Final Exam

Question 1

Right to Counsel

Answer 1

under the 6th amendment there is a right to counsel for the indigent, right to counsel is a fundamental right and necessary for a fair trial

Question 2

Miranda Rights

Answer 2

a constitutional right to be informed of your constitutional rights, invoked during custodial interrogation, custodial interrogation is when you are in custody or when a reasonable person feels that they are not free to leave

Question 3

Death Penalty

Answer 3

policy issue about whether or not people should be put to death, currently not cruel and unusual punishment unless it is applied arbitrarily, to make it non-arbitrary, there should be a bifurcated trial, guilt must be proven and then there is a separate hearing to determine whether they should be put to death.

Question 4

Gideon v. Wainright

Answer 4

Clarence Earl Gideon was charged in Florida state court with a felony: having broken into and entered a poolroom with the intent to commit a misdemeanor offense. When he appeared in court without a lawyer, Gideon requested that the court appoint one for him. According to Florida state law, however, an attorney may only be appointed to an indigent defendant in capital cases, so the trial court did not appoint one. Gideon represented himself in trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Gideon filed a habeas corpus petition in the Florida Supreme Court and argued that the trial court’s decision violated his constitutional right to be represented by counsel. The Supreme Court held that the framers of the Constitution placed a high value on the right of the accused to have the means to put up a proper defense, and the state as well as federal courts must respect that right. The Court held that it was consistent with the Constitution to require state courts to appoint attorneys for defendants who could not afford to retain counsel on their own.

Question 5

Escobedo v. Illinois

Answer 5

Danny Escobedo was arrested and taken to a police station for questioning. Over several hours, the police refused his repeated requests to see his lawyer. Escobedo’s lawyer sought unsuccessfully to consult with his client. Escobedo subsequently confessed to murder. spoke for the first time of “an absolute right to remain silent.” Escobedo had not been adequately informed of his consitutitonal right to remain silent rather than to be forced to incriminate himself. The case has lost authority as precedent as the arguments in police interrogation and confession cases have shifted from the Sixth Amendment to the Fifth Amendment, emphasizing whether the appropriate warnings have been given and given correctly, and whether the right to remain silent has been waived. Right to counsel during interrogation.

Question 6

Miranda v. Arizona

Answer 6

On March 13, 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested in his house and brought to the police station where he was questioned by police officers in connection with a kidnapping and rape. After two hours of interrogation, the police obtained a written confession from Miranda. The written confession was admitted into evidence at trial despite the objection of the defense attorney and the fact that the police officers admitted that they had not advised Miranda of his right to have an attorney present during the interrogation. The jury found Miranda guilty. The Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination is available in all settings. Therefore, prosecution may not use statements arising from a custodial interrogation of a suspect unless certain procedural safeguards were in place. Such safeguards include proof that the suspect was aware of his right to be silent, that any statement he makes may be used against him, that he has the right to have an attorney present, that he has the right to have an attorney appointed to him, that he may waive these rights if he does so voluntarily, and that if at any points he requests an attorney there will be no further questioning until the attorney arrives.

Question 7

Furman v. Georgia

Answer 7

Furman was burglarizing a private home when a family member discovered him. He attempted to flee, and in doing so tripped and fell. The gun that he was carrying went off and killed a resident of the home. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The Court held that the imposition of the death penalty in these cases constituted cruel and unusual punishment and violated the Constitution. The Court’s decision forced states and the national legislature to rethink their statutes for capital offenses to assure that the death penalty would not be administered in a capricious or discriminatory manner.

Question 8

Gregg v. Georgia

Answer 8

A jury found Gregg guilty of armed robbery and murder and sentenced him to death. The Court held that a punishment of death did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments under all circumstances. (national consensus and foreign influence)

Question 9

Atkins v. Virginia

Answer 9

Daryl Renard Atkins was convicted of abduction, armed robbery, and capital murder. In the penalty phase of Atkins’ trial, the defense relied on one witness, a forensic psychologist, who testified that Atkins was mildly mentally disabled (or “mentally retarded” in the vernacular of the day). The jury sentenced Atkins to death. The Court held that executions of mentally retarded criminals are “cruel and unusual punishments” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Since it last confronted the issue, the Court reasoned that a significant number of States have concluded that death is not a suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal.

