US Supreme Court Events

The Eleventh Amendment (Amendment XI) to the United States Constitution, which was passed by the Congress on March 4, 1794 and was ratified on February 7, 1795, deals with each state's so...

Dred Scott v. Sandford, commonly referred to as the Dred Scott decision, was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as ...

Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866), was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that the application of military tribunals to citizens when civilian courts are still operating is u...

THIS case arose on the petition of Clement L. Vallandigham for a certiorari, to be directed to the Judge Advocate General of the Army of the United States, to send up to this court, for i...

On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads. For some fifty years, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision upheld the principle o...

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson i...

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...

Sonia was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age eight, and began taking daily insulin injections. Her father died of heart problems at age 42, when she was nine years old. After this, she...

On June 13, 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time t...

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) was an important United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public...

When Sotomayor entered Princeton University on a full scholarship, there were few women students and fewer Latinos (about 20). She knew only of the Bronx and Puerto Rico, and she later de...

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on affirmative action. It bars quota systems in col...

Ms. Sotomayor was not alone; for many minority students who arrived at elite colleges, the first thing they wanted to study was their own backgrounds. “What we did on campus was to use it...

Ms. Sotomayor spent about five years as a prosecutor. Interviews with her colleagues and supervisors painted a portrait of a frightened rookie prosecutor who quickly gained the confidence...

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund was founded in 1972 as a non-profit organization by three lawyers, Jorge Batista, Victor Marrero, and Cesar A. Perales. It was inspired i...

In 1984, she entered private practice, joining the commercial litigation practice group of Pavia & Harcourt in Manhattan as an associate. One of 30 attorneys in the law firm, she speciali...

Sotomayor brings hands-on experience to the issue [of campaign finance] from her four years of experience on the New York City Campaign Finance Board, an independent, nonpartisan city age...

On October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the hearing. Ten years earlier, in 1981, Hill had become an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas at the United States Department of E...

New York is now officially in line to have the its first Hispanic woman as a Federal District Court judge. President Bush last week sent to the United States Senate the name of Sonia S...

Ruling from the bench, Sotomayor chided baseball owners, saying they had no right to unilaterally eliminate the 20-year-old system of free agents and salary arbitration while bargaining c...

Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy. In a 6–3 decision ...

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. ___ (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bos...

The extent of the influence of Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's money soon may be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. The owner of a bankrupt coal company, Hugh Caperton, says the...

President Obama on Tuesday nominated federal appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Obama on Tuesday introduces Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his choice for the ...

In about an hour, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin the confirmation hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor has said ...

On August 6, 2009, Sotomayor's appointment was brought up for a vote on the floor of the Senate. She was confirmed by a vote of 68 to 31. All Democrats and the two independents who caucus...

The Supreme Court's conservative bloc sounded poised Wednesday to strike down, on free-speech grounds, the nation's ban on corporations spending large amounts of money to elect or defeat ...

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision holding that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of money in election campaigns is a stunning example of judicial activism by its five mos...

On May 9, 2010, it was reported that President Obama had chosen Kagan as his nominee to succeed Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. If confirmed by the Senate, Kagan would be the fir...

"My preliminary reading (of the Supreme Court ruling) is it may not offer a lot of hope for you." —Judge James Zagel

Kagan began her opening statement by honoring the memory of her parents, immigrants she said taught her of the value of the opportunities afforded to Americans. She also said that if c...

Questioners were sometimes strangely complimentary, with Senator Graham inviting Kagan to engage in a mutual admiration colloquy on the wonders of Judge Miguel Estrada. (Graham even extra...

Today, Elena Kagan’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee seemed inconsistent with the memos she wrote on partial-birth abortion during her time in the Clinton White House. Durin...

Confident but still cautious. Smart and then some. Disarming. Knowing. Wicked funny. This week's Senate confirmation hearings were America's first and probably last chance for an in-de...

The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution Thursday of a black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago after his lawyers contended his sentence was unfair because of a que...