Notable Court Decisions

Criminal Law: Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Case	Year	Key Issue / Holding
Gideon v. Wainwright	1963	Right to counsel for indigent defendants in criminal cases.
Miranda v. Arizona	1966	Requirement for police to inform suspects of their rights before interrogation.
Mapp v. Ohio	1961	Exclusionary rule: evidence obtained illegally cannot be used in court.
Terry v. Ohio	1968	Permitted “stop and frisk” based on reasonable suspicion.
Katz v. United States	1967	Expanded Fourth Amendment protections to include electronic wiretaps.
Furman v. Georgia	1972	Temporarily halted the death penalty as then applied.
Gregg v. Georgia	1976	Reinstated the death penalty under revised procedures.
Batson v. Kentucky	1986	Prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection.
Kansas v. Glover	2020	Police may stop a vehicle registered to a revoked driver if they have no evidence another person is driving.
Kahler v. Kansas	2020	States are not required to adopt a specific insanity defense test.
Taylor v. Louisiana	1975	Systematic exclusion of women from juries violates defendant’s rights.
Roper v. Simmons	2005	Death penalty unconstitutional for crimes committed by minors.
Atkins v. Virginia	2002	Death penalty unconstitutional for intellectually disabled defendants.
Riley v. California	2014	Police generally need a warrant to search cell phones seized during arrest.
United States v. Jones	2012	GPS tracking constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.

Case	Year	Key Issue / Holding
Loving v. Virginia	1967	Struck down bans on interracial marriage as unconstitutional.
Obergefell v. Hodges	2015	Legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Troxel v. Granville	2000	Recognized fundamental parental rights to direct child upbringing.
Stanley v. Illinois	1972	Unmarried fathers have parental rights; laws automatically making their children wards of the state are unconstitutional.
Griswold v. Connecticut	1965	Recognized right to privacy in marital contraception decisions.
Moore v. City of East Cleveland	1977	Extended family members have rights to live together; zoning laws cannot restrict this.
Michael H. v. Gerald D.	1989	Upheld presumption of legitimacy for children born into marriage.
Palmore v. Sidoti	1984	Race cannot be a factor in child custody decisions.
Temple v. Temple	2021	Clarified standards for establishing cohabitation in alimony cases.
Golan v. Saada	2022	Addressed international child abduction and return under the Hague Convention.