Question 10

4th Amendment

Answer 10

as a general rule we have a reasonable expectation of privacy, there shall be no searches that unreasonable or without a warrant from a magistrate, except under certain exceptions

Question 11

4th Amendment Exceptions

Answer 11

totality of the circumstances, probable cause, border searches, consent, hot pursuit, administrative inspections, drug tests, and government cell phones

Question 12

Plain View Exception

Answer 12

an exception to the warrant requirement which allows officers to seize items which they observe and immediately recognize as evidence or contraband while they are lawfully present in an area protected by the 4th Amendment

Question 13

Coolidge v. New Hampshire

Answer 13

In the wake of a “particularly brutal” murder of a fourteen-year-old girl, the New Hampshire Attorney General took charge of police activities relating to the murder. When the police applied for a warrant to search suspect Edward Coolidge’s automobile, the Attorney General, acting as a justice of the peace, authorized it. Additionally, local police had taken items from Coolidge’s home during the course of an interview with the suspect’s wife. The Court held that the searches and seizures of Coolidge’s property were unconstitutional. Justice Stewart’s opinion held that the warrant authorizing the seizure of Coolidge’s automobile was invalid because it was not issued by a “neutral and detatched magistrate.” Stewart also rejected New Hampshire’s arguments in favor of making an exception to the warrant requirement. Stewart held that neither the “incident to arrest” doctrine nor the “plain view” doctrine justified the search, and that an “automobile exception” was inapplicable.

Question 14

Search Made Incident to Lawful Arrest Exception

Answer 14

I have a warrant to arrest you but I am going to do a search of your person and the area of immediate concern, “protective sweep” for weapons or evidence that can be used against an officer or destroyed

Question 15

Chimel v. California

Answer 15

Local police officers went to Chimel’s home with a warrant authorizing his arrest for burglary. Upon serving him with the arrest warrant, the officers conducted a comprehensive search of Chimel’s residence. The search uncovered a number of items that were later used to convict Chimel. The Court held that the search of Chimel’s house was unreasonable under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court reasoned that searches “incident to arrest” are limited to the area within the immediate control of the suspect. While police could reasonably search and seize evidence on or around the arrestee’s person, they were prohibited from rummaging through the entire house without a search warrant. The Court emphasized the importance of warrants and probable cause as necessary bulwarks against government abuse.

Question 16

Automobile Exception

Answer 16

eliminates the magistrate or warrant requirement, if an officer has probable cause to search your vehicle for something, they have probable cause to search the entire vehicle for the contraband they have probable cause you have

Question 17

United States v. Ross

Answer 17

Acting on a tip that Ross was selling drugs from his car in the District of Columbia, police officers pulled Ross over, opened his trunk, and discovered a bag of heroin. After returning to the station, another search uncovered $3200 in cash. Officers acted without a warrant in each search. The Court held that since the search was done with probable cause and extended into the realm (Ross’s car) of which a magistrate issuing a warrant would have approved, the officers did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Justice Stevens defended the search of the vehicle’s trunk, arguing that if probable cause justifies a vehicle search, then every part of the vehicle is open to inspection.

Question 18

Terry Stop Exception

Answer 18

“if a reasonable prudent person would feel that his/her safety was at risk, the police have cause to search”

Question 19

Terry v. Ohio

Answer 19

Terry and two other men were observed by a plain clothes policeman in what the officer believed to be “casing a job, a stick-up.” The officer stopped and frisked the three men, and found weapons on two of them. The Court held that the search undertaken by the officer was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the weapons seized could be introduced into evidence against Terry. Attempting to focus narrowly on the facts of this particular case, the Court found that the officer acted on more than a “hunch” and that “a reasonably prudent man would have been warranted in believing [Terry] was armed and thus presented a threat to the officer’s safety while he was investigating his suspicious behavior.” The Court found that the searches undertaken were limited in scope and designed to protect the officer’s safety incident to the investigation.

Question 20

Student Exception

Answer 20

Warrant requirement not required in schools

Question 21

New Jersey v. TLO

Answer 21

T.L.O. was a high school student. School officials searched her purse suspecting she had cigarettes. The officials discovered cigarettes, a small amount of marijuana, and a list containing the names of students who owed T.L.O. money. T.L.O. was charged with possession of marijuana.

