A List of Landmark Supreme Court Cases and Descriptions (Essay Sample)

Landmark Supreme Court cases
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The top most federal court of the United States "The Supreme Court of the United States" (SCOTUS) is the final interpreter of the constitutional law in the country. The court that acts within the jurisdiction context was established in 1789. Under article three of the constitution, it is the most powerful court as specifically established by the law (McCloskey, 2010). Over time, many cases have been presented in the court whose rulings have had diverse consequences on the nation. The aftermath of some significant cases’ ruling has contributed to the amendments of the judiciary constitution. Such cases have set a benchmark for the subsequent cases of the similar kind. A landmark case, therefore, is an important case whose final ruling is regarded to have frequently a determination on the law upon which all other controversial cases of its kind draw the guidance from (Soltero, 2009). A case is regarded as a landmark if the decision to such a case serves as a guide for other subsequent decisions. For instance, the verdict in the case of Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 declared racial discrimination in public schools a crime. The court decision led to the fourteenth amendment of the constitution for the equal protection clause. Landmark court decisions in the US are commonly from the Supreme Court, although courts of appeal may make such rulings but only if the Supreme Court agrees to the verdict and sees no need for review. The paper is a research on the landmark cases and their impact on society and the United States at large.
The role of education in social progress was fostered by the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954. This Landmark decision led to the beginning of the equal treatment era and diversity in public schools. It is highly ranked as amid the decisions that laid the foundation of American new period of racial relations and equal rights in education. The Supreme Court’s projection of matters in education altered the political, social and economic organization of this nation. Civil rights movement developed in the nation by 1960s as an aftermath of Brown’s decision, despite Dr. Martin Luther King making pleas against the violence and riots, African Americans and some liberalized whites took to the streets against the segregated social amenities. Businesses were boycotted, and police had to react. Social issues that had not been attended to before had to be looked into, and this resulted to a constitutional revolution that went throughout the 1960’s (Katz et al., 2013). Associating the Brown’s decision with the Dred Scott decision in 1857 and the Ferguson v. Plessy decision of 1896 brings a better understanding of the court’s verdict and its impact. The three cases were filed by the African Americans, but their rulings had an impact to the entire American race than any other decision by the court. They are the pillar for social justice that has transformed America (Smith et al., 2013).
President John Adams appointed 82 Federal justices on the eve of his last day in office. The juries who were branded as the "midnight judges" paused a threat to the incoming head of state, Thomas Jefferson. The Democrat-Republican president feared the interpretation of the law by the Federalists for the following 20 years, and his fear came to reality. Jefferson directed John Madison, his secretary of state, not to hand in the official documents that would grant Marbury his position. William Marbury was one of the appointed judges. The Judge made an appeal to the Supreme Court based on the Judiciary Act of 1801 asking for an order to act (writ of mandamus). Despite Chief Justice John Marshall knowing that he would be right to order Madison to surrender the documents, he was in fear that the president would not comply thus weakening the Court image. Marshall instead ruled against the law alleging that the Act of 1801 was unconstitutional even though it wasn’t. This case ultimately affected the nature of American government. Marshall’s verdict provided the Supreme Court power for judicial review. If not for Marbury’s case there would still be nobody to declare the laws passed by the Congress unconstitutional. Racial segregation would also have taken much longer than it has done after this case. Severe limits on the freedom of speech in the country were cut down as well. The law judicial review did more good to protect the rights of the minorities in the country (Feldman, 2013).
In the 1920s, Benjamin Gitlow was a very renowned member of the socialist party. His violation of the New York Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902 led to his arrest and conviction. The law prohibited the violent attempts to overthrow the government. Gitlow had published a manifesto to violate the Anarchy Act. After his conviction in 1925, he appealed the court’s decision with the argument that his rights to press and freedom of speech had been infringed. The Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 vote for Gitlow. This was against the New York court’s ruling that directed that he be held accountable for his actions. The judgment was based on the presumption that freedom of speech and press were among a person’s fundamental rights protected by the process of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the State. Gitlow’s case established that the right to free speech is not absolute. The case indicated that some statements and words are punished by the government. It has a great impact on the society today, and as a law it has formed a basis under which most people are arrested for various speeches (Lofgren et al., 2014).
Schecter Poultry Corp v. the United States in 1933 is another landmark case of the Supreme Court. Schecter was accused by the NIRA to have sold unfit chicken to a butcher. Both the butcher and Schecter were based in New York. Schecter Poultry Company was then charged by the federal government that argued in light of the National Industrial Recovery Act. According to the Act, Schecter Poultry could be regulated by the federal government that set up codes under NRA in collaboration with different industries that set ranges of prices, minimum wages and maximum working hours as well as prohibited child labor. Schecter Poultry in defense argued that the submission by NIRA was unconstitutional since the federal government had no right to regulate intrastate trade. The Supreme Court through Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes cited Gibbons v Ogden as the example overturned the lower court's verdict and termed NIRA as unconstitutional. The court reaffirmed that the federal government could not regulate intrastate trade but only interstate. NIRA was then replaced by the NLRA Act that established the NLRB, created moderate work standards, and it passed the first minimum wage per hour as 20 cents, maximum work per week, 44 then 40 hours and it banned 16-year-olds and younger from factory jobs (Mann et al., 2013).
In the year 1857, Dred Scott v Sanford fostered the nation’s debate on slavery. Scott, the accuser, was a slave but later found his way to a free territory which motivated him to file a case arguing that his transition to the free land granted him right to freedom. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled against Scott’s submission. In his verdict, Taney declared that blacks were not American citizens thus had no right to file a case in the federal court. The ruling weakened the war against slavery since the Chief Justice further stated that the Congress lacked the privilege to make a ban on slavery in the US. The 1820 Missouri Compromise, which legislatively prohibited slavery in some stat...