The Oyez Project: 1984 Term Decisions

Aguilar v. Felton (No. 84-237)

No details yet.

Air France v. Saks (No. 83-1785)

No details yet.

Ake v. Oklahoma (No. 83-5424)

No details yet.

Alabama And Mississippi Boundary Case (No. 9 ORIG)

No details yet.

Alexander v. Choate (No. 83-727)

No details yet.

Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (No. 83-1748)

No details yet.

American National Bank & Tr. Co. v. Haroco, Inc. (No. 84-822)

No details yet.

Anderson v. Bessemer City (No. 83-1623)

No details yet.

Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands Skiing Corp. (No. 84-510)

No details yet.

Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon (No. 84-351)

No details yet.

Atkins v. Parker (No. 83-1660)

No details yet.

Baldwin v. Alabama (No. 84-5743)

No details yet.

Ball v. United States (No. 84-5004)

No details yet.

Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards, Inc. v. Berner (No. 84-679)

No details yet.

Bennett v. Kentucky Dept. Of Education (No. 83-1798)

Did New York City's decision to use Title I funds to pay salaries of parochial school teachers violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?

Yes. Even though the Court acknowledged that the efforts of the City of New York were well-intentioned, it found that the funding practices violated the Constitution. As part of New York's program, teachers were directed to avoid involvement in religious materials and activities in their classrooms. This, as well as the actions of school administrators and field supervisors who monitored classroom activities for religious content, posed constitutional problems for the majority. Involving agents of the city in extensive monitoring increased the potential for "divisiveness along religious lines" and violated the intent of the Establishment Clause which is to prevent the intrusion of church and state on each other's respective domain.

Bennett v. New Jersey (No. 83-2064)

No details yet.

Black v. Romano (No. 84-465)

No details yet.

Board Of Ed. v. National Gay Task Force (No. 83-2030)

No details yet.

Board Of Trustees Of Scarsdale v. Mccreary (No. 84-277)

No details yet.

Brandon v. Holt (No. 83-1622)

No details yet.

Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc. (No. 84-28)

No details yet.

Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz (No. 83-2097)

No details yet.

Burlington School Comm. v. Mass. Dept. Of Ed. (No. 84-433)

No details yet.

Caldwell v. Mississippi (No. 83-6607)

No details yet.

California v. Carney (No. 83-859)

No details yet.

Carchman v. Nash (No. 84-776)

No details yet.

Central States Pension Fund v. Central Transp. (No. 84-2157)

No details yet.

Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc. (No. 82-2157)

No details yet.

Chemical Manufacturers Assn. v. Nrdc (No. 83-1013)

No details yet.

Cia v. Sims (No. 83-1075)

No details yet.

Cleburne, TX v. Cleburne Living Center (No. 84-468)

No details yet.

Cleveland Board Of Education v. Loudermill (No. 83-1362)

No details yet.

Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Weintraub (No. 84-261)

No details yet.

Connecticut Dept. Of Income Maint. v. Heckler (No. 83-2136)

No details yet.

Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund (No. 84-312)

No details yet.

Cornelius v. Nutt (No. 83-1673)

No details yet.

Cory v. Western Oil & Gas Assn. (No. 84-16)

No details yet.

County Of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation (No. 83-1065)

No details yet.

Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd (No. 83-1708)

No details yet.

Dowling v. United States (No. 84-589)

No details yet.

Eastern Air Lines v. Mahfoud (No. 83-1807)

No details yet.

Estate of Thornton v. Caldor (No. 83-1158)

No details yet.

Evitts v. Lucey (No. 83-1378)

No details yet.

Federal Election Commission v. NCPAC (No. 83-1032)

No details yet.

First National Bank v. Bartow Cty. Tax Assessors (No. 83-1620)

No details yet.

Florida Power & Light Co. v. Lorion (No. 83-703)

No details yet.

Francis v. Franklin (No. 83-1590)

No details yet.

Fugate v. New Mexico (No. 83-6663)

No details yet.

Garcia v. United States (No. 83-6061)

No details yet.

Garrett v. United States (No. 83-1842)

No details yet.

Gould v. Ruefenacht (No. 84-165)

No details yet.

Grand Rapids School District v. Ball (No. 83-990)

No details yet.

Hallie v. Eau Claire (No. 82-1832)

No details yet.

Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises (No. 83-1632)

No details yet.

Hayes v. Florida (No. 83-6766)

No details yet.

Heckler v. Chaney (No. 83-1878)

No details yet.

Heckler v. Turner (No. 83-1097)

No details yet.

Herb's Welding, Inc. v. Gray (No. 83-728)

No details yet.

Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Labs. (No. 83-1925)

No details yet.

Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor (No. 84-231)

No details yet.

Hunter v. Underwood (No. 84-76)

No details yet.

In Re Snyder (No. 84-310)

No details yet.

Ins v. Rios-Pineda (No. 83-2032)

No details yet.