Question 22

Katz v. United States

Answer 22

Acting on a suspicion that Katz was transmitting gambling information over the phone to clients in other states, Federal agents attached an eavesdropping device to the outside of a public phone booth used by Katz. Based on recordings of his end of the conversations, Katz was convicted under an eight-count indictment for the illegal transmission of wagering information from Los Angeles to Boston and Miami. The Court ruled that Katz was entitled to Fourth Amendment protection for his conversations and that a physical intrusion into the area he occupied was unnecessary to bring the Amendment into play. “The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places,”

Question 23

Electronic Eavesdropping

Answer 23

Listening to someone’s conversation was not originally a search or seizure

Question 24

Weeks v. United States

Answer 24

Police entered the home of Fremont Weeks and seized papers which were used to convict him of transporting lottery tickets through the mail. This was done without a search warrant. Weeks took action against the police and petitioned for the return of his private possessions. The Court held that the seizure of items from Weeks’ residence directly violated his constitutional rights. The Court also held that the government’s refusal to return Weeks’ possessions violated the Fourth Amendment. To allow private documents to be seized and then held as evidence against citizens would have meant that the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring the right to be secure against such searches and seizures would be of no value whatsoever. This was the first application of what eventually became known as the “exclusionary rule.”

Question 25

Mapp v. Ohio

Answer 25

Dollree Mapp was convicted of possessing obscene materials after an admittedly illegal police search of her home for a fugitive. The Court declared that “all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by [the Fourth Amendment], inadmissible in a state court.” This placed the requirement of excluding illegally obtained evidence from court at all levels of the government.

Question 26

United States v. Leon

Answer 26

The exclusionary rule requires that evidence illegally seized must be excluded from criminal trials. Leon was the target of police surveillance based on an anonymous informant’s tip. The police applied to a judge for a search warrant of Leon’s home based on the evidence from their surveillance. A judge issued the warrant and the police recovered large quantities of illegal drugs. Leon was indicted for violating federal drug laws. The justices held that evidence seized on the basis of a mistakenly issued search warrant could be introduced at trial. The exclusionary rule, argued the majority, is not a right but a remedy justified by its ability to deter illegal police conduct. In Leon, the costs of the exclusionary rule outweighed the benefits. The rule cannot deter police in a case like Leon, where they act in good faith on a warrant issued by a judge.

Question 27

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Answer 27

red Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in an area of the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott sued unsuccessfully in the Missouri courts for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. Scott then brought a new suit in federal court. The Court using an originalist construction decided that slaves are not citizens under the 14th amendment, but property and do not have a right to sue in Court

Question 28

Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer 28

The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy – who was seven-eighths Caucasian – took a seat in a “whites only” car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. The Court held that equal protection clause gives legal equality, not social equality, created “badge of inferiority”. Segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination.

Question 29

Civil Rights Cases

Answer 29

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 affirmed the equality of all persons in the enjoyment of transportation facilities, in hotels and inns, and in theaters and places of public amusement. Though privately owned, these businesses were like public utilities, exercising public functions for the benefit of the public and, thus, subject to public regulation. In five separate cases, a black person was denied the same accommodations as a white person in violation of the 1875 Act. The Court held that only state discriminatory action was unconstitutional, not private action

Question 30

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Answer 30

This case was the consolidation of four cases arising in separate states relating to the segregation of public schools on the basis of race. In each of the cases, African American minors had been denied admittance to certain public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race. They argued that such segregation violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that “separate but equal” facilities are inherently unequal and violate the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also held that the segregation of public education based on race instilled a sense of inferiority that had a hugely detrimental effect on the education and personal growth of African American children. Told schools to desegregate with “all deliberate speed”

Question 31

Separate but Equal

Answer 31

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law according to which racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment

Question 32

Swann v. Charlotte-Mcklenburg Board of Education

Answer 32

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools. The Supreme Court of the United Court held that busing was an appropriate remedy for the problem of racial imbalance in schools, even when the imbalance resulted from the selection of students based on geographic proximity to the school rather than from deliberate assignment based on race. This was done to ensure the schools would be “properly” integrated and that all students would receive equal educational opportunities regardless of their race.

