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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.

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.

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.

Alexander v. Yale

In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled, in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, that a hostile work environment constituted sexual discrimination, vindicating another line of argument in Alexander v. Yale.

Benjamin Ogle Tayloe

Tayloe's lease to Willard later generated an important case before the Supreme Court of the United States.

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.

Bowman v. Monsanto Co.

Clarence Thomas, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, had formerly served as a lawyer for the Monsanto Corporation.

Bradford R. Wood

He became counselor in the New York Supreme Court in 1835 and in the United States Supreme Court in 1845.

Bryant Bowles

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

California Criminal Syndicalism Act

One of the Act's most well-known convictions was that of Charlotte Anita Whitney, which led to the Act being upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Whitney v. California (1927), which was itself explicitly overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), effectively declaring the Act unconstitutional.

California gubernatorial election, 2002

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

Campaign for Better Health Care

A case that originates from CBHC’s helpline goes to the Supreme Court in 1998, which rules in 2002 in favor that no HMO can refuse to allow you to get a second opinion.

Capital punishment in Louisiana

The Supreme Court, however, ruled it unconstitutional on 25 June 2008 in Kennedy v. Louisiana, saying "there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons".

Capital punishment in Wyoming

A total of 18 individuals were executed in the state of Wyoming prior to the 1972 Supreme Court capital punishment ban.

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.

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.

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.

ConnectU

In May 2011, after the Court of Appeals found against the Winklevosses, the twins announced that they would petition the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case.

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.

Daniel S. Schanck Observatory

The Schanck Observatory was dedicated on 18 June 1866 with an address given by Joseph P. Bradley (1813–1892), a Rutgers College alumnus (A.B. 1836) and prominent attorney who four years later was installed as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Daniel T.K. Hurley

He entered George Washington University Law School, and while a law student worked as a legislative aide, in the House Post Office, and attended sessions of Congress and the Supreme Court.

David W. Burcham

He graduated first in his class from Loyola Law School, and clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Byron White (1986–87) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for Chief Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert (1984–86).

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.

Emily Lyons

In 2005, Lyons appeared in a controversial advertisement opposing the nomination to the Supreme Court of John G. Roberts, who seven years before the bombing had filed a brief opposing the prosecution of abortion clinic blockaders under the federal Ku Klux Klan Act.

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".

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.

Forensic psychology

As a result of Ford v. Wainwright, a case by a Florida inmate on death row that was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, forensic psychologists are appointed to assess the competency of an inmate to be executed in death penalty cases.

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.

Four Corners Monument

This issue was resolved when New Mexico sued Colorado in 1919, and in 1925 the Supreme Court ruled that the markers placed during the initial surveys were the actual borders, even if the markers were off in some locations (this includes the Four Corners Monument).

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.

George Starbuck

He was fired by SUNY-Buffalo for not taking a loyalty oath, but was vindicated in the Supreme Court.

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.

Gwendolyn T. Britt

She was one of five Howard University students who were plaintiffs in civil rights suits that were heard before the Supreme Court arguing for desegregation of the amusement park.

Hale Woodruff

Located in Savery Library, they depict events on the ship, the U.S. Supreme Court trial, and the Mende people's return to Africa.

History of Montgomery, Alabama

After the Supreme Court upheld the ruling in November, the city desegregated the bus system, and the boycott was ended.

I. Beverly Lake, Sr.

When the United States Supreme Court invited North Carolina to appear as amicus curiae in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, Lake argued against it, telling the governor that it was a "diabolical scheme" designed to subject the state directly to whatever orders the Court issued as a consequence of the decision.

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.

Irvin C. Scarbeck

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

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.

Jimmy L. Glass

He is probably best known not for his crime, but as petitioner in the U.S. Supreme Court case Glass v. Louisiana.

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.

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 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).

Johnny Leartice Robinson

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

Joseph D. Kearney

A former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Scalia, he is a scholar of civil litigation practice and procedure.

Joseph Glimco

On November 16, 1959, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Hoffa's appeal, and the Board of Monitors pledged to move immediately to force Glimco out.

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.

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.

Lesser included offense

In the United States, even if any of the states were to eliminate the merger doctrine, a conviction for both an offense and any of its lesser-included offenses, not tried in the same case, might be found to be prohibited by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299 (1932).

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.

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.

McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm'n

The Arizona Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear the case.

Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission

The "sovereignty" the state was trying to protect was against federal enforcement of civil rights laws, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, and U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

Move to Amend

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

National City Lines

In 1948, the United States Supreme Court (in United States v. National City Lines Inc.) permitted a change in venue to the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois.

National Collegiate women's ice hockey championship

In 1992, the Supreme Court of the United States status cut and when the plaintiffs can ask for compensatory damage to universities and colleges by virtue of the Title IX if the discrimination is deliberate.

Oriole Park

This resulted in the famous Supreme Court decision, in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, that exempted baseball from antitrust laws, a ruling that still stands.

Paul Posnak

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

Paul Schenck

In Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, Schenck's challenge to a court order prohibiting certain forms of sidewalk counseling went to the Supreme Court in 1996.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

The cross now awaits removal, unless there is a fifth appeal by the Justice Department that could potentially bring the case to the Supreme Court.

Richard Raysman

Raysman is admitted to the New York and Connecticut State bars, the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York.

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.

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.

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.

Safford Unified School District

Safford Unified School District v. Redding, a case involving the strip search of Savana Redding, a 13-year-old student of Safford Middle School, reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009.

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.

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.

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.

Sau Lan Wu

She first experienced racial discrimination when visiting the Supreme Court and was confronted with the choice of ‘black’ or ‘white’ on the door to the restroom.

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.

Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act

In Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Dabit, 547 U.S. 71 (2006), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that SLUSA operated to preempt state law "holder" claims, which alleged injury based on the prolonged retention of stock due to fraud, as well as claims arising from the fraud-induced purchase or sale of securities.

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".

Shannon McGauley

McGauley believes sodomy and homosexuality are "improper", but said he respects the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas which struck down the criminal prohibition of sodomy in Texas.

Short list

It may also be used for the presidential nominations of federal and Supreme Court justices.

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.

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.

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.

Spencer Haywood

The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before the NBA agreed to a settlement.

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."

State Senator

This changed in 1963 when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that state legislatures must apportion seats in both houses according to population.

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 Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

The book begins by examining the family history and early life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the future U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and goes on to recount the acquaintance among Holmes, James, Peirce, Dewey and others, and how their association led to James' development of pragmatism.

The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge

Prominent New York Times writers have contributed with essays on health, the Supreme Court and war, among other topics.

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.

Todd Tiahrt

"Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court justice, if those circumstances were in place, is it possible that we would be denied his great mind?"

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.

WHOL

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

Yosef Abramowitz

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


Brunswick Town, North Carolina

Maurice, a future colonial governor and father of Supreme Court Associate Justice Alfred Moore, named the town after Brunswick-Lüneburg, the German territory ruled by Great Britain's reigning King George I.

Caitlin Halligan

In 2009, Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio included Halligan's name on a list of possible nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Canton Railroad

The Canton Railroad dispute with Maryland involving whether the state franchise tax on railroad activities in the port of Baltimore violated the Import-Export or Commerce Clauses of the Constitution led to the Supreme Court case Canton Railroad Company v. Rogan, 340 U.S. 511 (1951).

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.

Cleburne, Texas

In 1985, the city was the petitioner in the U.S. Supreme Court case City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. after being sued over a special-use permit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Henry Brockholst Livingston

Henry Brockholst Livingston (November 25, 1757 – March 18, 1823) was an American Revolutionary War officer, a justice of the New York Court of Appeals and eventually an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

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.

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 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.

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.

Kansas City Public Schools

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

Markman hearing

Holding a Markman hearing in patent infringement cases has been common practice since the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1996 case of Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., found that the language of a patent is a matter of law for a judge to decide, not a matter of fact for a jury to decide.

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.

Mendi Bible

Adams, a former President of the United States and a then-U.S. Representative, was given the Bible as a gift in thanks for his representation of the Mende captives before the Supreme Court, who were freed when the Court ruled in their favor.

Michaelmas

The U.S. Supreme Court follows this tradition (though not by name) by convening each new term the first Monday in October, which is shortly after Michaelmas.

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.

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).

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.

Roger Keith Coleman

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the District Court's ruling, as did the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Hound of Heaven

Thompson's poem is also the source of the phrase, "with all deliberate speed," used by the Supreme Court in Brown II, the remedy phase of the famous decision on school desegregation.

The John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law

The journal was cited by a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc.

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.

Wickliffe Draper

He had also promoted opposition to the desegregation of public schools mandated by the Supreme Court's 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education.