Jean v. Nelson (No. 84-5240)

No details yet.

Jensen, v. Quaring (No. 83-1944)

Did the denial of the permit violate the Equal Protection rights of Cleburne Living Center, Inc. and its potential residents?

In a unanimous judgment, the Court held that the denial of the special use permit to Cleburne Living Centers, Inc. was premised on an irrational prejudice against the mentally retarded, and hence unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. While the Court declined to grant the mentally retarded the status of a "quasi-suspect class," it nevertheless found that the "rational relation" test for legislative action provided sufficient protection against invidious discrimination.

Johnson v. Mayor & City Council Of Baltimore (No. 84-518)

No details yet.

Kentucky v. Graham (No. 84-849)

No details yet.

Kerr-Mcgee Corp. v. Navajo Tribe (No. 84-68)

No details yet.

Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth (No. 83-1961)

No details yet.

Lawrence County v. Lead-Deadwood School Dist. (No. 83-240)

No details yet.

Lindahl v. Opm (No. 83-5954)

No details yet.

Liparota v. United States (No. 84-5108)

No details yet.

Louie L. Wainwright, Secretary, Florida, Dept of Corrections v. Johnny Paul Witt (No. 83-1427)

No details yet.

Lowe v. SEC (No. 83-1911)

No details yet.

Luce v. United States (No. 83-912)

No details yet.

Marek v. Chesny (No. 83-1437)

No details yet.

Marrese v. American Academy Of Ortho. Surgeons (No. 83-1452)

No details yet.

Maryland v. Macon (No. 84-778)

No details yet.

Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell (No. 84-9)

No details yet.

Mcdonald v. Smith (No. 84-476)

No details yet.

Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts (No. 84-325)

No details yet.

Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Ward (No. 83-1274)

No details yet.

Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder (No. 83-1153)

No details yet.

Mitchell v. Forsyth (No. 84-335)

No details yet.

Mitsubishi Motors v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth (No. 83-1569)

No details yet.

Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe (No. 83-2161)

No details yet.

Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Santa Ana (No. 84-262)

No details yet.

NAACP v. Hampton County Election Comm'n (No. 83-1015)

No details yet.

National Farmers Union Ins. Cos. v. Crow Tribe (No. 84-320)

No details yet.

National R. Passenger Corp. v. A. T. & S. F. R. Co. (No. 83-1492)

No details yet.

New Jersey v. T.L.O. (No. 83-712)

No details yet.

NLRB v. Action Automotive, Inc. (No. 83-1416)

No details yet.

NLRB v. Longshoremen (No. 84-861)

No details yet.

Northeast Bancorp, Inc. v. Federal Reserve System (No. 84-363)

No details yet.

Northwest Stationers v. Pacific Stationery (No. 83-1368)

No details yet.

Ohio v. Kovacs (No. 83-1020)

Does the Connecticut statute violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?

Yes. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the Court held 8-to-1 that the Connecticut Sabbath observance statute was void, saying its "unyielding weighing in favor of Sabbath observers over all other interests" results in an unconstitutional mingling of church and state. In his opinion, Burger wrote that the Connecticut law "provides Sabbath observers with an absolute and unqualified right not to work on their Sabbath." Burger said the state law "thus commands that Sabbath religious concerns automatically control over all secular interests at the workplace; the statute takes no account of the convenience or interests of the employer or those of other employees who do not observe a Sabbath."

Oklahoma City v. Tuttle (No. 83-1919)

Does the Douglas Amendment permit states to allow banks only from certain other states to buy in-state banks, and, if so, do such state laws violate the Commerce, the Compact, or the Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution?

Yes to part 1; no to part 2. Though the Douglas Amendment's language does not specifically indicate that a state may partially lift the ban on out-of-state banks acquiring in-state banks, the Amendment's legislative history indicates that Congress intended to allow each state such flexibility. Moreover, the Massachusetts and Connecticut laws favoring out-of-state banks from New England are consistent with the broader purpose underlying the BHCA: to retain local control over banking. As for the constitutionality of these state laws, there is no violation of the dormant Commerce Clause because Congress exercised its commerce power by enacting the BHCA and the Douglas Amendment. There is no violation of the Compact Clause because Massachusetts and Connecticut did not form a compact, and even if they did, they do not pose a threat to federal supremacy. Finally, there is no violation of the Equal Protection Clause because our country has traditionally favored widely dispersed control of banking, and so the concerns Massachusetts and Connecticut had with preserving the local nature of banking meet the traditional rational basis for judging equal protection claims.

Oklahoma v. Castleberry (No. 83-2126)

No details yet.

Oregon Fish & Wildlife Dept. v. Klamath Tribe (No. 83-2148)

No details yet.

Oregon v. Elstad (No. 83-773)

No details yet.

Park'n Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park And Fly, Inc. (No. 83-1132)

No details yet.

Pattern Makers v. NLRB (No. 83-1894)

No details yet.

