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100 unusual facts about Supreme Court of the United States


1963 Pulitzer Prize

Anthony Lewis of The New York Times, for his distinguished reporting of the proceedings of the United States Supreme Court during the year, with particular emphasis on the coverage of the decision in the reapportionment case and its consequences in many of the States of the Union.

Ackley, Iowa

The Iowa state constitution was amended in 1882, making the production and sale of alcoholic beverages illegal within the state (i.e. Iowa became a “dry state.”) The Supreme Court declared the amendment unconstitutional in 1883, but the Iowa legislature then passed another very strict prohibition law.

ADA Amendments Act of 2008

Passed on September 17, 2008, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 25, 2008, the ADAAA was a response to a number of decisions by the Supreme Court that had interpreted the original text of the ADA.

Arthur W. Mitchell

Mitchell's suit was advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the railroad violated the Interstate Commerce Act.

Black World Wide Web protest

The Communications Decency Act which gave rise to the protest was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court by a 9-0 vote on June 26, 1997, which upheld a federal district court ruling.

Blue Ridge Dam

TEPCO challenged the constitutionality of the TVA Act in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law in 1939, and TEPCO was forced to sell its assets to TVA for $78 million in August of that year.

Boston Sugar Refinery

This was the first prosecution brought in front of the Supreme Court under the Sherman Act.

Bryant Bowles

In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

Caleb Nelson

After graduating from Yale, Nelson clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and then for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.

California gubernatorial election, 2002

In 2000, the United States Supreme Court in California Democratic Party v. Jones struck down California's blanket primary.

California State Route 13

The route currently begins at Interstate 580 near Mills College in East Oakland and continues north as the Warren Freeway, named after former Alameda County District Attorney, California Governor and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Camp Nordland

One of those convicted, August Klapprott, a naturalised American citizen, later petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States in Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601 (1949), to intervene in the revocation of his citizenship and proposed deportation that resulted from his conviction.

Cardus Education Survey Canada

Christian school graduates and religious home educated graduates show more confidence in corporations and the federal government, but less in the institutions of the federal government, the Supreme Court, the media, and the scientific community.

Carl Marzani

He was convicted on 22 June 1947, but nine counts were overturned on appeal, while the Supreme Court split 4-4 on a rare rehearing of the last two charges.

Chickasaw, Alabama

It was the subject of a Supreme Court of the United States decision (Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946)), which stated that despite being a privately owned town, because it functioned as a town open to the public, the right conferred by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution cannot be abridged.

Child pornography laws in the United States

Pornography is generally protected speech, unless it is obscene, as the Supreme Court of the United States held in 1973 in Miller v. California.

In May 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the 2003 federal law Section 2252A(a)(3)(B) of Title 18, United States Code that criminalizes the pandering and solicitation of child pornography, in a 7-to-2 ruling penned by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Chinatown, Los Angeles

After thirty years of decay, a Supreme Court ruling approved condemnation of the area to allow for construction of a major rail terminal, Union Station.

Christine Comer

In mid 2008, Comer filed a suit in federal court in Austin, Texas, that stated that the policy she was terminated for contravening (which required employees to be neutral on the subject of creationism) was unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that teaching creationism as science in public schools is illegal.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

The Supreme Court of the United States in a nearly unanimous decision declared the act unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) with Justice John Marshall Harlan providing the lone dissent.

Constitutional Carry

The phrase "Constitutional Carry" reflects the view that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution permits no restrictions or other regulations on gun ownership, although District of Columbia v. Heller, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2008, suggests that some state or local controls may be allowed, at least as to certain types of weapons.

Counterintelligence Field Activity

In addition, the Supreme Court of the United States found in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) the right to privacy against government intrusion was protected by the "penumbras" of other Constitutional provisions.

Courtroom

An exception was the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who broke tradition by adorning his robe with four gold stripes on each sleeve.

