The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States of America. It has ultimate and largely discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases that involve a point of federal law,and original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases,specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors,other public Ministers and Consuls,and those in which a State shall be Party." The Court holds the power of judicial review,the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However,it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The Court may decide cases having political overtones but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions.
Morrison Remick "Mott" Waite was an attorney,judge,and politician from Ohio. He served as the seventh chief justice of the United States from 1874 until his death in 1888. During his tenure,the Waite Court took a narrow interpretation of federal authority related to laws and amendments that were enacted during the Reconstruction Era to expand the rights of freedmen and protect them from attacks by white-supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
Samuel Holmes Sheppard,D.O. was an American neurosurgeon. He was exonerated in 1966,having been convicted of the 1954 murder of his wife,Marilyn Reese Sheppard. The case was controversial from the beginning,with extensive and prolonged nationwide media coverage.
Edward Blythin was an American politician and jurist of the Republican party who served as the 46th mayor of Cleveland,Ohio.
James Andrew Wynn Jr. is an American jurist. He currently serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and formerly served on both the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Strauder v. West Virginia,100 U.S. 303 (1880),was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States about racial discrimination and United States constitutional criminal procedure. Strauder was the first instance where the Supreme Court reversed a state court decision denying a defendant's motion to remove his criminal trial to federal court pursuant to Section 3 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Moore et al. v. Dempsey,261 U.S. 86 (1923),was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled 6–2 that the defendants' mob-dominated trials deprived them of due process guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It reversed the district court's decision declining the petitioners' writ of habeas corpus. This case was a precedent for the Supreme Court's review of state criminal trials in terms of their compliance with the Bill of Rights.
Diane Schwerm Sykes is an American jurist and lawyer who serves as the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She served as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1999 to 2004.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick is an American attorney who served as the district attorney of the Parish of Orleans,which contains the city of New Orleans,from 1973 to 2003. His son,Harry Connick Jr.,is an American musician. Connick Sr. is also a singer,long performing a few nights a week at local clubs as a hobby.
The Cleveland Press was a daily American newspaper published in Cleveland,Ohio from November 2,1878,through June 17,1982. From 1928 to 1966,the paper's editor was Louis B. Seltzer.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Ryan Keith Skipper was an American man from Polk County,Florida who was murdered on March 14,2007 in what authorities declared a hate crime. Skipper's body was discovered on March 15 along a roadside in Wahneta,Florida. Two men were arrested in connection with the crime:William David Brown Jr.,and Joseph Bearden,20 and 21 years old at the time of the incident,respectively. The men were charged with first-degree murder and robbery.
Sheppard v. Maxwell,384 U.S. 333 (1966),was a United States Supreme Court case that examined the rights of freedom of the press as outlined in the First Amendment when weighed against a defendant's right to a fair trial as required by the Sixth Amendment and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular,the court sought to determine whether or not the defendant was denied fair trial for the second-degree murder of his wife,of which he was convicted,because of the trial judge's failure to protect Sheppard sufficiently from the massive,pervasive,and prejudicial publicity that attended his prosecution.
Apodaca v. Oregon,406 U.S. 404 (1972),was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that state juries may convict a defendant by a less-than-unanimous verdict in a felony criminal case. The four-justice plurality opinion of the court,written by Justice White,affirmed the judgment of the Oregon Court of Appeals and held that there was no constitutional right to a unanimous verdict. Although federal law requires federal juries to reach criminal verdicts unanimously,the Court held Oregon's practice did not violate the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury and so allowed it to continue. In Johnson v. Louisiana,a case decided on the same day,the Court held that Louisiana's similar practice of allowing criminal convictions by a jury vote of 9–3 did not violate due process or equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Raymond Michael Kethledge is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008. Kethledge appeared on Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court of the United States nominees in 2016,and was described by press reports as a finalist in President Trump's nomination to replace Anthony Kennedy on the court.
The Fall Creek massacre refers to the slaughter of 9 Native Americans—two men,three women,two boys,and two girls—of uncertain tribal origin on March 22,1824 by seven white settlers in Madison County,Indiana. The tribal band was living in an encampment along Deer Lick Creek,near the falls at Fall Creek,the site of present-day Pendleton,Indiana. The incident sparked national attention as details of the massacre and trial were reported in newspapers of the day. It was the first documented case in which white Americans were convicted,sentenced to capital punishment,and executed for the murder of Native Americans under U.S. law. Of the seven white men who participated in the crime,six were captured. The other white man,Thomas Harper,was never apprehended. Four of the men were charged with murder and the other two testified for the prosecution. The four accused men were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. James Hudson was hanged on January 12,1825,in Madison County,and Andrew Sawyer and John Bridge Sr. were hanged on June 3,1825. James B. Ray,the governor of Indiana,pardoned John Bridge Jr.,the eighteen-year-old son of John Bridge Sr.,due to his age and the influence the others may have had on his involvement in the murders.
The Jordan Brown case involves Jordan Brown,who was initially charged at 11 as an adult in the fatal shooting of his father's fiancée,Kenzie Marie Houk,26,in New Beaver,Pennsylvania,which occurred on the morning of February 20,2009. Jordan was interviewed by Pennsylvania State Police twice that day and arrested before sunrise the next morning. The Lawrence County District Attorney's Office initially filed the charges in adult court because that is required in Pennsylvania homicide cases,regardless of a defendant's age. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office then took over prosecution of the case. After Brown had spent more than three years in a juvenile detention facility in Erie,Pennsylvania,while Pennsylvania courts deliberated his status,Brown was tried as a juvenile and found guilty of being delinquent by a judge on April 13,2012.
John Wesley Spencer was a Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court from April 15,1912,to January 7,1919.
Louis Benson Seltzer was an American journalist who was editor-in-chief of the Cleveland Press,a now-defunct daily newspaper in Cleveland,Ohio,from 1928 until his retirement in 1966. As editor of the Press,Seltzer became one of the most powerful and most well-known citizens of Cleveland,earning the nickname "Mr. Cleveland". Under Seltzer's leadership,the Press gained the largest circulation of any newspaper in Ohio and cultivated a reputation as a "fighting paper" that "fought like hell for the people".
Blueford v. Arkansas,566 U.S. 599 (2012),was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that clarified the limits of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The Supreme Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar retrial of counts that a jury had previously unanimously voted to acquit on,when a mistrial is declared after the jury deadlocked on a lesser included offense.
