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1963


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Did Georgia's congressional districts violate the FourteenthAmendment or deprive citizens of the full benefit of their rightto vote?


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A case involving congressional districts in the state of Georgia James Wesberry filed a suit against the Governor of Georgia,

Carl E. Sanders, protesting the state's apportionment scheme. The Fifth Congressional District, of which Wesberry was a

member, had a population two to three times larger thansome of the other districts in the state.

Wesberry claimed this system diluted his right to votecompared to other Georgia residents.


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The Court issued a ruling on February 17, 1964 that districtshave to be approximately equal in population.

Georgia's apportionment scheme grossly discriminated

against voters in the Fifth Congressional District. Because a single congressman had to represent two to three

times as many people as were represented by congressmenin other districts, the Georgia statute contracted the value ofsome votes and expanded the value of others.

the Supreme Court noted that Article I, Section 2 of

the United States Constitution declares that representativesshall be chosen

"by the People of the several States" and shall be"apportioned among the several States...according to theirrespective Numbers...."

Decision: 6 votes for Wesberry, 3 votes against


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SIGNIFICANCE

This is the second of thereapportionment decisions of the 1960s, whichestablished that federalcourts have jurisdiction toenforce the constitutionalrequirement thatrepresentation ingovernmental bodies bebased on equalpopulationdistricts.

QUOTE

The Court recognized that"no right is more precious"than that of having a voicein elections and held that"[t]o say that a vote is worthmore in one district than inanother would not only runcounter to our fundamentalideas of democraticgovernment, it would castaside the principle of aHouse of Representativeselected 'by the People. . .'"


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1989


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Is the desecration of an American flag, by burning orotherwise, a form of speech that is protected under the FirstAmendment?


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Gregory Lee Johnson participated in a politicaldemonstration in Dallas, Texas. The demonstrators wereprotesting the policies of the Reagan Administration andof certain companies based in Dallas.

At one point, another demonstrator handed Johnson anAmerican flag stolen from a flagpole outside one of thetargeted buildings. Then the demonstrators reachedDallas City Hall, Johnson poured kerosene on the flagand set it on fire.

During the burning of the flag, demonstrators shouted

such phrases as, "America, the red, white, and blue, wespit on you, you stand for plunder, you will go under," Johnson was charged with violating the Texas law that

prohibits vandalizing respected objects (desecration ofa venerated object). He was convicted, sentenced toone year in prison, and fined $2,000


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Justice William Brennan declared that the defendant's act offlag burning was protected speech under the FirstAmendment to the United States Constitution.

the First Amendment protects such activity as symbolicspeech.

Decision: 5 votes for Johnson, 4 votes against


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This case was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court ofthe United States that invalidated prohibitionson desecrating the American flag enforced in 48 of the 50

states. The First Amendment specifically disallows the abridgment

of "speech," but the court reiterated its long recognition thatits protection does not end at the spoken or written word. Stromberg v. California (display of a red flag as speech)

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (wearing of

a black armband as speech).


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2006


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May the rights protected by the Geneva Convention beenforced in federal court through habeas corpus petitions?

Was the military commission established to try Hamdan andothers for alleged war crimes in the War on Terror authorizedby the Congress or the inherent powers of the President?


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Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former chauffeur,was captured by Afghani forces and imprisoned by the U.S.military in Guantanamo Bay. He filed a petition for a writ ofhabeas corpus in federal district court to challenge hisdetention. Before the district court ruled on the petition, hereceived a hearing from a military tribunal, which designatedhim an enemy combatant.

A few months later, the district court granted Hamdan'shabeas petition, ruling that he must first be given a hearing todetermine whether he was a prisoner of war under theGeneva Convention before he could be tried by a militarycommission. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the District ofColumbia reversed the decision, however, finding that theGeneva Convention could not be enforced in federal courtand that the establishment of military tribunals had beenauthorized by Congress and was therefore notunconstitutional.


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Justice John Paul Stevens held that neither an act ofCongress nor the inherent powers of the Executive laid out inthe Constitution expressly authorized the sort of militarycommission at issue in this case. Absent that expressauthorization, the commission had to comply with theordinary laws of the United States and the laws of war. TheGeneva Convention, as a part of the ordinary laws of war,could therefore be enforced by the Supreme Court, alongwith the statutory Uniform Code ofMilitary Justice. Hamdan'sexclusion from certain parts of his trial deemed classified bythe military commission violated both of these, and the trialwas therefore illegal. Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alitodissented. Chief Justice John Roberts, who participated in thecase while serving on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, did nottake part in the decision.

Decision: 5 votes for Hamdan, 3 votes against


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The impact of the decision on the petitioner (Hamdan) wasthat he can still be tried; however, his trial must be in a court,such as a military court-martial, or possibly a commission thathas court-like protections.


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1927


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1. A decision of a state court applying and enforcing a state statute of general scope against a particular transaction as towhich there was a distinct and timely insistence that, if so appl ied, the statute was void under the federal Constitutionnecessarily affirms the val idity of the statute as so applied, and the judgment is therefore reviewable by writ of error under 237 of the Judicial Code. P. 274 U. S. 385.

2. The inquiry then is whether the statute is constitutional as appl ied and enforced in respect to the situation presented.P. 274 U. S. 385.

3. This Court will review the finding of facts by a state court where a federal right has been denied as the result of a findingshown by the record to be without evidence to support it; or where a conclusion of law as to a federal right, and a findingof fact, are so intermingled as to make it necessary, in order to pass upon the federal question, to analyze the facts. P. 274 U.S. 385.

4. A Kansas statute defining "criminal syndicalism" as "the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, arson, destruction of property, sabotage, or other unlawful acts or

methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political ends, or as a Page 274 U. S. 381 means of effecting industrial or political revolution, or for profit . . ." and punishing any person who "advocates, affirmatively suggests, or teaches the duty, necessity, propriety or expediency of

crime, criminal syndicalism, or sabotage" was applied by the state court as covering a case where it was charged andproved merely that the defendant secured members in an organzation whose constitution proclaimed

"[t]hat the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, and that there can be no peace so long ashunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few who make up the employing class have all thegood things of life. Between these two classes, a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, takepossession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. Instead of the conservative motto,'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,' we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wagesystem.' By organizing industrially, we are forming the structure of the new society within the shel l of the old."

Held: that there being no charge or evidence that the organization advocated any crime, violence, or other unlawful actsor methods as a means of effecting industrial or political changes or revolution, thus applied, the statute is a violation of theDue Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 274 U. S. 386.

117 Kan. 69 reversed. Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Kansas which affirmed a conviction of Fiske under the Kansas Criminal

Syndicalism Act.


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