Dean H. Kenyon

In 1987 in Edwards v. Aguillard the Supreme Court heard a case concerning a Louisiana Law that required "creation science" be taught on an equal basis with evolution in public schools.

Educational segregation in Sunflower County, Mississippi

Green v. County School Board of New Kent County 1968 and Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education 1969 caused the Supreme Court to declare that integration in schools had to accomplished immediately.

Edward Rumely

In the landmark decision of United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, the Supreme Court upheld a reversal of conviction made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

El Rancho Vegas

Stripper Candy Barr was headlining at El Rancho Vegas in 1959 when she was arrested by the FBI after her appeal on a marijuana conviction originating in Texas was rejected by the US Supreme Court.

Eppley Airfield

The river cut off the oxbow during an 1877 flood, leaving behind Carter Lake on a portion of its former course; the Supreme Court ruled in 1893 that though the land cut off by the river's changed route now lay west of the Missouri, it remained part of Iowa.

Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974

This case was a landmark case during which the U.S Supreme Court made one of its first interpretations of the term "appropriate action".

Ernie Chambers

However, in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the Supreme Court held by a 6–3 vote that both practices were constitutional because of the "unique history" of the United States.

Facing Ali

The Justices decided 8-0 (with Thurgood Marshall abstaining), that "... for the reasons stated, that the Department of Justice was simply wrong as a matter of law in advising that the petitioner's beliefs were not religiously based and were not sincerely held".

Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

United States Supreme Court decisions in the late nineteenth century interpreted the amendment narrowly, and by 1910, most black voters in the South faced obstacles such as poll taxes and literacy tests, from which white voters were exempted by grandfather clauses.

Fish Wars

The so-called Boldt Decision was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 1979 and has been used as a precedent for handling other similar treaties.

Forsyth County, Georgia

Forsyth county subsequently charged large fees for parade permits until the practice was overturned in Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement (505 U.S. 123) in the Supreme Court of the United States on June 19, 1992.

Fort McHenry

A drama beginning the famous Supreme Court case involving the night arrest in Baltimore County and imprisonment here of John Merryman and the upholding of his demand for a writ of habeas corpus for release by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney occurred at the gates between Court and Federal Marshals and the commander of Union troops occupying the Fort under orders from President Abraham Lincoln in 1861.

Freedom of religion in the Philippines

The ruling went on to cite a U.S. Supreme Court decision which had held that if prohibiting the exercise of religion is merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended.

Glenn A. Fine

In September 1993, Fine married Beth Heifetz, a former law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.

Gotcha journalism

In 1964, the pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254) ended most libel protection recourse for public figures in the United States effectively clearing the way for intrusive or adversarial reportage into the public or private affairs of public figures by news media outlets whether newspapers, TV or radio.

Grace Towns Hamilton

Bond filed suit, and the Supreme Court agreed with Bond in December 1966, ordering the legislature to seat him.

Graphē paranómōn

In this it seems to resemble a court of review such as the modern U.S. Supreme Court.

Hales Bar Dam

In 1939, however, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Tennessee Electric Power Company v. TVA in which they upheld the TVA Act, and a few months later, TEPCO was forced to sell most of its assets, including Hales Bar Dam, to TVA for $78 million.

Harold B. Willey

Harold B. Willey, an American lawyer, was the Clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1952 to 1956.

Henry Schwarzschild

Henry founded this organization in response to the Supreme Court decision Gregg v. Georgia which permitted executions to resume in the United States.

Imbecile

and was used in 1927 by United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his ruling in the forced-sterilization case Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927).

Increase Sumner

In 1752 Sumner enrolled in the grammar school in Roxbury, now Roxbury Latin School, where the headmaster was William Cushing, future justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Isaac Lidsky

As a law clerk for Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2008-09, he became the first blind US Supreme Court clerk.

Jacob Hacker

Hacker is married to Oona A. Hathaway, a Professor of Law at Yale University and former Supreme Court clerk to Sandra Day O'Connor.