Question 33

Miliken v. Bradley

Answer 33

Milliken v. Bradley was a significant United States Supreme Court case dealing with the planned desegregation busing of public school students across district lines among 53 school districts in metropolitan Detroit. The ruling clarified the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation, confirming that segregation was allowed if it was not considered an explicit policy of each school district. In particular, the Court held that the school systems were not responsible for desegregation across district lines unless it could be shown that they had each deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation.

Question 34

Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District

Answer 34

The Seattle School District allowed students to apply to any high school in the District. Since certain schools often became oversubscribed when too many students chose them as their first choice, the District used a system of tiebreakers to decide which students would be admitted to the popular schools. The second most important tiebreaker was a racial factor intended to maintain racial diversity. The Court held that racial quotas for school admission are unconstitutional

Question 35

Shelley v. Kramer

Answer 35

The Kraemers were a white couple who owned a residence in a Missouri neighborhood governed by a restrictive covenant. This was a private agreement that prevented blacks from owning property in the Kraemers’ subdivision. The Shelleys were a black couple who moved into the Kraemers neighborhood. The Kraemers went to court to enforce the restrictive covenant against the Shelleys. State courts could not constitutionally prevent the sale of real property to blacks even if that property is covered by a racially restrictive covenant. Standing alone, racially restrictive covenants violate no rights. However, their enforcement by state court injunctions constitute state action in violation of the 14th Amendment.

Question 36

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States

Answer 36

Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by places of public accommodation if their operations affected commerce. The Heart of Atlanta Motel in Atlanta, Georgia, refused to accept Black Americans and was charged with violating Title II. The Court held that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate local incidents of commerce, and that the Civil Right Act of 1964 passed constitutional muster. The Court noted that the applicability of Title II was “carefully limited to enterprises having a direct and substantial relation to the interstate flow of goods and people. . .” The Court thus concluded that places of public accommodation had no “right” to select guests as they saw fit, free from governmental regulation

Question 37

Regents of University of California v. Bakke

Answer 37

Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times. The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for “qualified” minorities, as part of the university’s affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession. Bakke’s qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years Bakke’s applications were rejected. Bakke contended, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race. The Court decided that race can be used as one factor in a holistic review of an applicant to make an admissions decision.

Question 38

Gratz v. Bollinger

Answer 38

The University of Michigan’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions (OUA) considers a number of factors in its evaluative process, such as high school grades, standardized test scores, curriculum strength, alumni relationships, geography, and leadership. The OUA also considers race and admits virtually every qualified applicant from certain groups determined to be “underrepresented minorities.” Beginning in 1998, the OUA used a point system in which students were awarded an additional 20 points for being a member of an underrepresented minority, and beginning in 1999, the University established an Admissions Review Committee to provide an additional level of consideration. The Court held that the OUA’s policies were not sufficiently narrowly tailored to meet the strict scrutiny standard. Because the policy did not provide individual consideration, but rather resulted in the admission of nearly every applicant of “underrepresented minority” status, it was not narrowly tailored in the manner required by previous jurisprudence on the issue.

Question 39

Grutter v. Bollinger

Answer 39

Barbara Grutter, a white resident of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan Law School. Grutter applied with a 3.8 undergraduate GPA and an LSAT score of 161. She was denied admission. The Law School admits that it uses race as a factor in making admissions decisions because it serves a “compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body.” the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. The Court reasoned that, because the Law School conducts highly individualized review of each applicant, no acceptance or rejection is based automatically on a variable such as race and that this process ensures that all factors that may contribute to diversity are meaningfully considered alongside race.

Question 40

Bradwell v. State

Answer 40

Myra Bradwell asserted her right to a license to practice law in Illinois by virtue of her status as a United States citizen. The judges of the Illinois Supreme Court denied her application with only one judge dissenting. While the Court agreed that all citizens enjoy certain privileges and immunities which individual states cannot take away, it did not agree that the right to practice law in a state’s courts is one of them. There was no agreement, argued Justice Miller, that this right depended on citizenship. Women are subjected to separate spheres of life than men.

Question 41

Muller v. Oregon

Answer 41

Oregon enacted a law that limited women to ten hours of work in factories and laundries. There was no constitutional violation. The factory and laundry owners claimed that there was no reasonable connection between the law and public health, safety, or welfare. The opinion was based on the proposition that physical and social differences between the sexes warranted a different rule respecting labor contracts.

