The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by Congress on March 4, 1794, and ratified by the states on February 7, 1795. The Eleventh Amendment restricts the ability of individuals to bring suit against states in federal court.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that defined First Amendment rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test, also known as the "substantial disruption" test, is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's interest to prevent disruption infringes upon students' First Amendment rights.
Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention. The Court's 6–3 judgment on June 28, 2004, reversed a D.C. Circuit decision which had held that the judiciary has no jurisdiction to hear any petitions from foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay.
A prize court is a court authorized to consider whether prizes have been lawfully captured, typically whether a ship has been lawfully captured or seized in time of war or under the terms of the seizing ship's letters of marque and reprisal. A prize court may order the sale or destruction of the seized ship, and the distribution of any proceeds to the captain and crew of the seizing ship. A prize court may also order the return of a seized ship to its owners if the seizure was unlawful, such as if seized from a country which had proclaimed its neutrality.
In rem jurisdiction is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have in personam jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in rem assumes the property or status is the primary object of the action, rather than personal liabilities not necessarily associated with the property.
Federal tribunals in the United States are those tribunals established by the federal government of the United States for the purpose of deciding the constitutionality of federal laws and for resolving other disputes about federal laws. They include both Article III tribunals as well as adjudicative entities which are classified as Article I or Article IV tribunals. Some of the latter entities are also formally denominated as courts, but they do not enjoy certain protections afforded to Article III courts. These tribunals are described in reference to the article of the United States Constitution from which the tribunal's authority stems. The use of the term "tribunal" in this context as a blanket term to encompass both courts and other adjudicative entities comes from section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, which expressly grants Congress the power to constitute tribunals inferior to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prize is a term used in admiralty law to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of prize in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and her cargo as a prize of war. In the past, the capturing force would commonly be allotted a share of the worth of the captured prize. Nations often granted letters of marque that would entitle private parties to capture enemy property, usually ships. Once the ship was secured on friendly territory, she would be made the subject of a prize case, an in rem proceeding in which the court determined the status of the condemned property and the manner in which the property was to be disposed of.
New York v. Connecticut, 4 U.S. 1 (1799), was a lawsuit heard by the Supreme Court of the United States between the State of New York against the State of Connecticut in 1799 that arose from a land dispute between private parties. The case was the first case in which the Supreme Court exercised its original jurisdiction under Article III of the United States Constitution to hear controversies between two states.
Little v. Barreme, 6 U.S. 170 (1804), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court found that the President of the United States does not have "inherent authority" or "inherent powers" that allow him to ignore a law passed by the US Congress.
This is a list of all the cases from volume 1 of the United States Reports. None of the decisions appearing in the first volume and only a few in the second volume of United States Reports are actually decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts dating from the colonial period and the first decade after independence. Alexander J. Dallas, a Philadelphia lawyer and journalist, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume, which he called Reports of cases ruled and adjudged in the courts of Pennsylvania, before and since the Revolution. This would come to be known as the first volume of Dallas Reports.
United States v. Schooner Sally, 6 U.S. 406 (1805), was an 1805 decision of the United States Supreme Court which found that the question of forfeiture of a vessel is of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, not of common law.
Talbot v. Seeman, 5 U.S. 1 (1801), was a United States Supreme Court case. It was a maritime case involving the circumstances under which salvage rights attach to a neutral vessel, captured by enemy forces, and then recaptured by the United States Navy.
Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1 (1794), was an early United States Supreme Court case holding that debts sequestered but not declared forfeit by states during the American Revolution could be recovered by bondholders. It is significant as the only reported jury trial in the history of the Supreme Court.
United States v. Lawrence, 3 U.S. 42 (1795), was a United States Supreme Court case determining that the Supreme Court cannot normally compel a federal trial judge to proceed in a case which he feels is lacking sufficient evidence to proceed. In the case, the court held:
Where a judge of the district court, acting in his judicial capacity, determined that evidence was not sufficient to authorize him to proceed in a case before him, this Court has no power to compel him to decide according to the dictates of any judgment but his own, whatever might be the difference of sentiment entertained by the court.
A motion was made by the Attorney General of the United States (Bradford) for a rule to show cause why a mandamus should not be directed to John Lawrence, Judge of the District of New York, in order to compel him to issue a warrant, for apprehending Captain Barre, commander of the frigate Le Perdrix, belonging to the French Republic.
Penhallow v. Doane's Administrators, 3 U.S. 54 (1795), was a United States Supreme Court case about prize causes, holding that federal district courts have the powers formerly granted to the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture under the Congress of the Articles of Confederation. In the case:
it was held that the Congress under the Confederation had power to erect a court of appeals in prize causes, that its decrees were conclusive, and that the district courts of the United States created under the Constitution have, as courts of admiralty, power to carry into effect the decrees of the former court of appeals in prize causes erected by the Congress of the Confederation.
United States v. Peters, 3 U.S. 121 (1795), was a United States Supreme Court case determining that the federal district court has no jurisdiction over a foreign privateer where the intended captured ship was not within the jurisdiction of the court. The Supreme Court may prohibit the district court from proceeding in such a matter. In the decision the court held:
The district court has no jurisdiction of a libel for damages, against a privateer, commissioned by a foreign belligerent power, for the capture of an American vessel as prize—the captured vessel not being within the jurisdiction.
The supreme court will grant a writ of prohibition to a district judge, when he is proceeding in a cause of which the district court has no jurisdiction.
Hills et al. v. Ross, 3 U.S. 184 (1796), is an early United States Supreme Court case determining that the Supreme Court held:
A plea in the admiralty by one partner, in behalf of himself and his copartners, the rejoinder being signed by a proctor for all the defendants, amounts to a legal appearance of all the defendants.
Prize agents, who receive the proceeds of sales of prizes, and pay them over to the proctors without an order of the court, are responsible to the owners of the captured property for the net amounts so received by them, in case restitution is decreed.
United States v. La Vengeance, 3 U.S. 297 (1796), was a 1796 decision of the United States Supreme Court which found that a proceeding by the United States to forfeit a vessel is a cause of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Specifically, "[a]n injunction to enforce the forfeiture of a vessel, for an illegal exportation of arms and ammunition, is a civil cause of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. The courts will take judicial notice of a geographical fact."
The Taney Court heard thirty criminal law cases, approximately one per year. Notable cases include Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), United States v. Rogers (1846), Ableman v. Booth (1858), Ex parte Vallandigham (1861), and United States v. Jackalow (1862).
The original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States is limited to a small class of cases described in Article III, section 2, of the United States Constitution, and further delineated by statute.