Jefferson County, West Virginia

The question of the constitutionality of the formation of the new state was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States in the following manner: Berkeley and Jefferson County, West Virginia, counties lying on the Potomac east of the mountains, in 1863, with the consent of the Reorganized Government of Virginia, had supposedly voted in favor of annexation to West Virginia.

Jefferson Parish Hospital District No. 2 v. Hyde

Jefferson Parish Hospital District No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U.S. 2 (1984), is a United States Supreme Court case involving "tying arrangements" and antitrust law.

Jeremy Jaynes

On March 30, 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States refused the Virginia Attorney General's petition for a writ of certiorari to review the decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia overturning the anti-spam statute.

John Doe

Another set of names often used for anonymous parties, particularly plaintiffs, are Richard Roe for males and Jane Roe for females (as in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision Roe v. Wade).

John J. Creedon

He is a member of the New York Bar and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.

John Mercer Langston School

The school was generally overcrowded before the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning school segregation.

Johnny Callison

Callison became a fan favorite in Philadelphia; Supreme Court Justice and lifelong Phillies follower Samuel Alito was one such fan, even stating that while as a boy rooting for the Phillies he "adopted Johnny Callison out there" (in right field).

Kansas City Public Schools

Missouri v. Jenkins is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court.

Kenneth Geller

On December 8, 2009, Geller moderated a panel of former Solicitors General that took place in the Supreme Court building.

Kent Conrad

On January 31, 2006, Conrad was one of only four Democrats to vote in favor of confirming Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Kevin B. Kamenetz

He is also admitted to practice before the Bars of the United States District Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Larry Alan Burns

He stayed his order for 90 days to allow for an appeal of his ruling to the entire United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court of the United States .

Lehr und Wehr Verein

As lawyers disputed whether the new law breached the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Presser became a test case which proceeded through the Criminal Courts, via the Illinois Supreme Court to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Leonard I. Garth

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito clerked for Garth from 1976 to 1977 in his first job out of law school.

LGBT rights in Louisiana

They were rendered unenforceable in 2003 by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas.

LGBT rights in the United States

In Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) the Supreme Court unanimously held that state penalty-enhancement laws for hate crimes were constitutional and did not violate First Amendment rights to freedom of thought and expression.

Louie L. Wainwright

He is most famous for being the named respondent in two U.S. Supreme Court cases: Gideon v. Wainwright in which indigents are guaranteed an attorney, and Ford v. Wainwright, in which the Court approved the common law rule prohibiting the execution of the insane.

Luis Monge

Opponents of capital punishment, in an attempt to abolish the death penalty, waged a national litigation campaign that ultimately found its way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Maryland Route 508

Adelina Road continues south as a county highway toward the unincorporated community of Adelina and the historic home Taney Place, which was the birthplace of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney.

Maury County, Tennessee

Several people were eventually charged with rioting and attempted murder; the main attorney who arrived in Columbia to defend Stephenson in the case was Thurgood Marshall, who would later become the first black United States Supreme Court justice.

Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham

Through his sister, Joanna Freda Hare, he is a brother-in-law of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Move to Amend

The nonpartisan group was created in response to the Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

National Register of Historic Places listings in Washington, D.C.

This action was eventually overturned in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Bolling v. Sharpe, which made segregated public schools illegal in the District of Columbia.

National Response Scenario Number One

In the case of an attack on Washington, the president or the presidential successor along with any potential surviving members of Congress, military leadership, department and agency heads, and Supreme Court justices would be high-value rescue targets.

Negligent entrustment

The Supreme Court of the United States has held that negligent entrustment of a vehicle to a person with a criminal reputation will support the state's seizure of that vehicle as a penalty, if it is used in the commission of a crime.

New York City Law Department

Among the better-known cases that the Department has litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court are Goldberg v. Kelly, Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, Ward v. Rock Against Racism, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, and Permanent Mission of India v. City of New York.

