Category: Supreme Court Decisions

In Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 U.S. 378 (1798), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eleventh Amendment was valid, even though the President of the United States had not formally sanctioned it. While the rationale of the Court has been debated, ...

In Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, 576 U. S. ____ (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that disparate-impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The 5-4 decision end...

In Talbot v. Janson, 3 U.S. 133 (1795), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the jurisdiction of the court extended to the seas. The Court also held that Americans who gain citizenship of another country do not waive their U.S. citizenship status. ...

On June 29, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, by a vote of 5-4, that Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The case, Glossip v. Gross, was one of the most signi...

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793) is one of the first important decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, however, is not widely known or studied in constitutional law classes because its main holding, which abrogated state sover...

In King v. Burwell, a divided Court ruled that all tax subsidies granted under the healthcare law are legal. Had the Court ruled otherwise, the sweeping healthcare reform law may have been in jeopardy. The Facts of the Case The latest ACA ...

Hayburn’s Case, 2 U.S. 409 (1792) is one of the earliest decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorized the creation of the Court, the justices did not consider their first case until 1792. Hayburn's case pre...

In Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that Texas’ specialty license plate designs constitute government speech. Accordingly, Texas was entitled to refuse to issue a confederate flag license pla...

The U.S. Supreme Court first reviewed the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873). In a 5-4 decision, the majority adopted a narrow construction of the Amendment’s Privileges and Immuniti...

By a vote of 5-4 in Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when...