Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896).
In an era when "social Darwinism" was fashionable, this racist Court found that a Louisiana statute which separated the races on trains where the fares, the cars, the time of travel, and all the other tangibles could be shown as equal, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. So long as the facilities were equal, they could be separate. Hence the precedent: "separate but equal."

Schenck v. United States, 249 US 47 (1919).
The Court has always been reluctant to obstruct the power of the political branches to defend the country in time of war. Here it held that the distribution of leaflets advising men not to submit to the World War I military draft was punishable under the Espionage Act of 1917.
The Court ruled that the Act did not violate the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and press because there were some circumstances in which speech or press which could be prohibited. Justice Holmes wrote for the Court, for example, that speech which caused a "clear and present danger," such as falsely crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater was not protected, and he wrote that Schenck’s leaflets created such a "clear and present danger," too. Of course, they did not, but it was wartime.

Near v. Minnesota, 283 US 697 (1931).
The Minnesota statute that allowed abatement as a penalty for malicious or scandalous publication of newspapers and magazines was ruled unconstitutional here. The Court held that there were other remedies against newsmen who abused their free press rights, but that the First Amendment guarantee of a free press meant nothing unless it meant that there could be no "prior restraint," or governmental censorship before publication.
Here, since the press could be shut down, future editions would be restrained before publication, and that could not be permittted under the freedom of the press clause of the First Amendment, which was applied to the States through the Fourteeth Amendment Due Process Clause.

Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, 305 US 337 (1938).
The Court upheld its "separate but equal" doctrine from Plessy by insisting that the State did not satisfy its obligation to provide "equal protection" merely by providing a tuition grant for a black man to go to law school out of state. The practice of law, the Court reasoned, was rooted in an understanding of the specific laws of an individual state--where an aspiring lawyer must pass the bar exam--and in a network of contacts with other lawyers, judges, etc. that one could not nurture outside the state. In the absence of an all-black law school in Missouri, therefore, the State would have to admit Gaines to the University of Missouri, hitherto all-white.

Smith v. Allwright, 321 US 649 (1944).
Here, the State of Texas had been before the Supreme Court in a series of cases wherein it tried to defend the Democratic Party’s all-white primary voting rules. The Court rejected several schemes in cases in the 1920’s, but finally accepted one in Grovey v. Townsend in 1935, when the State had divorced itself sufficiently from the Democratic Party so that the Court ruled that the XVth Am was not applicable.
But in 1944, perhaps under the influence of the war against anti-semitic Nazi Germany, the Court chose to find that since the Democratic Party was the only party of any consequence in Texas, to deprive a black citizen of the right to vote in the party’s primary solely on the basis of his race was to violate the XVth Am.

Korematsu v. U.S.,323 US 214 (1944).
Although the Court nearly apologized for doing so, it upheld a general’s order, a Presidential proclamation, and a Congressional statute that forced American citizens of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast during the emergency faced by the United States in the early days of World War II when the experts feared that Japan was really going to invade California.
The Court ruled that doing so was a permissable use of the war powers, I, 8:11-15, saying that the “power to wage war is the power to wage it successfully,” and leaving the general, the President and the Congress that much leeway.

Morgan v. Virginia, 328 US 373 (1946).
Here the Court invalidated Virginia’s segregation system as far as it governed travel on interstate buses. It ruled that even though Ms. Morgan did not leave Virginia before she was arrested, asking her and all other passengers to move fore and aft each time the racial make-up of the group of passengers changed imposed an impermissible burden on interstate commerce, an area reserved to Congress alone, I,8:3.
The Court did not deal with the Plessy doctrine, which of course directly concerned public transportation as did this case. But its ruling heartened the opponents of segregation, since the Court seemed to be reaching for ways to desegregate the society.

Colgrove v. Green, 328 US 546 (1946).
The Court chose to avoid the Am XIV “equal protection” issue in this case involving badly mal-apportioned congressional voting districts. Instead it restrained itself, saying that I,4:1 made the apportionment question a legislative matter and only that.

Adamson v. California, 332 US 46 (1947).
Here, in a pretty horrible murder case, the Court refused to incorporate the Vth Am right against self-incrimination into Am the XIV’s due process clause, thereby refusing to apply the Vth Am to the States.
Recall that it had incorporated the Ist Am in Near, but would not do similarly here, probably because this was a criminal case and Adamson was a particularly nasty criminal.

