The Law Dictionary for Everyone
Following is the case brief for McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) Case Summary of McDonald v. Chicago: Chicago residents, concerned about their own safety, challenged the City of Chicago’s handgun ban. Building on the Court’s recent decision in Heller, the petitioners sought to have the Second Amendment apply to the States, either under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or […]
Read moreFollowing is the case brief for Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) Case Summary of Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke: A white medical school applicant was twice rejected from the Univ. of California Medical School, though he had better scores than minority candidates who were accepted. Following a lawsuit, the state court found […]
Read moreFollowing is the case brief for New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985) Case Summary of New Jersey v. T.L.O.: A 14-year-old high school student, T.L.O., was found smoking in the girls’ restroom at school. The Assistant Vice Principal subsequently searched her purse and found evidence of both cigarette smoking and marijuana dealing at the school. At the juvenile […]
Read moreFollowing is the case brief for Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944) Case Summary of Korematsu v. United States: President Roosevelt’s Executive Order, in response to Pearl Harbor, called for the detention of American citizens of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast of the U.S. Mr. Korematsu, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, violated one particular order pursuant […]
Read moreFollowing is the case brief for Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2534 (2015) Case Summary of Obergefell v. Hodges: Petitioners, a number of same-sex couples, sued four states that denied marriage licenses to those couples because those states defined marriage as being a union between one man and one woman. Petitioners won in all of the federal district courts […]
Read moreThe term “5th Amendment” refers to the more well-known aspect of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that no one can be forced to testify against himself in court. The 5th Amendment also ensures that no one can be tried a second time for a crime of which they were already acquitted. This is referred to as […]
Read moreA Terry Stop is the authorized stopping and detaining of someone based on suspicions that the person has been involved in illegal activity. The individual, in this case, is not placed under arrest, but detained – usually in handcuffs – for officer safety during a brief investigation. The term’s origin comes from the 1968 case Terry v. Ohio, in which […]
Read moreThe plain view doctrine allows a police officer to take any evidence of a crime or contraband that is found in plain sight during a normal observation. The police officer does not need a warrant in such a case to collect that evidence. For example, the plain view doctrine is used often during screenings of passengers at U.S. airports by […]
Read moreFollowing is the case brief for Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70 (1995) Case Summary of Missouri v. Jenkins: The State of Missouri and Kansas City students had been involved in an 18-year-long litigation regarding school segregation in the Kansas City, Missouri, School District. In this particular case, the State challenged two of the remedial measures ordered by the District […]
Read moreFollowing is the case brief for Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) Case Summary of Griggs v. Duke Power Co.: A group of African-American employees sued their employer, Duke Power Company, for a policy that mandated a high school diploma and satisfactory scores on two general aptitude tests in order to advance in the company. The lower […]
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