Classifications In Supreme Court Cases

Case: In the late 1950's the New York State Board of Regents wrote and adopted a prayer, which was supposed to be nondenominational. The board recommended that students in public schools say the prayer on a voluntary basis every morning. In New Hyde Park Long Island a parent sued the school claiming that the prayer violated the first amendment of the constitution. The school argued that the prayer was nondenominational and did not attempt to "establish or endorse" a religion and thus that it did not violate the establishment clause.

The Supreme Court is the courtroom where all the legal cases dealing with congress or the constitution go to get a final decision. The Court is currently composed of a chief justice, eight associate justices, and nine officers. Their main goal as members of the Supreme Court is to make sure everything and anything abides by the constitution. It has many powers when it comes to law and especially the constitution, but it is not overly powerful due to the other two branches of the government. Checks and balances helps keep their powers level and just as important as the executive and legislative branch powers. The Court has the ability to remove a law or refute anything that violates the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court, on average, receives around 7,000-8,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari every term. The Court grants and hears oral arguments for eighty cases. One case specifically was Printz v. United States. This case focused on dealing with background checks when purchasing a firearm. Jay Printz deemed the provisions to the Brady Bill unconstitutional, decided to take it to the District Courts and eventually the case ended up in the Supreme Court, where Stephen P. Halbrook fought and won the case based on a five to four ruling in favor of Printz.

Generally, the statutory classification provided by Congress is presumptively valid, unless such a classification is considered suspect. The classification touches upon race or ethnicity of citizens falls within one of the suspect categories. The Court stated that “all racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995). Thus, suspect classifications are presumed to be void and subjected to heightened scrutiny.

Also commonly referred to as The Steel Seizure Case, it was a United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the US Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress. The Majority decision was that the President had no power to act except in those cases expressly or implicitly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.

Background: 1965 three students from Des Moines, Iowa (15 year old John Tinker; his sister, 13 year Mary Beth Tinker; and a friend, 16 year old Christopher Eckhardt), opposing the Vietnam War came up with a plan to wear black arm bands to their respective schools. The arm bands were to serve the purposes of symbolizing a protest against the Vietnam War. School officials got wind of the children’s protest plans and created a policy that if student showed up at school wearing black bands would be suspended and unable to return to school until they agreed to follow the “no black arm band” policy. All three children still chose to wear the black arm bands to school and all three were suspended from school.

The three tiers of the American federal court system consists of the Supreme Court, District courts which are also referred to trial courts, Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the Supreme Court.

As part of their journalism class students produced a newspaper with a collection of student-written articles about teen pregnancy and the impact of divorce on kids. As a result, the principal made the decision to delete the two articles from that edition of the school’s newspaper. Consequently, three students sued the school district alleging violation of their First Amendment rights.

Segeration was a big thing and was very controversial throughout the United States.They were many court cases and debates about the segreation.Segeration was when the blacks and white were seperated and were based of their color which limited most of the tings that they could do.But in the Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the whites and blacks could be sepreated but equal if it didnt violate the Constuition.This was the start to ending segreation in United States.This lead up to the Brown vs Board supreme court case on segraton in schools.

When a University implements special admissions requirements, like race and ethnicity, the Court called “ for the most exacting judicial scrutiny” when reviewing cases of this nature (Bakke v U.S.). For this, the rational-basis test is faulty. Strict-scrutiny is prescribed to examine race cases.

On the other hand, section 4 of the act highlights the need to adopt special coverage formulas to integrate the minority groups in the entire electoral process. In many instances, the act requires that such special coverage formulas to be cleared by the federal agencies before they can be applied. The fundamental goal of the preclearance provision is to prevent discrimination against certain groups of voters who may be deemed to antagonize the general position of their local political trends. However, this provision has since been deemed unconstitutional in the Shelby County v. Holder Case of 2013 (Fuller, 2014). Despite the perceived unconstitutionality of the two sections of the act, and the attempts to review the act to eliminate the clauses, analyses of the political dynamics indicate that the two sections are still relevant in American politics.

The Brown v. Board of Education Court Case was a very highlighted issue in black history. Brown v. Board help different races comes together in public schools. This case became very big 1950s lots of attention was drawn to the case at that time. News reporter and critics had different views and opinions about this case. This case in 1954 causes lots of issues and views. The quote “separate but equal” is vital due to “Plessy v. Ferguson” and the famous lawyer Thurgood Marshall who argued this case, and the success of this case itself.

In the courts of the United States there are three different models of judicial decision making that the Supreme Court uses. Included are the legal model, in which the decisions are based solely on the provided facts on the case. (Mitchel) It can also choose to let previous case hearings and decisions influence the decision for the case at hand. An example would be Reno v. ACLU where the court ruled that the anti-obscenity law was to broadly written that it violated the first amendment right. (Mitchel) Another methodology used is the attitudinal model, where the justices can make any decision they wish without fear of losing their job due to their life term in the position. (Mitchel) A way of viewing this would be imagining a bench with a mixture of conservative and liberal justices, the way the judges interpret the constitution is based on their own ideologies, meaning that the conservative justice will interpret the constitution in a conservative way, and vice versa for the liberal justices. (Mitchel) An example being in the 2000 election, in which the fiasco of Bush’s victory in Florida ended up having to be hand tallied, the Supreme Court intervened and due to the five conservative justices ruling against four liberal justices, the court ruled that the hand tally should cease and that Bush should be elected President. (Mitchel) The final method of explanation is the strategic model, which states that justices make decisions based on they think their peers will vote, and

To prove a substantial relationship, a state actor must show that “the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.” United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 516 (1996). To show a substantial relation, the justification for discrimination “must be genuine, not hypothesized . . . and it must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.” Id. at 533.

Discrimination on the basis of class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity operates at the level of attitude, on the street, in the home, at the workplace or at social venues. In regards to the Criminal Justice System, race and gender are always accounted for in court proceedings. As

The Supreme Court has had many different places where it was located over the years. There has been a struggle to find a permanent home for the most powerful court of law. At first, the meetings were in the Merchant Exchange Building in New York City. The court then followed the nation's capitol to Philadelphia in 1790. In 1800 the court again relocated to Washington DC. At first they spent their time meeting in various places. The place to find the Supreme Court now is in Washington DC, on First Street located in Northeast.