Paulsen v. Commissioner (No. 83-832)

No details yet.

Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts (No. 84-233)

No details yet.

Ponte v. Real (No. 83-1329)

No details yet.

Ramirez v. Indiana (No. 84-5059)

No details yet.

Rhode Island And New York Boundary Case (No. 35 ORIG)

No details yet.

Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Koller (No. 84-127)

No details yet.

Russell v. United States (No. 84-435)

No details yet.

Schreiber v. Burlington Northern, Inc. (No. 83-2129)

No details yet.

Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co. (No. 84-648)

No details yet.

Shea v. Louisiana (No. 82-5920)

No details yet.

Southern Motor Carriers Rate Conf. v. U.S. (No. 82-1922)

No details yet.

Spencer v. South Carolina Tax Commission (No. 84-249)

No details yet.

Springfield Township School Dist. v. Knoll (No. 82-1889)

No details yet.

Superintendent v. Hill (No. 84-438)

No details yet.

Supreme Court Of New Hampshire v. Piper (No. 83-1466)

No details yet.

Tennessee v. Garner (No. 83-1035)

Did the Justice Department's policy of passive enforcement of the Selective Service Act, in which it prosecuted only those men who were reported by others or who reported themselves for not registering with the Selective Service system, violate the First and Fifth Amendments?

No. The Supreme Court held, 7-to-2, that the government's passive enforcement policy was constitutional. In the majority opinion, Justice Lewis Powell found that the government's policy was not unconstitutional selective enforcement (in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Equal Protection clause) because men who had not taken an outspoken stance against the Selective Service, but who were merely reported by others for failing to register, were treated the same as those men who had notified the government of their own refusal to register. Justice Powell wrote, "In the present case, petitioner has not shown that the Government prosecuted him because of his protest activities. Absent such a showing, his claim of selective prosecution fails."

To decide the First Amendment challenge, Justice Powell cited four requirements for incidental government regulation of speech laid out in United States v. O'Brien: the regulation must be within the government's constitutional power, must further an important or substantial government interest, must have an interest unrelated to the suppression of free speech, and must restrict only as much speech as is necessary to meet the government interest. Powell found that the passive enforcement policy satisfied all these requirements, and therefore did not violate the First Amendment.

Tennessee v. Street (No. 83-2143)

No details yet.

Thomas v. Union Carbide Agric. Products Co. (No. 84-497)

No details yet.

Tiffany Fine Arts, Inc. v. United States (No. 83-1007)

No details yet.

Tiverton Bd. Of License Comm'rs v. Pastore (No. 83-963)

No details yet.

Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation v. Sec'y Of Labor (No. 83-1935)

No details yet.

Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston (No. 83-997)

No details yet.

United States v. 50 Acres Of Land (No. 83-1170)

No details yet.

United States v. Abel (No. 83-935)

No details yet.

United States v. Albertini (No. 83-1624)

No details yet.

United States v. Bagley (No. 84-48)

No details yet.

United States v. Boyle (No. 83-1266)

No details yet.

United States v. Dann (No. 83-1476)

No details yet.

United States v. Hensley (No. 83-1330)

No details yet.

United States v. Johns (No. 83-1625)

Was Elstad's written confession made invalid by the failure of the officers to administer Miranda warnings at his home?

In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court held that while Miranda required that unwarned admissions must be suppressed, subsequent statements, if made knowingly and voluntarily, need not be. The Court held that ". . .the mere fact that a suspect has made an unwarned admission does not warrant a presumption of compulsion." The Court also noted that police officers were ill-equipped to determine when "custody" legally begins. Justice O'Connor, writing for the majority, argued that the holding "in no way retreat[ed] from the bright-line rule of Miranda."

United States v. Locke (No. 83-1394)

No details yet.

United States v. Miller (No. 83-1750)

No details yet.

United States v. Montoya De Hernandez (No. 84-755)

No details yet.

United States v. National Bank Of Commerce (No. 84-498)

No details yet.

United States v. Powell (No. 83-1307)

No details yet.

United States v. Sharpe (No. 83-529)

No details yet.

United States v. Shearer (No. 84-194)

No details yet.

United States v. Young (No. 83-469)

No details yet.

Wallace v. Jaffree (No. 83-812)

No details yet.

Walters v. Nat. Assn. Of Radiation Survivors (No. 84-571)

No details yet.

Wayte v. United States (No. 83-1292)

No details yet.

Webb v. Dyer County Bd. Of Ed. (No. 83-1360)

No details yet.

Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell (No. 83-1545)

No details yet.

Williams v. Vermont (No. 84-592)

No details yet.

Williamson Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank (No. 84-4)

No details yet.

Wilson v. Garcia (No. 83-2146)

No details yet.

Winston v. Lee (No. 83-1334)

No details yet.

Zauderer v. Office Of Disciplinary Counsel (No. 83-2166)

No details yet.