The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects against imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. This amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the United States Bill of Rights. The amendment serves as a limitation upon the federal government to impose unduly harsh penalties on criminal defendants before and after a conviction. This limitation applies equally to the price for obtaining pretrial release and the punishment for crime after conviction. The phrases in this amendment originated in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), was a landmark case of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning affirmative action in student admissions. The Court held that a student admissions process that favors "underrepresented minority groups" did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause so long as it took into account other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant. The decision largely upheld the Court's decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which allowed race to be a consideration in admissions policy but held racial quotas to be unconstitutional. In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), a separate case decided on the same day as Grutter, the Court struck down a points-based admissions system that awarded an automatic bonus to the admissions scores of minority applicants.
Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004), was a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit, originally filed as Newdow v. United States Congress, Elk Grove Unified School District, et al. in 2000, led to a 2002 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are an endorsement of religion and therefore violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The words had been added by a 1954 act of Congress that changed the phrase "one nation indivisible" into "one nation under God, indivisible". After an initial decision striking the congressionally added "under God", the superseding opinion on denial of rehearing en banc was more limited, holding that compelled recitation of the language by school teachers to students was invalid.
Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004), was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States involving Congress's enforcement powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an ordinance passed in Hialeah, Florida, forbidding the "unnecessar[y]" killing of "an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption", was unconstitutional.
Thomas David Van Orden was an American lawyer who unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Van Orden v. Perry, 125 S. Ct. 2854 (2005).
United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that Fourth Amendment protections do not apply to searches and seizures by United States agents of property owned by a nonresident alien in a foreign country.
United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, 529 U.S. 803 (2000), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down Section 505 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which required that cable television operators completely scramble or block channels that are "primarily dedicated to sexually-oriented programming" or limit their transmission to the hours of 10 pm to 6 am.
United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321 (1998), is a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that asset forfeiture is unconstitutional when it is "grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendant’s offense", citing the Excessive Fines clause of the Eighth Amendment. It was the first time the Court struck down the federal government's "aggressive use of forfeiture" and the only time it has held that an imposed fine was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2006 term, which began October 2, 2006 and concluded September 30, 2007.
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of [congressional] power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Texas Monthly v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989), was a case brought before the US Supreme Court in November 1988. The case was to test the legality of a Texas statute that exempted religious publications from paying state sales tax.
J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U.S. 127 (1994), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States holding that peremptory challenges based solely on a prospective juror's sex are unconstitutional. J.E.B. extended the court's existing precedent in Batson v. Kentucky (1986), which found race-based peremptory challenges in criminal trials unconstitutional, and Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company (1991), which extended that principle to civil trials. As in Batson, the court found that sex-based challenges violate the Equal Protection Clause.
Burnham v. Superior Court of California, 495 U.S. 604 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case addressing whether a state court may, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident of the state who is served with process while temporarily visiting the state. All nine justices unanimously agreed that this basis for personal jurisdiction—known as "transient jurisdiction"—is constitutionally permissible. However, the Court failed to produce a majority opinion, as the members were sharply divided on the reasons for the decision, reflecting two fundamentally different approaches to how due-process issues are to be analyzed. Justice Scalia wrote the lead opinion, joined in whole or part by three other Justices. Justice Brennan wrote an opinion joined by three other Justices. Justices White and Stevens wrote separate opinions.
Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384 (1993), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States concerning whether the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment was offended by a school district that refused to allow a church access to school premises to show films dealing with family and child-rearing issues faced by parents. In a unanimous decision, the court concluded that it was.
Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753 (1995), is a United States Supreme Court case that focused on First Amendment rights and the Establishment Clause. Vincent Pinette, an active member of the Ku Klux Klan in Columbus, Ohio, wanted to place an unattended cross on the lawn of the Capitol Square during the 1993 Christmas season. Pinette and his fellow members of the KKK submitted their request. The advisory board originally denied this request. However, Pinette and the other members of the Ohio Chapter of the Klan fought this decision in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The court found in favor of the Klan and the advisory board issued the permit. The Board appealed to the United States Court of Appeals, which affirmed the decision of the district court. The board made one last petition to the Supreme Court where the decision was made, by a vote of seven to two, that the Klan was permitted to display the cross at the public forum.
Kerry v. Din, 576 U.S. 86 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court analyzed whether there is a constitutional right to live in the United States with one's spouse and whether procedural due process requires consular officials to give notice of reasons for denying a visa application. In Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurring opinion, the controlling opinion in this case, he wrote that notice requirements “[do] not apply when, as in this case, a visa application is denied due to terrorism or national security concerns.” Because the consular officials satisfied notice requirements, there was no need for the Court to address the constitutional question about the right to live with one's spouse.
Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered whether the excessive fines clause of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment applies to state and local governments. The case covered the asset forfeiture of the petitioner's truck after the police found a small quantity of drugs within it and was convicted on non-felony possession charges.
United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456 (1996), was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States.
TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443 (1993), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which upheld the decision of the West Virginia state court awarding $19,000 in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages to the plaintiff. Although multiple justices recognized that the punitive damages were 526 times the compensatory damages, the Court held a "general concern of reasonableness" should guide courts in determining constitutionally acceptable damages under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
