Supreme Court Timeline

1954 Jun 25 Sonia Sotomayor is Born
Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. Her father, Juan Sotomayor, had a third-grade education and did not speak English. He was from the Santurce area o...
1967 Jun 13 President Lyndon Johnson Appoints Thurgood Marshall, First African-American Supreme Court Member
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he w...
1967 Oct 2 Thurgood Marshall Is Sworn In As A Supreme Court Justice
On October 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. Long before President Lyndon Johnson appointed him the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Marshal...
1971 Jun 28 Supreme Court reverses conviction of Muhammad Ali by unanimous decision
Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698 (1971), was boxer Muhammad Ali's appeal of his conviction for refusing to report for induction into the United States military forces during the Vietna...
1973 Jan 22 Supreme Court Issues its Decision on Roe v Wade
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), a landmark case decided by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion, is one of the most controversial and politically significant cases i...
1981 Jul 7 Ronald Reagan Appoints Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
WASHINGTON, July 7 - President Reagan announced today that he would nominate Sandra Day O'Connor, a 51-year-old judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, to the United States Supreme Court. ...
2008 Dec 18 Trial Courts Enter Judgement in Favor of the City of Chicago in McDonald v. City of Chicago
At issue is the constitutionality of the Chicago handgun ban. When the case was originally contested, a trial court ruled in favor of the City of Chicago on December 18, 2008. This deci...
2009 May 26
9:30AM
 McDonald v. Chicago Oral Argument
In the D.C. v. Heller case, the Supreme Court struck down the ban on handguns in the District of Columbia, as that ban violated the Second Amendment. One of the issues left unresolved i...
2009 Jun 2 The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms the City of Chicago's Handgun Ban
As reported at the Volokh Conspiracy the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has reached a decision which affirms the City of Chicage handgun ban. We now officially have a split amongst the Circ...
2009 Sep 30 Centiorari for McDonald v. City of Chicago Granted
The Second Amendment Foundation appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari on behalf of their plaintiffs. Certiorari for McDonald was granted on September 30, 2009. The NRA separat...
2009 Dec 8 Supreme Court to hear arguments againt "honest-services fraud", threatening case against Rod Blagojevich
The nation's most potent law against public corruption could be in danger of being scaled back or struck down by the Supreme Court, threatening a series of high-profile cases, including t...
2010 Mar 2 Oral Arguments for McDonald v. Chicago
The U.S. Supreme Court has set a date to hear the landmark civil liberties case that will determine whether the Second Amendment prohibits state and local governments from enacting stiff ...
2010 Jun 28 Supreme Court Affirms Right to Bear Arms
The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution's Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms," advancing a recent trend by...
2010 Aug 7 Elena Kagan Is Sworn In As Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Elena Kagan was sworn in as the 112th U.S. Supreme Court justice and its fourth woman ever, taking the oath of office at the high court two days after the Senate confirmed her. Kagan, ...