Question 42

Frontiero v. Richardson

Answer 42

Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the United States Air Force, sought a dependent’s allowance for her husband. Federal law provided that the wives of members of the military automatically became dependents; husbands of female members of the military, however, were not accepted as dependents unless they were dependent on their wives for over one-half of their support. Frontiero’s request for dependent status for her husband was turned down. The Court held that the statute in question clearly commanded “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are similarly situated,” violating the Due Process Clause.

Question 43

Craig v. Boren

Answer 43

An Oklahoma law prohibited the sale of “nonintoxicating” 3.2 percent beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. Curtis Craig, a male then between the ages of 18 and 21, and a licensed vendor challenged the law as discriminatory. the Court held that the statute made unconstitutional gender classifications. The Court held that the statistics relied on by the state of Oklahoma were insufficient to show a substantial relationship between the law and the maintenance of traffic safety. Generalities about the drinking habits of aggregate groups did not suffice.

Question 44

Michael M v. Sonoma County

Answer 44

Michael M., a 17 and 1/2 year-old male, was found guilty of violating California’s “statutory rape” law. The law defined unlawful sexual intercourse as “an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female not the wife of the perpetrator, where the female is under the age of 18 years.” The statute thus made men alone criminally liable for such conduct. the Court held that the law did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, noting that “young men and young women are not similarly situated with respect to the problems and the risks of sexual intercourse.” The Court found that the state had a strong interest in preventing “illegitimate pregnancy.”

Question 45

Rostker v. Goldberg

Answer 45

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in early 1980, President Jimmy Carter reactivated the draft registration process. Congress agreed with Carter’s decision, but did not enact his recommendation that the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA) be amended to include the registration of females. the Court held that Congress’s decision to exempt women from registration “was not the ‘accidental by-product of a traditional way of thinking about females’” and did not violate the Due Process Clause. The Court found that men and women, because of combat restrictions on women, were not “similarly situated” for the purposes of draft registration.

Question 46

Massachusetts v. Feeney

Answer 46

A Massachusetts law gave hiring preference to honorably discharged veterans applying for state civil service positions. Feeney, a woman who scored high on certain competitive civil service examinations, was ranked below male veterans who had lower scores. The Court held that the law was enacted to serve “legitimate and worthy purposes” and not to discriminate on the basis of sex. Even though few women benefitted from the scheme, Justice Stewart argued that “veteran status is not uniquely male.” Furthermore, the law placed many men who were not veterans at a disadvantage as well. The distinction in the law was clearly between veterans and nonveterans, not between men and women.

Question 47

Johnson v. Transportation Agency

Answer 47

The Transportation Agency, Santa Clara, California promoted Diane Joyce to road dispatcher over Paul Johnson. Both candidates were qualified for the job. As an affirmative action employer, the Agency took into account the sex of the applicants in making the promotion decision. The Court affirmed the promotion procedures of the Agency. Justice Brennan argued that it was not unreasonable to consider sex as one factor among many in making promotion decisions, and that the Agency’s actions did not create an absolute barrier to the advancement of men (a quota system did not exist).

Question 48

United States v. Virginia

Answer 48

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) boasted a long and proud tradition as Virginia’s only exclusively male public undergraduate higher learning institution. The United States brought suit against Virginia and VMI alleging that the school’s male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional insofar as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. the Court held that VMI’s male-only admissions policy was unconstitutional. Because it failed to show “exceedingly persuasive justification” for VMI’s gender-biased admissions policy, Virginia violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. Virginia failed to support its claim that single-sex education contributes to educational diversity because it did not show that VMI’s male-only admissions policy was created or maintained in order to further educational diversity.

Question 49

Discrimination against Aliens, the poor, and homosexuals

Answer 49

personhood is a legal mask that can be granted or denied, poorness is not immutable, poor people are not suspect class

Question 50

Yick Wo v. Hopkins

Answer 50

An 1880 ordinance of the city of San Francisco required all laundries in wooden buildings to hold a permit issued by the city’s Board of Supervisors. The board had total discretion over who would be issued a permit. Although workers of Chinese descent operated 89 percent of the city’s laundry businesses, not a single Chinese owner was granted a permit. Yick Wo and Wo Lee each operated laundry businesses without a permit and, after refusing to pay a $10 fine, were imprisoned by the city’s sheriff, Peter Hopkins. Each sued for writ of habeas corpus, arguing the fine and discriminatory enforcement of the ordinance violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. the Court concluded that, despite the impartial wording of the law, its biased enforcement violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Question 51

