Are you A Smartie or a Dum Dum?

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

O “In the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

O “Few things were better known than the immediate causes which led to the adoption of the present constitution…that the prevailing motive was to regulate commerce; to rescue it from the embarrassing and destructive consequences,…and to place it under the protection of a uniform law.”

New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)

O “The warrant requirement…is unsuited to the school environment…[and] unduly interferes with the maintenance of the swift and informed disciplinary procedures needed in the schools.”

Near v. Minnesota (1931)

O “The liberty of the press…is safeguarded from invasion by state action.”

Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)

O " . . . We think they [people of African ancestry] are . . . not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. . . ." 

Engel v. Vitale (1962)O “It is no part of the business of

government to compose official prayers.”

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

O “The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

West Virginia v. Barnette (1943)

O Symbols are a “primitive but effective way of communicating ideas,” and “a person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man’s comfort and inspiration is another’s jest and scorn.”

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

O "The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he has a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence." . . .

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

O Although, among the enumerated powers of government, we do not find the word "bank" or "incorporation," we find the great powers to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and to raise and support armies and navies . . . But it may with great reason be contended, that a government, entrusted with such ample powers . . . must also be entrusted with ample means for their execution. The power being given, it is the interest of the nation to facilitate its execution. . . . " 

Texas v. Johnson (1989)O “Government may not prohibit the

expression of an idea because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

Wisconsin v. Yoder (1971)

O “The Amish in this case have convincingly demonstrated the sincerity of their religious beliefs, the interrelationship of belief with their mode of life, . . . , and the hazards presented by the State's enforcement of a statute generally valid as to others."

Buckley v. Valeo (1976)O “A restriction on the amount of

money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.”

Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

O “The prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination."

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)

O ". . . In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views."

Roe v. Wade (1973)O …The Constitution does not explicitly mention any

right of privacy. …[T]he Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. … This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.”

Roth v. US (1957)O “All ideas having even the slightest

redeeming social importance—unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion—have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests. But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance. ”

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

O “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.”

United States v. Lopez (1995)

O “To uphold the Government's contentions here, we have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution's enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.”

Gregg v. Georgia (1976)

O “The new Georgia sentencing procedures, by contrast, focus the jury's attention on the particularized nature of the crime and the particularized characteristics of the individual defendant. While the jury is permitted to consider any aggravating or mitigating circumstances, it must find and identify at least one statutory aggravating factor before it may impose a penalty of death. In this way the jury's discretion is channeled.”

Schenck v. US (1919)O “The most stringent protection of

free speech was not to protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing panic. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances that create a clear and present danger.”

New York Times v. US (1971)

O “Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.”

Baker v. Carr (1962)O “One person, one vote.”

Regents of California v. Bakke (1970)

O “Race or ethnic background may be deemed a ‘plus’ in a particular applicant's file, yet it does not insulate the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats.”

Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

O "When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought…The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

Gitlow v. New York (1925)

O “Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure or energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason. But whatever may be thought of the redundant discourse before us, it had no chance of starting a present conflagration.” –dissenting opinion

Mapp v. Ohio (1961)O “…our holding that the exclusionary

rule is an essential part of both the 4th and 14th Amendments is not only the logical dictate of prior cases, but it also makes very good sense. There is not war between the Constitution and good sense.”

Plessey v. Ferguson (1896)

O “The 14th Amendment…could not have been intended to abolish distinction based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races.”