By: Robert A. Biggs, III
In the tumultous times in which we live, it seems appropriate to remind ourselves, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, of its founding principles and to survey examples of landmark decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court which have endeavored to safegaurd those principles.
The framers of our Constitution established three co-equal branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. This article will focus on the judicial branch of government and the impact it has had on the lives of American citizens through its judicial decisions interpreting the U.S. Constitution in a wide variety of societal contexts.
The history of the U.S. Supreme Court is a lengthy and storied one. Judicial decisions have been vigorously debated and must necessarily be read in light of changing demographics, advancements in science and knowledge, divided cultures of a more amalgamated society and changing societal mores which provide challenging test cases. Remarkably, many of the significant decisions of the court have arisen from the life experiences of ordinary and less than noteworthy individuals.
The Supreme Court of the United States was established by Article III, Section I of the U.S. Constitution and first met in 1790. John Jay of New York was nominated by George Washington as its first Chief Justice. The Court assembled for the first time in the Merchant’s Exchange Building in New York City.
The issue of racial inequality existed since the inception of our country was grounded in the scourge of slavery. The U.S. Supreme Court in an evolutionary trio of decisions beginning with its 1857 Decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford1 and culminating in the 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education2 a case which established the equal right to access to public education irrespective of an individual’s race.
The pre-civil war decision of Dred Scott is largely regarded by many legal scholars as on the list of the worst legal decisions in the court’s history. It necessarily must be viewed in the context of a nation on the precipice of war. At the time of its rendering, the country was deeply divided on the issue of slavery. Dred Scott, an enslaved african-american man from the State of Missouri, where slavery was legal, had been transported to Illinois, a free territory where slavery was illegal.
Upon his return to Missouri, he sued in Missouri state court alleging he had become a free man predicated on the notion that he was emancipated when he crossed state lines. The Court in a 7-2 decision ruled against Scott and in doing held that people of African descent were not included under the word “citizen” in the U.S. Constitution and thus were not entitled to the same rights and privileges as other citizens.
In the 1896 Post Civil-War decision on Plessy v. Ferguson3, the Court repudiated the earlier rationale of the Dred Scott decision by acknowledging that the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution guaranteed equal rights and privileges to both whites and blacks but upheld the principle of “separate but equal” in the Court in a 7-1 decision. Justice Henry Billings writing for the Court provided, in pertinent part, the rationale as follows:
“The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the races before the law, but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.”
It was not until 1954, that the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, finally ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional.
The decade of the turbulent 1960’s brought about significant other Supreme Court decisions addressing the rights of an individual. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides:
“In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of Counsel for his Defense.”
In the area of those accused of crimes, the court was quite prolific in the decisions it rendered concerning valuable rights derived under the Fifth and Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In the 1963 decision of Gideon v. Wainwright4, the Court held that Clarence Earl Gideon, a homeless man who could not afford an attorney, was entitled to a court appointed attorney under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The significance of the decision lies in the fact that Gideon was charged with breaking and entering into a bar, considered a felony under Florida law. At the time, Florida law only required counsel to be appointed in the instance of an accused charged with a capital offense, punishable by death. The ruling had significance in that it ultimately expanded an accused right to an attorney in any serious criminal case, in all fifty states.
A year later, in 1964, the Court handed down another seminal decision in Escobedo v. Illinois5, in which it interpreted rights accorded an accused under the Fifth and Sixth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court held that criminal suspects have a right to legal counsel, while in custody, during police interrogations. Under the extreme facts of the case, Danny Escobedo was arrested without a warrant and interrogated by police for the suspected murder of his brother-in-law. After trying to coerce a confession, which Escobedo declined to give, he requested an attorney. In fact, his attorney came to the police station on several occasions, requesting to see his client. On each occasion, the police refused to allow him access to his client. The police ultimately interrogated the accused for fourteen and a half hours, continuing to deny him access to his attorney despite his continuing to request access to his client. During the grueling interrogation Escobedo made incriminatory statements utilized by the prosecution in obtaining his conviction for murder.
Two years later in 1966, the Supreme Court again spoke to the right of an accused faced with police interrogation. In Miranda v. Arizona6, the court combined the rights of an accused afforded by both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to outline the procedure now known as the reading of “Miranda Rights” mandatorily given an accused after arrest and prior to interrogation. As every schoolboy and girl knows today, an accused must be advised of four things:
- You have the right to remain silent.
- Anything you say can and will be held against you.
- You have the right to an attorney.
- If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you.
Critics of the decision have argued the practical obstacles necessary to implementation of the practice in given situations, e.g., the accused inability to understand the warning and the practicality of one’s ability to invoke it given the exigent circumstances of the arrest in certain instances. Nonetheless Miranda has survived years of critisism and remains the law of the land.