Northern Neck Proprietary

A portion of this estate, however, was later the subject of the landmark Supreme Court case Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816).

Occupation: Foole

Pacifica appealed this decision, which ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Orton Plantation

The elder Maurice was also the grandfather of Supreme Court Associate Justice Alfred Moore.

Paul Posnak

He has performed at the White House, the US Supreme Court, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Plitt Theatres

Paramount was required to divest the theater chain as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948).

Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Services Inc.

, 551 U.S. 224 (2007), was a case of the Supreme Court of the United States about federal court jurisdiction and foreign sovereigns.

Richmond Public Schools

The lawsuit, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, later became one of the five cases decided under the caption Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954.

Ronald Dworkin

He was a frequent commentator on contemporary political and legal issues, particularly those concerning the Supreme Court of the United States, often in the pages of The New York Review of Books.

Salazar v. Buono

Salazar v. Buono, 559 U.S. 700 (2010) was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Sarah Aldridge

After earning her undergraduate degree, followed in 1933 by her law degree from the National University of Washington, D.C. (now George Washington University), she was admitted to practice in Virginia and Washington D.C., and before the US Court of Claims and the US Supreme Court.

Scott S. Harris

The Court announced on July 1, 2013 that Harris would replace longtime Clerk William K. Suter after the latter's retirement on August 31.

Separate Car Act

Finally, the case ended in the Supreme Court of the United States in Plessy v. Ferguson with the judgment being upheld, leading to the judicial sanction of "separate but equal".

Show Me!

Show Me! was not the direct subject of the Ferber case, but the book was prominently featured by both sides in the litigation, and it played a significant role in the oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sixteenth Street Heights

Others have been dropped or ruled illegal, such as the restriction on the sale of lots to people of color, which was struck down in 1948 by the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer.

Society for Human Rights

Indeed, all gay-interest publications were deemed obscene until 1958, when the Supreme Court ruled in One, Inc. v. Olesen that publishing homosexual content did not mean the content was automatically obscene.

Stanley Fish

In the latter piece, Fish argues that, if one has some answer in mind to the question "what is free speech good for?" along the lines of "in the free and open clash of viewpoints the truth can more readily be known," then it makes no sense to defend deliberate malicious libel (such as that which was at issue in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell) in the name of "free speech."

Sumner Elementary School

Oliver Brown, Linda's father, then joined the class action lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education that was eventually heard before the Supreme Court.

Taney County, Missouri

The county was officially organized on January 4, 1837, and named in honor of Roger Brooke Taney, the fifth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, most remembered for later delivering the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

The Old Man Down the Road

This case, Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., became precedent when the U.S. Supreme Court (1993) overturned lower court rulings and awarded attorneys' fees to Fogerty, without Fogerty having to show that Zaentz's original suit was frivolous.

Thomas Jefferson Building

Senate, House and Supreme Court pages formerly attended school together in the Capitol Page School located on the attic level above the Great Hall.

Thomas Newman O'Neill, Jr.

He was a law clerk to Judge Herbert F. Goodrich, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit from 1953 to 1954, and to Justice Harold H. Burton, Supreme Court of the United States from 1954 to 1955.

Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse

who had worked at the courthouse from 1961 to 1965 as a judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals before later being elevated to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Too Young to Die?

His sentence was reversed in May 1987, by the U. S. Supreme Court, in Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U.S. 648, on the basis "a qualified juror was excluded from his trial".

Vic Eliason

After discovering UPI Supreme Court reporter Julia Brienza (born 1962) was a lesbian and had written a free-lance article on "hate radio" for The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper in Washington, DC.

Walter Nathan Tobriner

He served as president of the board from 1957 to 1961, during which time was responsible for carrying out the Supreme Court decision of 1954 which required the desegregation of public schools.

Why People Believe Weird Things

He closes retelling how a constitutional ban on teaching creationism in public schools was narrowly upheld at the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987.

Yosef Abramowitz

Abramowitz won a U.S. Supreme Court case for free speech.


