1920-33 when the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was in force, and the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol was illegal.

Revenue law passed by the British Parliament during the ministry of George Grenville.

In the United States, programs to overcome the effects of past societal discrimination by allocating jobs and resources to members of specific groups, such as minorities and women.

Proposed amendment to the US Constitution to provide for the equality of sexes under the law, originally proposed in 1923 by Alice Paul, a leader of the women's suffrage movement.

Addition to the U.S. Constitution, adopted 1868. The amendment comprises five sections. MORE

Amendment to the US Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, of speech, of assembly, and of the press. Part of the Bill of Rights, it was ratified in 1791.

In U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Clause of the Educational Amendments of 1972 that reads: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

In the USA, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, incorporated in 1791.

[Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorists], 2001, U.S. federal law intended to give federal authorities increased abilities to combat international and domestic terrorism.