In 1962, the court handed down yet another controversial, hotly debated decision in Engel v. Vitale7, deciding whether a public school in New York could start the school day with a prayer invoking “Almighty God.” The persons bringing the complaint were members of the Jewish faith, an atheist, and a unitarian church member. The court held that it was unconstitutional to encourage unversal participation in a prayer by all school students.
In June 1967, the Supreme Court entered into the matrimonial field of the law in its significant decision in Loving v. Virginia8, involving the rights of parties to an interracial marriage. Richard Loving, a white man, and wife, Mildred Loving, a african-american woman, were sentenced to prison for violating state law prohibiting interracial marriages. The Loving’s prison sentence was suspended on the condition that they leave their residence in the state and not return. Virginia’s state law entitled the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924” was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the Court under authority of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by a unanimous vote of the Justices.
Since the turn of the century, the court has continued to pass on the Constitutionality in the enforcement of controversial laws affecting the rights of American citizens. It has done so in the face of longstanding and established societal customs and mores. In 2003, the court handed down its decision Lawrence v. Texas9. The case involved a police response to a weapons disturbance in a private residence. When the police arrived, they observed two men engaged in a sexual act. Both men were arrested and ultimately convicted of deviant conduct despite the fact that they were engaged in a private consensual sexual act. Texas law made it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual contact. The issue framed in the lower court, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, was whether the Federal Constitution conferred a fundamental right to engage in Sodomy. The Court ultimately held the law to be unconstitutional under the protections afforded under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In another hotly debated case, the Supreme Court in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller10 decided yet another controversial issue in favor of the individual rights of a U.S. citizen to possess firarms in the home, which right was derived from the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court held that a District of Columbia law prohibiting the possession of operable firearms in the home was unconstitutional.
The cases in this article comprise a small smattering of the jurisprudence established by 236 years of the court’s existence. Each, however, are worthy of study and are reflective of the Court’s zealous efforts to preserve the protections assured all citizens under our Constitution. It is a noble, but challenging charge given the complexities of a growing and demographically diverse citizen population. Each decision, however controversial and imperfect at times, more often than not, reflect an honest attempt by the Court to secure the blessings of liberty and justice in protection of the rights of individuals, our Constitution is designed to protect.
Footnotes:
- Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856)
- Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
- Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
- Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)
- Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964)
- Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
- Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1967)
- Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
- Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)
- District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
By: Robert A. Biggs, III
In the tumultous times in which we live, it seems appropriate to remind ourselves, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, of its founding principles and to survey examples of landmark decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court which have endeavored to safegaurd those principles.
The framers of our Constitution established three co-equal branches of government, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. This article will focus on the judicial branch of government and the impact it has had on the lives of American citizens through its judicial decisions interpreting the U.S. Constitution in a wide variety of societal contexts.
The history of the U.S. Supreme Court is a lengthy and storied one. Judicial decisions have been vigorously debated and must necessarily be read in light of changing demographics, advancements in science and knowledge, divided cultures of a more amalgamated society and changing societal mores which provide challenging test cases. Remarkably, many of the significant decisions of the court have arisen from the life experiences of ordinary and less than noteworthy individuals.
The Supreme Court of the United States was established by Article III, Section I of the U.S. Constitution and first met in 1790. John Jay of New York was nominated by George Washington as its first Chief Justice. The Court assembled for the first time in the Merchant’s Exchange Building in New York City.
The issue of racial inequality existed since the inception of our country was grounded in the scourge of slavery. The U.S. Supreme Court in an evolutionary trio of decisions beginning with its 1857 Decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford1 and culminating in the 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education2 a case which established the equal right to access to public education irrespective of an individual’s race.
The pre-civil war decision of Dred Scott is largely regarded by many legal scholars as on the list of the worst legal decisions in the court’s history. It necessarily must be viewed in the context of a nation on the precipice of war. At the time of its rendering, the country was deeply divided on the issue of slavery. Dred Scott, an enslaved african-american man from the State of Missouri, where slavery was legal, had been transported to Illinois, a free territory where slavery was illegal.
Upon his return to Missouri, he sued in Missouri state court alleging he had become a free man predicated on the notion that he was emancipated when he crossed state lines. The Court in a 7-2 decision ruled against Scott and in doing held that people of African descent were not included under the word “citizen” in the U.S. Constitution and thus were not entitled to the same rights and privileges as other citizens.
In the 1896 Post Civil-War decision on Plessy v. Ferguson3, the Court repudiated the earlier rationale of the Dred Scott decision by acknowledging that the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution guaranteed equal rights and privileges to both whites and blacks but upheld the principle of “separate but equal” in the Court in a 7-1 decision. Justice Henry Billings writing for the Court provided, in pertinent part, the rationale as follows:
“The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the races before the law, but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.”