Dennis v. U.S., 341 US 494 (1951).
The eleven defendants in this criminal trial were the top leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, convicted for violating the 1940 Smith Act which prohibited working to overthrow the government by force or violence.
Although Dennis argued that he was not engaged in forcible overthrow, the Court seemed to think that the violence of international Communism, as shown in the Russian rape of Eastern Europe, the North Korean invasion of the South, and the alleged spy cases involving American and British nuclear phycisists, proved well enough how dedicated to violence even the American Communists were.
So it let the conviction stand, and of course upheld the Smith Act.

Brown v. Board, 347 US 487 (1954).
In one of the great masterpieces of judicial politics, CJ Warren got a unanimous vote on this one, overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine as it applied to public schools. “In the field of public education,” he wrote in a ringing phrase, “separate is inherently unequal,” and therefore a violation of the equal protection clause of Am XIV.
Although the Topeka School Board had done an apparently conscientious job of providing equal schools for the black children, NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall was able to produce a Brandeis brief showing that black kids in segregated schools had a disincentive to learn because they knew they would not get a chance in the society that had segregated them even if they became master scholars.
The Court agreed, but in the years to come it paid dearly in judicial sovereignty for its lack of restraint.

Yates v. U.S., 354 US 298 (1957).
Here the Warren Court brought the John Birch Society down on its head, by finding a difference between what Yates was doing and what Dennis had been doing.
There was no difference, of course, but a different Court in this less hysterical era found that Yates was merely “advocating” the overthrow of the U.S. government, not taking “overt action” to accomplish that overthrow. It held that hers was exactly the kind of unpopular speech that Am I was designed to protect.

Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 US 339 (1960).
The Court rejected as an unconstitutional violation of both the equal protection clause of Am XIV and the Am XV voting guarantee a gerrymander by the city government of Tuskegee, Alabama, that had the effect of excluding from the city almost all the black people and leaving within it all the whites.
The Court tested only the intention of the city, which it ruled was apparent on the face of the law. Although it didn’t say so, the Court must have seen that the idea was to keep the school segregated.

Mapp v. Ohio, 367 US 643 (1961).
The Court ruled in Mapp that the Am IV guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures was applicable to the States through the due process clause of Am XIV. In doing so, it adopted the “exclusionary rule,” which meant that evidence that was procured illegally could not be used against a criminal defendant. This is sometimes called the doctrine of the “fruit of the poisoned tree.”
For that reason, Mapp’s conviction, based on evidence found in a search that violated the IVth Am, could not be upheld.

Baker v. Carr, 369 US 186 (1962).
Here the Court specifically reversed its decision in Colgrove, ruling that where it was shown that the state legislature for a long time did not carry out its responsibility under I,4:1 to reapportion the congressional voting districts, and Congress under the same clause did not force the state legislature to do so, the Court could and would intervene under Am XIV equal protection clause to guarantee “one man, one vote.”

Engel v. Vitale, 370 US 421 (1962).
The Court ruled that when the New York State Board of Regents wrote a prayer for the public schools, it had crossed the boundary that separated church and state under the”establishment” clause of Am I.
The Court ruled that of course state and church would mingle from time to time, but permissible mingling could be found by this test: the policy
(1) must have a secular purpose, as this one did not;
(2) must neither advance nor inhibit religion, as this one did on both counts;
(3) must not foster an excessive governmental entanglement with religion, as this one did.

Gideon v. Wainwright, 373 US 335 (1963).
Here the Court overruled its own 1942 holding in Betts v. Brady, and instead adopted the standard long followed in a federal courts. It held that Am VI means that not only must a defendant have a right to a lawyer, per must actually have a lawyer if per wants one.
In all prosecutions where a citizen is in jeopardy of life, liberty or property, per has a right to a lawyer, and if per is indigent, the state must provide the lawyer for per. While this may seem to violate the common-law “adversary process,” in this case it proved wise, since Gideon did not actually commit the crime he was accused of, but only a lawyer could prove his innocence.