Plyer v. Doe

Answer 51

A revision to the Texas education laws in 1975 allowed the state to withhold from local school districts state funds for educating children of illegal aliens. This case was decided together with Texas v. Certain Named and Unnamed Alien Child. The Court reasoned that illegal aliens and their children, though not citizens of the United States or Texas, are people “in any ordinary sense of the term” and, therefore, are afforded Fourteenth Amendment protections. Since the state law severely disadvantaged the children of illegal aliens, by denying them the right to an education, and because Texas could not prove that the regulation was needed to serve a “compelling state interest,” the Court struck down the law.

Question 52

Shapiro v. Thompson

Answer 52

Thompson was a pregnant, nineteen-year-old mother of one child who applied for assistance under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in Connecticut after having recently moved there from Massachusetts. Connecticut denied her aid since she did not satisfy the state’s one-year residency requirement. The Court held that since the regulation touched “on the fundamental right of interstate movement,” it must promote a compelling state interest. “right to travel”

Question 53

San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez

Answer 53

In addition to being funded through a state-funded program designed to establish a minimum educational threshold in every school, Texas public elementary and secondary schools rely on local property taxes for supplemental revenue. The San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD), acting on behalf of students whose families reside in poor districts, challenged this funding scheme by arguing that it underprivileged such students because their schools lacked the vast property tax base that other districts utilized. The Court refused to examine the system with strict scrutiny since there is no fundamental right to education in the Constitution and since the system did not systematically discriminate against all poor people in Texas. Given the similarities between Texas’ system and those in other states, it was clear to the Court that the funding scheme was not “so irrational as to be invidiously discriminatory.” Justice Powell argued that on the question of wealth and education, “the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages.”

Question 54

Romer v. Evans

Answer 54

Colorado voters adopted Amendment 2 to their State Constitution precluding any judicial, legislative, or executive action designed to protect persons from discrimination based on their “homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships.” Following a legal challenge by homosexual and other aggrieved parties, the state trial court entered a permanent injunction enjoining Amendment 2’s enforcement. The Court held that Amendment 2 of the Colorado State Constitution violated the equal protection clause. Amendment 2 singled out homosexual and bisexual persons, imposing on them a broad disability by denying them the right to seek and receive specific legal protection from discrimination.

Question 55

Buckley v. Valeo

Answer 55

Buckley v. Valeo is US constitutional law case of the US Supreme Court on campaign finance. A majority of judges held limits on election spending in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 were unconstitutional. The majority, in a per curiam opinion, contended that expenditure limits contravened the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because spending money, in its view, was the same as written or verbal expression.

Question 56

Citizens United v. FEC

Answer 56

Citizens United sought an injunction against the Federal Election Commission in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the application of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) to its film Hillary: The Movie. The Movie expressed opinions about whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a good president. The Freedom of the Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. And the provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act prohibiting unions, corporations and not-for-profit organizations from broadcasting electioneering communications within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election violates the clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Question 57

Bush v. Gore

Answer 57

The per curiam opinion held that the Florida Supreme Court’s scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional. Even if the recount was fair in theory, it was unfair in practice. The record suggested that different standards were applied from ballot to ballot, precinct to precinct, county to county. Recount would violate the Equal Protection Clause because it would provide for disparate treatment of some individuals’ ballots.

Question 58

Shelby County v. Holder

Answer 58

The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was enacted as a response to the nearly century-long history of voting discrimination. Shelby County, Alabama, filed suit in district court and sought both a declaratory judgment that Section 5 and Section 4(b) are unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against their enforcement. he Court held that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act imposes current burdens that are no longer responsive to the current conditions in the voting districts in question. Although the constraints this section places on specific states made sense in the 1960s and 1970s, they do not any longer and now represent an unconstitutional violation of the power to regulate elections that the Constitution reserves for the states. The Court also held that the formula for determining whether changes to a state’s voting procedure should be federally reviewed is now outdated and does not reflect the changes that have occurred in the last 50 years in narrowing the voting turnout gap in the states in question

