SCOTUS Cases
This 1919 court case established the clear and present danger test to determine if speech could be protected under the First Amendment.
What is Schenck v. U.S.?
Articulated in Schenck v. U.S., this test determined that speech could be restricted if it posed a serious threat to the nation.
What is the Clear and Present Danger Test?
These are positive acts of government that prevent discrimination and provide equality under the law.
What are Civil Rights?
This amendment contains the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause regarding religion.
What is the First Amendment?
This opening statement in the amendment refers to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States".
What is the Citizenship Clause?
This 1963 case incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to the states, requiring an attorney be provided to all felony defendants who cannot afford one.
What is Gideon v. Wainwright?
This 3-part test is used to define non-protected obscene materials.
What is the Miller Test?
The legal doctrine that requires courts to adhere to precedents set by higher courts in previous cases with similar facts, meaning "to stand by things decided".
What is Stare Decisis?
This amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires a warrant to be based on probable cause.
What is the Fourth Amendment?
This key clause is the primary tool for advancing civil rights, requiring states not to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the..."
What is the Equal Protection Clause?
The decision in this 1969 case ruled that students wearing armbands to protest the Vietnam War was protected as symbolic speech under the First Amendment.
What is Tinker v. Des Moines?
This standard is applied to most cases and is the official doctrine of the court as it pertains to legal questions about limitation of the First Amendment.
What is the preferred position doctrine?
The process by which SCOTUS has gradually applied the protections of the Bill of Rights to the individual states using the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.
What is Selective Incorporation?
This amendment protects the right against self-incrimination (pleading the fifth) and prohibits double jeopardy.
What is the Fifth Amendment?
This specific clause is used to prevent state governments from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without proper legal proceedings.
What is the Due Process Clause?
This 2010 case ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is incorporated against the states, overturning a Chicago handgun ban.
What is McDonald v. Chicago?
This test, applied in U.S. v. O'Brien, is used to determine if the government can restrict expression based on four criteria, including being content-neutral and narrowly tailored.
What is the Time, Place, and Manner Test?
Government action that attempts to prevent materials from being published, with the Supreme Court placing a heavy burden of proof on the government to justify this type of censorship.
What is Prior Restraint?
This amendment prohibits excessive bail and the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments.
What is the Eighth Amendment?
This legal doctrine utilizes the Due Process Clause to gradually apply the protections of the Bill of Rights to the individual states.
What is Selective Incorporation?
This 2010 case ruled that corporate spending is protected speech under the First Amendment.
What is Citizens United v. FEC?
Established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, this test is used to assess Establishment Clause issues, requiring a law to have a secular purpose and not aid or inhibit religion.
What is the Lemon Test?
This type of legal proceeding is the manner in which the law is carried out under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
What is procedural due process?
This amendment is not explicitly about "privacy," but SCOTUS has used it, along with the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 14th, to create "zones of privacy" (Griswold v. Connecticut).
What is the Ninth Amendment?
This landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled that state-sponsored segregation in public education violated the Equal Protection Clause.
What is Brown v. Board of Education?