It was not until 1954, that the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, finally ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional.
The decade of the turbulent 1960’s brought about significant other Supreme Court decisions addressing the rights of an individual. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides:
“In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of Counsel for his Defense.”
In the area of those accused of crimes, the court was quite prolific in the decisions it rendered concerning valuable rights derived under the Fifth and Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In the 1963 decision of Gideon v. Wainwright4, the Court held that Clarence Earl Gideon, a homeless man who could not afford an attorney, was entitled to a court appointed attorney under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The significance of the decision lies in the fact that Gideon was charged with breaking and entering into a bar, considered a felony under Florida law. At the time, Florida law only required counsel to be appointed in the instance of an accused charged with a capital offense, punishable by death. The ruling had significance in that it ultimately expanded an accused right to an attorney in any serious criminal case, in all fifty states.
A year later, in 1964, the Court handed down another seminal decision in Escobedo v. Illinois5, in which it interpreted rights accorded an accused under the Fifth and Sixth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court held that criminal suspects have a right to legal counsel, while in custody, during police interrogations. Under the extreme facts of the case, Danny Escobedo was arrested without a warrant and interrogated by police for the suspected murder of his brother-in-law. After trying to coerce a confession, which Escobedo declined to give, he requested an attorney. In fact, his attorney came to the police station on several occasions, requesting to see his client. On each occasion, the police refused to allow him access to his client. The police ultimately interrogated the accused for fourteen and a half hours, continuing to deny him access to his attorney despite his continuing to request access to his client. During the grueling interrogation Escobedo made incriminatory statements utilized by the prosecution in obtaining his conviction for murder.
Two years later in 1966, the Supreme Court again spoke to the right of an accused faced with police interrogation. In Miranda v. Arizona6, the court combined the rights of an accused afforded by both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to outline the procedure now known as the reading of “Miranda Rights” mandatorily given an accused after arrest and prior to interrogation. As every schoolboy and girl knows today, an accused must be advised of four things:
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be held against you.
You have the right to an attorney.
If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you.
Critics of the decision have argued the practical obstacles necessary to implementation of the practice in given situations, e.g., the accused inability to understand the warning and the practicality of one’s ability to invoke it given the exigent circumstances of the arrest in certain instances. Nonetheless Miranda has survived years of critisism and remains the law of the land.
In 1962, the court handed down yet another controversial, hotly debated decision in Engel v. Vitale7, deciding whether a public school in New York could start the school day with a prayer invoking “Almighty God.” The persons bringing the complaint were members of the Jewish faith, an atheist, and a unitarian church member. The court held that it was unconstitutional to encourage unversal participation in a prayer by all school students.
In June 1967, the Supreme Court entered into the matrimonial field of the law in its significant decision in Loving v. Virginia8, involving the rights of parties to an interracial marriage. Richard Loving, a white man, and wife, Mildred Loving, a african-american woman, were sentenced to prison for violating state law prohibiting interracial marriages. The Loving’s prison sentence was suspended on the condition that they leave their residence in the state and not return. Virginia’s state law entitled the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924” was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the Court under authority of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by a unanimous vote of the Justices.
Since the turn of the century, the court has continued to pass on the Constitutionality in the enforcement of controversial laws affecting the rights of American citizens. It has done so in the face of longstanding and established societal customs and mores. In 2003, the court handed down its decision Lawrence v. Texas9. The case involved a police response to a weapons disturbance in a private residence. When the police arrived, they observed two men engaged in a sexual act. Both men were arrested and ultimately convicted of deviant conduct despite the fact that they were engaged in a private consensual sexual act. Texas law made it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual contact. The issue framed in the lower court, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, was whether the Federal Constitution conferred a fundamental right to engage in Sodomy. The Court ultimately held the law to be unconstitutional under the protections afforded under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In another hotly debated case, the Supreme Court in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller10 decided yet another controversial issue in favor of the individual rights of a U.S. citizen to possess firarms in the home, which right was derived from the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court held that a District of Columbia law prohibiting the possession of operable firearms in the home was unconstitutional.
The cases in this article comprise a small smattering of the jurisprudence established by 236 years of the court’s existence. Each, however, are worthy of study and are reflective of the Court’s zealous efforts to preserve the protections assured all citizens under our Constitution. It is a noble, but challenging charge given the complexities of a growing and demographically diverse citizen population. Each decision, however controversial and imperfect at times, more often than not, reflect an honest attempt by the Court to secure the blessings of liberty and justice in protection of the rights of individuals, our Constitution is designed to protect.
Footnotes:
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)
Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964)
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1967)
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