Question 59

Mobile v. Bolden

Answer 59

Wiley L. Bolden and other residents of Mobile, Alabama brought a class action on behalf of all black citizens in Mobile. They argued that the practice of electing the City Commissioners at-large unfairly diluted the voting strength of black citizens. The Court held that the Fifteenth Amendment did not entail “the right to have Negro candidates elected,” and that only purposefully discriminatory denials of the freedom to vote on the basis of race demanded constitutional remedies. The Court also found that multimember legislative districts were not unconstitutional per se; such legislative apportionments only violated the Fourteenth Amendment if they were “conceived or operated as [a] purposeful devic[e] to further racial. . .discrimination.” In short, the Court held that facially neutral actions were unconstitutional only if motivated by discriminatory purposes.

Question 60

Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections

Answer 60

Annie E. Harper, a resident of Virginia, filed suit alleging that the state’s poll tax was unconstitutional. The Court held that making voter affluence an electoral standard violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court found that wealth or fee-paying had no relation to voting qualifications. The Court also noted that the Equal Protection Clause was not “shackled to the political theory of a particular era” and that notions of what constituted equal treatment under the Clause were subject to change.

Question 61

Smith v. Allwright

Answer 61

A resolution of the Democratic Party of Texas, a group that the Texas Supreme Court had deemed a “voluntary association,” allowed only whites to participate in Democratic primary elections. S.S. Allwright was a county election official; he denied Lonnie E. Smith, a black man, the right to vote in the 1940 Texas Democratic primary. The Court found the restrictions against blacks unconstitutional. Even though the Democratic Party was a voluntary organization, the fact that Texas statutes governed the selection of county-level party leaders, the party conducted primary elections under state statutory authority, and state courts were given exclusive original jurisdiction over contested elections, guaranteed for blacks the right to vote in primaries. Allwright engaged in state action abridging Smith’s right to vote because of his race. A state cannot “permit a private organization to practice racial discrimination” in elections

Question 62

Obergefell v. Hodges

Answer 62

Groups of same-sex couples sued their relevant state agencies in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee to challenge the constitutionality of those states’ bans on same-sex marriage or refusal to recognize legal same-sex marriages that occurred in jurisdictions that provided for such marriages. The Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to marry as one of the fundamental liberties it protects, and that analysis applies to same-sex couples in the same manner as it does to opposite-sex couples. Judicial precedent has held that the right to marry is a fundamental liberty because it is inherent to the concept of individual autonomy, it protects the most intimate association between two people, it safeguards children and families by according legal recognition to building a home and raising children, and it has historically been recognized as the keystone of social order. Because there are no differences between a same-sex union and an opposite-sex union with respect to these principles, the exclusion of same-sex couples from the right to marry violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment also guarantees the right of same-sex couples to marry as the denial of that right would deny same-sex couples equal protection under the law. Marriage rights have traditionally been addressed through both parts of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the same interrelated principles of liberty and equality apply with equal force to these cases; therefore, the Constitution protects the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry.

Question 63

Lawrence v. Texas

Answer 63

Responding to a reported weapons disturbance in a private residence, Houston police entered John Lawrence’s apartment and saw him and another adult man, Tyron Garner, engaging in a private, consensual sexual act. Lawrence and Garner were arrested and convicted of deviate sexual intercourse in violation of a Texas statute forbidding two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. The Court held that the Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct violates the Due Process Clause. After explaining what it deemed the doubtful and overstated premises of Bowers, the Court reasoned that the case turned on whether Lawrence and Garner were free as adults to engage in the private conduct in the exercise of their liberty under the Due Process Clause. “Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government,” wrote Justice Kennedy. “The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual,” continued Justice Kennedy. Accordingly, the Court overruled Bowers.

Question 64

Bowers v. Hardwick

Answer 64

Michael Hardwick was observed by a Georgia police officer while engaging in the act of consensual homosexual sodomy with another adult in the bedroom of his home. After being charged with violating a Georgia statute that criminalized sodomy, Hardwick challenged the statute’s constitutionality in Federal District Court. The divided Court found that there was no constitutional protection for acts of sodomy, and that states could outlaw those practices.

