The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Loving v. Virginia (1967) regarding interracial marriage, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage, and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) regarding race-based college admissions. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama is a United States district court in the Eleventh Circuit.
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court redefined what constitutes a "search" or "seizure" with regard to the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ruling expanded the Fourth Amendment's protections from an individual's "persons, houses, papers, and effects," as specified in the Constitution's text, to include any areas where a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy." The reasonable expectation of privacy standard, now known as the Katz test, was formulated in a concurring opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan II.
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eleven southern states established poll taxes as part of their disenfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1964) prohibited poll taxes in federal elections; five states continued to require poll taxes for voters in state elections. By this ruling, the Supreme Court banned the use of poll taxes in state elections.
Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statutes that set requirements for voter registration, including poll tax, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and the requirement that only registered voters could serve on juries. The plaintiff, Henry Williams, claimed that Mississippi's voting laws were upheld with the intent to disenfranchise African Americans, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's laws because, even though the laws made discrimination possible, the laws themselves did not discriminate against African Americans. The court found that any discrimination toward African Americans was performed by the administrative officers enforcing the law and that there was no judicial remedy for this kind of discrimination.
Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found an electoral district with boundaries created to disenfranchise African Americans violated the Fifteenth Amendment.
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.
Murray v. Pearson was a Maryland Court of Appeals decision which found "the state has undertaken the function of education in the law, but has omitted students of one race from the only adequate provision made for it, and omitted them solely because of their color." On January 15, 1936, the court affirmed the lower court ruling which ordered the university to immediately integrate its student population, and therefore created a legal precedent making segregation in Maryland illegal.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other amendments, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.
Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996), was a unanimous United States Supreme Court decision that "declared that any traffic offense committed by a driver was a legitimate legal basis for a stop."
United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363 (1971), is a United States Supreme Court decision in an in rem case on procedures following the seizure of imported obscene material. A 6–3 court held that the federal statute governing the seizures was not in violation of the First Amendment as long as the government began forfeiture proceedings within 14 days of the seizure.
United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973), was an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court that considered the question of whether the First Amendment required that citizens be allowed to import obscene material for their personal and private use at home, which was already held to be protected several years earlier. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that it did not.
Quantity of Books v. Kansas, 378 U.S. 205 (1964), is an in rem United States Supreme Court decision on First Amendment questions relating to the forfeiture of obscene material. By a 7–2 margin, the Court held that a seizure of the books was unconstitutional, since no hearing had been held on whether the books were obscene, and it reversed a Kansas Supreme Court decision that upheld the seizure.
Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U.S. 717 (1961), full title Marcus v. Search Warrant of Property at 104 East Tenth Street, Kansas City, Missouri, is an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court on the seizure of obscene materials. The Court unanimously overturned a Missouri Supreme Court decision upholding the forfeiture of hundreds of magazines confiscated from a Kansas City wholesaler. It held that both Missouri's procedures for the seizure of allegedly obscene material and the execution of the warrant itself violated the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments' prohibitions on search and seizure without due process. Those violations, in turn, threatened the rights protected by the First Amendment.
A Krimstock hearing is an administrative law proceeding that offers vehicle owners the opportunity to recover possession of a vehicle confiscated by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) during an arrest. Police have authority to impound vehicles used as an instrument of a crime, and later to seek permanent ownership of these vehicles in civil forfeiture actions. Such forfeiture actions, like the Krimstock administrative hearings, are entirely separate from any criminal charges the vehicle owner may face stemming from his or her arrest.
Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146 (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 he was convicted on non-felony possession charges.
Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465 (1976), was decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that limited which claims of Fourth Amendment violations could be made by state prisoners in habeas corpus petitions in federal courts. Specifically, a claim that the exclusionary rule had been broken would be barred if state courts had already given it a full and fair hearing. The decision combined two cases that were argued before the Supreme Court on the same day with similar issues, one filed by Lloyd Powell and the other, titled Wolff v. Rice, filed by David Rice.
Nebraska v. One 1970 2-Door Sedan Rambler (Gremlin) 191 Neb. 462, 215 N.W.2d 849 (1974) is a Nebraska Supreme Court civil forfeiture case. It was brought by the American state of Nebraska to seize a Rambler Gremlin on the sole grounds it was transporting illegal marijuana. The owner appealed against the forfeiture decision on the grounds of a claimed lack of due process. The court ruled 4–2 and sustained the confiscation as lawful.
Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023), was a United States Supreme Court case about government seizure of property for unpaid taxes, when the value of the property seized is greater than the tax debt. A unanimous court held that the surplus value is protected by the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause.