N.Y. Times v. Sullivan 376 US 254 (1964).
After a state court ruled that the New York Times must pay heavy damages for having published an advertisement signed by prominent civil rights leaders which was filled with inaccurate statements and innuendoes about the oppressiveness of the police in Alabama, the Court handed down its broadest ruling protecting the freedom of the press.
Since the ad included a lot of “editorial commentary,” the Court ruled that it was protected under Am I. And since Sullivan was a public official, the Police Commissioner, even though his men had not acted so badly as the ad said, he was not allowed to collect damages from the press, also because of the Am I protection of the free press.
The Court ruled that for a public official to collect on a libel charge, per has to show that the press was “reckless in its disregard” for the truth, or that it was “actually malicious” in its approach to per.

Griffin v. Bd, 377 US 218 (1964).
To comply with the Brown decisions, Prince Edward County, Virginia, closed its schools, claiming that that ended segregation in the county. It then offered public funds to any school child, black or white, who wished to go to the private schools that had grown up as a result of the closings, saying that to do so complied with the equal protection clause of Am XIV.
But the Court ruled that such a policy was simply a dodge, and that the board did not satisfy its obligation by mere “desegregation,” but instead had continued the unequal treatment of the black children, in violation of the XIVth Am equal protection clause. School Boards had to “integrate” the schools, the Court ruled, not merely desegregate them.

Reynolds v. Sims, 377 US 218 (1963).
The Court decided that a state could not follow the “federal analogy,” as in the Senate and the Electoral College, in adopting weighted elections. It ruled that because counties and other districts are creations of the states and not sovereign, whereas the states were sovereign and had created the federal government, the analogy was flawed.
Because of the equal protection clause of Am XIV, all state elections for all legislative houses must be guided by the “one-man, one-vote” principle from Baker v. Carr.

Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 US 533 (1964).
Escobedo was questioned twice regarding a murder. During the second investigation, the police told him that they had information that he was the killer. He asked to see his lawyer, but the police wouldn’t let him, on the grounds that where the VIth Am says “in all criminal prosecutions” it means only after indictment.
The Supreme Court, though, ruled that such a holding would emasculate the “right to counsel,” and that instead the Am VI right to counsel exists from the moment the “focus of suspicion” lands upon a suspect.

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965).
The Court ruled that there was a “penumbra” around the Ist, Vth, VIth, IXth and XIVth Amendments that together created a “right to privacy” which allowed married people to decide for themselves whether to employ birth control devices. Consequently it invalidated the state anti-birth control law under which Ms. Griswold had been convicted.

Memoirs v. Mass, 383 US 413 (1966).
The Court invalidated the Massachusetts obscenity law on the grounds that it violated the free press and free speech elements of the Ist Am.
Here the Court added to the definition of “obscenity” which it had first created in Roth v. U.S., 354 US 476 (1957). In Roth, the Court said that obscenity was material which “taken as a whole” appealed to the prurient interest. Here it said that for material to be judged obscene, it had to be “utterly without redeeming social value,” leaving open a very large door for material to pass through.

Miranda v. Ariz 384 US 436 (1966).
When under investigation for kidnapping and rape, Miranda signed a confession that included a waiver of his right to remain silent and to have the assistance of counsel. He later recanted, saying he never really understood what he was doing.
The Court agreed, holding that unless he had a lawyer with him when he waived his right to counsel, no one could be sure what he understood. Thereafter, to make a conviction stick, police would have to show that they had affirmatively advised a suspect of all his rights, including the right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, to have the state pay for the lawyer if he couldn’t afford one, and to terminate an interrogation whenever he wanted it stopped.
The Court was building here on Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) and Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), and the majority showed its impatience with the Arizona police in its decision.

Green v. School 391 US 430 (1968).
New Kent County, Virginia, sought to avoid the Brown desegregation order by establishing “freedom of choice.” The county argued that if Linda Brown had had free choice in1953, she’d have never brought suit in Topeka.
But since no white person ever chose to go to the formerly all-black school, and only a small percentage of the blacks ever went to the formerly all-white school, the Court ruled that the Virginia county was avoiding the responsibility to desegregate and shifting it to a few courageous black citizens.
Here, the Court ruled that a District Court could order a School Board to produce a plan that “will work” to integrate the Schools.
[Mnemonic device: distinguish Griffin from Green by recalling that both “Green “ and “Freedom of choice” have double “e” in them.]