1929 World Series

Attending Game 1 was 9-year-old John Paul Stevens, who would grow up to become a Supreme Court Justice.

A Planet for the President

At a later point in the novel, the President's inner circle will even launch a chemical attack on the unsuspecting—and innocent—Justices of the Supreme Court, all nine of whom will be killed in the attack.

Caroline County, Virginia

Their case went to the Supreme Court of the United States, which in 1967 found anti-miscegenation statutes to be unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia.

David Westin

After graduation, he served as a law clerk to J. Edward Lumbard of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and later clerked for Lewis F. Powell of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Economy Act

In Lynch v. United States, 292 U.S. 571 (1934) and United States v. Jackson, 302 U.S. 628 (1938), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Congress had violated federal law in eliminating certain insurance guarantees formerly offered to veterans by the War Risk Insurance Act (as amended December 24, 1919; Chapter 16, Section 12, 41 Stat. 371), and those benefits were restored.

Elisabeth Gordon Chandler

Chandler excelled especially in portraiture, and produced busts which were definitive images of such notables as Nobelist Dr. Albert Michelson, United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, Supreme Court Chief Justices John Jay, Charles Evans Hughes and Harlan Fiske Stone, actor Charles Coburn, artists James Montgomery Flagg and Alphaeus Philemon Cole, and Adlai Stevenson.

Eugene Volokh

He was a law clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and later for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Faria, California

Faria is the home of several beachfront properties along the Pacific coastline, one of which became the subject of the 1987 US Supreme Court case Nollan v. California Coastal Commission.

Gideon's Trumpet

Gideon's Trumpet is a book by Anthony Lewis describing the story behind Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that criminal defendants have the right to an attorney even if they cannot afford it.

Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research

Thanks to a contribution from the United Auto Workers “The Hand of God” was recast and donated to the city of Detroit in honor of Frank Murphy, Michigan Governor and US Supreme Court Associate Justice.

Irene Morgan

After exhausting appeals in state courts, she and her lawyers took her case on constitutional grounds to the federal courts, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Irvin C. Scarbeck

He tried to appeal his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Joe Doherty

In August 1991, Doherty was transferred to a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and on 16 January 1992 the Supreme Court of the United States overturned a 1990 Federal Appeals Court ruling by a 5-to-3 decision, paving the way for his deportation.

John Bell Williams

After the Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Board of Education ruling on May 17, 1954, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools, Williams made a speech on the House floor branding the day 'Black Monday'.

John F. Kennedy Supreme Court candidates

Although he was president for less than three years, John F. Kennedy appointed two men to the Supreme Court of the United States: Byron White and Arthur Goldberg.

John T. Fey

Before coming to the Supreme Court, Fey (pronounced "Fie") was a professor of tax law and the dean of the George Washington University Law School.

Johnny Leartice Robinson

Final appeals to the United States Supreme Court challenged the process of lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.

Joyce L. Kennard

Like her retired counterpart from the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Kennard often asks the first question in a given case.

Mena High School

Feeling the punishment was excessive, the students took legal action, and the case was eventually heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that school boards have a responsibility to assure that the constitutional rights of students are upheld.

Rick Chase

The religious nature of the event was in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and as such the school superintendent said the group would not be permitted to return.

Robin Lovitt

It would have been the 1000th execution in the United States since the Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that new capital punishment laws were constitutionally permissible in 1976.

Samuel Birdsall

Not a candidate for renomination in 1838, Birdsall was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1838; and served as district attorney of Seneca County in 1846.

Solicitor General

In many states, the Solicitor General also formulates a State's legal position in significant out-of-state cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Executioner's Song

Notable not only for its portrayal of Gilmore and the anguish surrounding the murders he committed, the book also took a central position in the national debate over the revival of capital punishment by the Supreme Court as Gilmore was the first person in the United States executed since the re-instatement of the death penalty in 1976.

WHOL

The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1955 ruled the FCC had acted properly.