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Roth v. United States, 1957
354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case, Alberts v. California, was a landmark case before the United States Supreme Court which redefined the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment -
Mapp v. Ohio, 1961
the Warren Court left an unprecedented legacy of judicial activism in the area of civil rights law as well as in the area of civil liberties—specifically, the rights of the accused as addressed in Amendments 4 through 8. In the period from 1961 to 1969, the Warren Court examined almost every aspect of the criminal justice system in the United States, using the 14th Amendment to extend constitutional protections to all courts in every State. This process became known as the “nationalization” of t -
Baker v. Carr 1962
369 U.S. 186 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that reapportionment (attempts to change the way voting districts are delineated) issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases. The defendants unsuccessfully argued that reapportionment of legislative districts is a "political question," and hence not a question that may be resolved by -
Engel v. Vitale, 1962
After World War II, the United States experienced another period of intense concern about the spread of communism abroad and fear of subversion at home. The Federal Government enacted a program requiring all employees to take loyalty oaths, while U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed there were communist agents in government. Alleged “communist spies” were called forth to give testimony before a Senate subcommittee chaired by McCarthy. These hearings had the impact of sensational court dramas th -
Gideon v. wainwright, 1963
Winston Churchill once said that the true measure of a civilized society is how it treats people accused of crimes. Although the Bill of Rights included a number of protections for people accused of crime, many of these guarantees went unenforced in state courts, which were held to be outside the reach of the federal Bill of Rights. This policy began to change in the 1930s, and during the 1960s was transformed with almost breathtaking speed by the Supreme Court headed by Earl Warren. The Americ -
Reynolds v. Sims 1964
377 U.S. 533 (1964) was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population. Voters from Jefferson County, Alabama, had challenged the apportionment of the Alabama Legislature. The Alabama Constitution provided that there be at least one representative per county and as many senatorial districts as there were senators. Ratio variances as great as 41 to 1 from one senatorial district to another existed in the Alabama Senate (i.e., -
Escobedo v. Illinois, 1964
378 U.S. 478 (1964),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. The case was decided a year after the court held in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) that indigent criminal defendants had a right to be provided counsel at trial. -
Griswold v. Connecticu 1965
381 U.S. 479 (1965),[1] was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy". Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy," Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority that the right was to be found i -
Miranda v. Ariziona, 1966
With its decisions in the cases of Mapp v. Ohio, 1961, Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963, and Escobedo v. Illinois, 1964, the Warren Court handed down the bases of what it called the “fundamentals of fairness” standard. At both the State and federal level, the Court sent a clear signal to law enforcement and criminal justice officials. Convictions not made in conformity with the “fairness” standard would likely be overturned. Constitutional guarantees of due process for the accused had to be upheld.