Chimel v. Calif 395 US 752 (1969).
This was the very last case ever decided by CJ Warren. In it, the Court clarified the doctrine of “search incidental to arrest.” Without a warrant, the police could search a suspect only under limited circumstances, the Court ruled: namely, to confiscate items that might help the suspect to escape or to injure the police, and to collect evidence of the crime that might be within the suspect’s reach to prevent per from destroying it.

Alexander v. Holmes 396 US 752 (1969).
Holmes County, Mississippi, asked for a delay in integrating its schools, and both the new Nixon Administration and the lower courts had supported the request. Alexander came before the Court arguing that the delay was just another way by which southern anti-integrationists were avoiding the Brown decision. The Court agreed, and in an opinion marked by both brevity and anger, ordered the schools integrated forthwith.

Wyman v. James 400 US 437 (1971).
The Court ruled that when New York required a welfare recipient to subject her home to a visit by a social worker at a mutually acceptable time and date, it was not being “unreasonable.” Therefore the law did not violate the Am IV protection against “unreasonable searches,” since this involved no criminal action, and since she could refuse the inspection if she just relinquished the welfare aid.

Swann v. Charlotte, 402 US 1 (1971).
The Court ordered that where there had been de jure dual school systems, it was constitutionally permissible for the District Court (1) to decide whether progress was being made by seeing what the percentages of blacks and whites were in the various schools throughout a school district, and (2) to allow the busing of children to schools farther than their neighborhood school to achieve a better racial mix, when the busing to achieve desegregation was comparable to the busing that had been used to achieve segregation.
[Please note how to spell “busing.” To spell the word with two S’s means “kissing.”]

Lemon v. Kurtzman 403 US 602 (1971).
The Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s statute that provided funds for the secular parts of the education provided in church schools was an unconstitutional violation of Am I. Entanglement between Church and State is inevitable in a religious society like America’s, the Court ruled. But, recalling Engel, the test is whether (1) the law’s purpose is secular, (2) the law neither advances nor inhibits religion, and (3) the entanglement is not excessive. The Court found that this law violated both the second and third doctrine.

N Y Times v. U.S. 403 US 713 (1971).
A divided Court ruled that the United States could not enjoin the Times from publishing a government study of the Vietnam war, because the material was historical and the government could show no actual threat to national security. The Court confirmed the holding from Near that the Am I guarantee of a free press meant there could be no prior restraint, and the majority agreed with the district court that “a cantakerous press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.”

U.S. v. Caldwell 408 US 205 (1972).
The Court showed what it thought about criminal justice, when it ordered a N. Y. Times reporter to testify in a grand jury investigation, even though to do so would almost certainly dry up his sources. The Court ruled that the reporter was not privileged, like spouses, clergy, doctors and lawyers, and that therefore Am I was not so important as society’s common-law need to investigate possible crime. See Nixon, below.

Furman v. Georgia, 408 US 238 (1972).
The Court ruled that capital punishment statutes in Georgia and other states in thejoined cases violated the Am VIII guarantee against “cruel and unusual punishment.” It found that because juries in capital cases had “untrammeled discretion” to decide on sentences, blacks were disproportionately executed, and some convicts were executed while others who had committed identical crimes were not.
But CJ Burger’s dissent was important: he suggested that there were procedural methods by which states could gain the approval of a majority of the Court’s votes: bifurcated hearings, frequent checks on bigotry, automatic appeals, repeated reference to other similar cases, and so forth. The issue would arise again.

Roe v. Wade 410 US 113 (1973)
The Court ruled that, by the “penumbra” cited in Griswold which created the “right to privacy,” a woman had a right to privacy in her own body that allowed her to make her own decision about abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, when fetal viability was impossible. The Texas law which prohibited abortions except when the mother’s life was in danger, therefore, was an unconstitutional violation of this right. The Court did rule that during the second trimester the State could regulate the conditions of abortions and that during the third trimester, when the fetus was viable, the State could ban abortions altogether.
This decision by Blackmun is not written well, and its loopholes have caused the Court tremendous blacklash, but so far it has withstood all major assaults.