Question 65

Vacco v. Quill

Answer 65

Dr. Timothy E. Quill, along with other physicians and three seriously ill patients who have since died, challenged the constitutionality of the New York State’s ban on physician-assisted suicide. New York’s ban, while permitting patients to refuse lifesaving treatment on their own, has historically made it a crime for doctors to help patients commit or attempt suicide, even if patients are terminally ill or in great pain. Employing a rationality test to examine the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause, the Court held that New York’s ban was rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting medical ethics, preventing euthanasia, shielding the disabled and terminally ill from prejudice which might encourage them to end their lives, and, above all, the preservation of human life. Moreover, while acknowledging the difficulty of its task, the Court distinguished between the refusal of lifesaving treatment and assisted suicide, by noting that the latter involves the criminal elements of causation and intent. No matter how noble a physician’s motives may be, he may not deliberately cause, hasten, or aid a patient’s death.

Question 66

Cruzan v. Director of Missouri Department of Health

Answer 66

In 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan was involved in an automobile accident which left her in a “persistent vegetative state.” She was sustained for several weeks by artificial feedings through an implanted gastronomy tube. When Cruzan’s parents attempted to terminate the life-support system, state hospital officials refused to do so without court approval. The Court held that while individuals enjoyed the right to refuse medical treatment under the Due Process Clause, incompetent persons were not able to exercise such rights. Absent “clear and convincing” evidence that Cruzan desired treatment to be withdrawn, the Court found the State of Missouri’s actions designed to preserve human life to be constitutional. Because there was no guarantee family members would always act in the best interests of incompetent patients, and because erroneous decisions to withdraw treatment were irreversible, the Court upheld the state’s heightened evidentiary requirements.

Question 67

Right to Die

Answer 67

no constitutional right to die with assisted suicide on the federal level but can be legal on the state level

Question 68

Griswold v. Connecticut

Answer 68

Griswold was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Both she and the Medical Director for the League gave information, instruction, and other medical advice to married couples concerning birth control. Griswold and her colleague were convicted under a Connecticut law which criminalized the provision of counselling, and other medical treatment, to married persons for purposes of preventing conception. Though the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicts with the exercise of this right and is therefore null and void. zone of privacy exists in the penumbras and emanations of the constitution, included in this zone of privacy is the right to use contraception, test case (Robert Bork)

Question 69

Roe v. Wade

Answer 69

Roe, a Texas resident, sought to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. Texas law prohibited abortions except to save the pregnant woman’s life. The Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy (recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut) protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. (women have a qualified right to abort an unviable fetus)

Question 70

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Answer 70

The Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law in 1988 and 1989. Among the new provisions, the law required informed consent and a 24 hour waiting period prior to the procedure. A minor seeking an abortion required the consent of one parent (the law allows for a judicial bypass procedure). A married woman seeking an abortion had to indicate that she notified her husband of her intention to abort the fetus. These provisions were challenged by several abortion clinics and physicians. For the first time, the justices imposed a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions. The new standard asks whether a state abortion regulation has the purpose or effect of imposing an “undue burden,” which is defined as a “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.” Under this standard, the only provision to fail the undue-burden test was the husband notification requirement.

Question 71

Gonzalez v. Carhart

Answer 71

eliminated the exception for the woman’s health in abortion cases

Question 72

Which case involves “restrictive covenants” in the context of housing segregation?

Answer 72

Shelley v. Kraemer

Question 73

Which case deals with affirmative action in the admissions process at the undergraduate level at the University of Michigan?

Answer 73

Gratz v. Bollinger

Question 74

Which case involves gender discrimination in regards to selective service registration (i.e., the “draft”)?

Answer 74

Rostker v. Goldberg

Question 75

Which case determines that gender can be one element (among others in a more holistic review) in making a hiring decision?

Answer 75

Johnson v. Transportation Agency

Question 76

Which case address the issue of sexual sterilization of inmates in state institutions “inflicted” with insanity or “imbecility”?

Answer 76

Buck v. Bell

Question 77

Which case upheld the “essential holding” of Roe v. Wade and established the “undue burden” test?

Answer 77

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Question 78

Which case held that voting practices must discriminate purposefully (rather than simply having a discriminatory effect) to be held unconstitutional?

Answer 78

Mobile v. Bolden

Question 79

In Bush v. Gore (2000), Bush claimed (and the Court agreed) that Florida’s legal standard for a manual recount of votes was unconstitutional under which legal theory?

Answer 79

Equal Protection Violation