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. |
Family Law: Landmark Supreme Court Cases
| 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. |