Mahan v. Howell 410 US 315 (1973)
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
The Court ruled that Virginia had good reason for deviating from a one-man, one-vote system of state legislative respresentation, in that cities had always been separated from counties, and the deviation was only a maximum of 16.4% and about 6.8% in average. There was then, no violation of the Am XIV equal protection clause.

San Antonio v. Rodriguez 411 US 1 (1973).
Even though the wealthy districts in Texas provided supplementary financial support to their schools, the Court ruled here that because the State was providing equal amounts for basic education to each district, there was no violation of the equal protection clause of the XIVth Am.

Frontiero v. Richardson 411 US 677 (1973).
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
The Court ruled that the Air Force system of making women GI’s show that their spouses were actual dependents was a violation of the equal protection clause of the XIVth Am and of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, because men’s spouses were presumed to be dependents.

U.S. v. Robinson 414 US 218 (1973).
When lawfully arrested for a traffic violation, the defendant was taken into custody and searched, both following the standard police rules. The search turned up some heroin and the suspect was thereupon convicted on a drug charge. The Court ruled that the search-and-seizure was not “unreasonable” in the sense of the IVth Am, on the grounds that the policeman had acted reasonably up to the moment he found the drugs, and could not be expected to look the other way once he did find them.

U.S. v. Calandra 414 US 338 (1974)
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
Although defendant’s house was searched under a warrant about gambling materials, materials pertaining to loan sharking were found and seized. Defendant subsequently refused to answer a grand jury’s questions based on those materials, claiming his IVth and Vth Amendment rights.
Although the Supreme Court went along with the exclusion of the illegally seized materials at a trial, it ordered nevertheless that the defendant must answer the questions, saying that (1) the exclusionary rule from Mapp is not a personal right of any person but merely a rule to deter future illegal police activity, and (2) the scope of a grand jury was so broad that it was not bound by the normal rules of evidence and should not be impeded by considerations of illegal search and seizure.

Michigan v. Tucker 417 US 433 (1974)
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
Here the Court ruled that the Miranda rules were not to be applied retroactively. Defendant was arrested before the Miranda decision, but tried after it. The police had not given him the full Miranda warning, although the part omitted -- that indigents had the right to state-appointed counsel -- was not relevant to him. The Court ignored the fact that Miranda was arrested before the rules were in effect.

U.S. v. Nixon 418 US 683 (1974).
The Court agreed that the doctrine of “separation of powers” did give the President a right to “executive privilege,” so that he could have private counsel from his advisers. But as in Caldwell, the Court ruled that that privilege ended when the material the President tried to keep private bore on criminal matters.

Milliken v. Bradley 418 US 717 (1974).
The Court took the position that although Michigan was guilty of de jure segregation by drawing the school district lines the way it did, the CCA’s ruling that only a multi-district plan could achieve real integration was not valid because the outlying districts had done nothing to contribute to the segregation.
The Court’s ruling ignored the fact that the bus trips of the CCA’s plan would be shorter, the number of buses needed would be smaller, and the result would be a mix of blacks and whites in the schools much better than the 70-30 mix the Detroit-only plan would yield.
Most observers regard this as a step back from Brown, since whites could now avoid integration simply by moving out of Detroit to suburbs where blacks would probably be restricted by housing custom.

Craig v. Boren 428 US 190 (1976).
The Court found that men were the victims of discrimination in violation of the equal protection clause of the XIVth Am under an Oklahoma law that would not allow the sale of 3.2% beer to males 18-21 years old but would allow it to females of that age.

Gregg v. Georgia 428 US 153 (1977)
Here the Court found that the repairs made in the Georgia capital-punishment statute after Furman v. Georgia, 408 US 238 (1972), satisfied the VIIIth Am about “cruel and unusual punishments.”
Georgia now had a bifurcated trial. In the sentencing portion and throughout an automatic appeal process, the prosecution would have to show that the crime had been really savage or committed during the commission of another capital felony, that there was no racial or other bias, and that the penalty assessed to this particular crime was like punishments assessed to others like it.

Maher v. Roe 432 US 464 (1977).
Although a woman has a right to an abortion, citing Roe v. Wade, and has a right to welfare aid from the Medicaid statute, she does not have a right to welfare aid for an elective abortion, the Court ruled in upholding a Connecticut statute in this case which has outraged many on the political left in America.

FCC v Pacifica 438 US 726 (1978)
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
A man travelling in his car with his young son, tuned in a radio station that was playing George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” monologue, in which the comedian ridiculed the Federal Communications Commission ban on the use in any form whatsoever of seven “dirty words.” The driver-listener filed a complaint with the FCC which thereafter refused to renew the license of the station.
The Court held that since the airwaves are owned by the public, and the FCC acts as the agent of the public, the FCC has a legitimate role in seeing that the public is not offended by what is presented on the air during daylight hours when youngsters might be listening. The majority paid little heed to the notion that offended people could simply turn the station off.

Regents v. Bakke 438 US 265 (1978).
This was a mathematical anomaly, in which a single justice was a one-man majority. The Court held, 5-4, that a state university could consider race in its medical school admissions policies. But the Court then held, 5-4, that the university could not set quotas so that specified numbers of named minorities were the only candidates for some seats. As a guide, it looked favorably on the undergraduate admissions policy at Harvard, not a state university, where minority students were eagerly recruited but no quotas were set.
Both sides argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the XIVth Am equal protection clause were being violated. The state argued that since it was a government, it had an obligation to see that members of the minorities were becoming doctors in its universities. But Bakke said that the Civil Rights Act protected him, a white, as well as all the blacks.
Burger, Rehnquist, White and Stewart ruled that the university could not consider race and could not set quotas. Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun and Stevens ruled that it could consider race and could set quotas. Powell ruled that it could consider race but not set quotas, and he won. Tom Generous was very sorry to see him, the wisest of the recent Court conservatives, retire and be replaced by doctrinaire conservative Scalia.

Gannet v. DePasquale 443 US 368 (1980).
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
Here the VIth Am right to a “public trial” was held to belong only to the defendant, not to the public or by extension to the press. Where the defense asked in a pre-trial hearing that the press be barred, and the prosecution agreed, the judge could rightly close the doors without violating the VIth Am.

Snepp v. U. S. 444 US 507 (1980).
A former CIA agent who had written about the fall of Saigon in a book highly critical of the Agency was found by the Court to have violated his contract which prohibited his publishing anything about his service without prior approval by the CIA.
The Court decided that the Ist Am “free press” clause did not protect Snepp’s right to publish, even though there was no classified information in the text and therefore no “clear and present danger,” and even though the only damage done to the CIA would be its embarrassment at its own poor performance. The Court saw the case as only a contract violation, and so to deter future such violations of this freely agree-to contract, the Court forced Snepp to pay his royalties to the Agency.

Lynch v. Donnelly 465 US 668 (1984).
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
When the overwhelmingly Catholic city of Pawtucket RI, described in this course in 1987 as”a quaint and lovely New England hamlet,” established in its Christmas display in front of town hall a “creche” which comemorated the birth of Christ by statues representing Mary, Joseph, angels, and so on, it did not violate the Ist Am “establishment clause,” the Court ruled. It noted with favor that the rest of the display had such things as Santa Claus, reindeer, evergreen trees, mock presents and other secular items of the season, holding that therefore the intent of the city was not to elevate one religion over another.

Wygant v. Jackson 1065 S. Ct 1842 (1986).
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
A school board that once had to adopt an affirmative action plan to compensate for past years of discrimination against black teachers, found itself in a position where it had to lay off teachers because the school population had shrunk. To maintain the percentage of blacks, it laid off some white teachers who had great seniority in the system. The Court ruled that in so doing, it had violated common sense and the rights of the experienced teachers.
No mention was made in the per curiam about equal protection. So much for affirmative action.

Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 US 121 (1959).
(Not done by the Mock court in 1995, but may be valuable for the final paper)
Defendants in a bank robbery were acquitted in a federal trial, but convicted on the same charge in a state court. The Court ruled (1) that the double jeopardy clause of the Vth Am did not apply to the states through the XIVth Am, and further (2) that states and the United States are separate governments which may separately try offenders who violate the laws of each. Here the Court relied on the hopes of the Founding Fathers that two levels of government would protect the people against the tyranny of one. In order for them to do so, they had to be regarded as separate sovereignties.