Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that citizens of the United States may not be deprived of their citizenship involuntarily. The U.S. government had attempted to revoke the citizenship of Beys Afroyim, a man born in Poland, because he had cast a vote in an Israeli election after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. The Supreme Court decided that Afroyim's right to retain his citizenship was guaranteed by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In so doing, the Court struck down a federal law mandating loss of U.S. citizenship for voting in a foreign election—thereby overruling one of its own precedents, Perez v. Brownell (1958), in which it had upheld loss of citizenship under similar circumstances less than a decade earlier.
Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340 (1998), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that if there is to be an award of statutory damages in a copyright infringement case, then the opposing party has the right to demand a jury trial.
Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115 (1943), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of curfews used during World War II when they were applied to citizens of the United States. The case arose out of the implementation of Executive Order 9066 by the U.S. military to create zones of exclusion along the West Coast of the United States, where Japanese Americans were subjected to curfews and eventual removal to relocation centers. This Presidential order followed the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II and inflamed the existing anti-Japanese sentiment in the country.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2008 term, which began on October 6, 2008 and concluded October 4, 2009.
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a prison official's "deliberate indifference" to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate violates the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. Farmer built on two previous Supreme Court decisions addressing prison conditions, Estelle v. Gamble and Wilson v. Seiter. The decision marked the first time the Supreme Court directly addressed sexual assault in prisons.
Bond v. United States, 564 U.S. 211 (2011), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that individuals, just like states, may have standing to raise Tenth Amendment challenges to a federal law.
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.
Fisher v. University of Texas, 570 U.S. 297 (2013), also known as Fisher I, is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Texas at Austin. The Supreme Court voided the lower appellate court's ruling in favor of the university and remanded the case, holding that the lower court had not applied the standard of strict scrutiny, articulated in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), to its admissions program. The Court's ruling in Fisher took Grutter and Bakke as given and did not directly revisit the constitutionality of using race as a factor in college admissions.
Bond v. United States, 572 U.S. 844 (2014), follows up on the Supreme Court's 2011 case of the same name in which it had reversed the Third Circuit and concluded that both individuals and states can bring a Tenth Amendment challenge to federal law. The case was remanded to the Third Circuit, for a decision on the merits, which again ruled against Bond. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded again, ruling that the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998 did not reach Bond's actions and she could not be charged under that federal law.
Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. 723 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning whether conviction of threatening another person over interstate lines requires proof of subjective intent to threaten or whether it is enough to show that a "reasonable person" would regard the statement as threatening. In controversy were the purported threats of violent rap lyrics written by Anthony Douglas Elonis and posted to Facebook under a pseudonym. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioner. It was the first time the Court has heard a case considering true threats and the limits of speech on social media.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eighteen per curiam opinions during its 2015 term, which began October 5, 2015 and concluded October 2, 2016.
McFadden v. United States, 576 U.S. 186 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that section 841 of the Controlled Substances Act requires the government to prove that to be in criminal violation, a defendant must be aware that an analogue defined by the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act with which he was dealing was a controlled substance.
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court vacated and remanded a ruling by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the basis that the Ninth Circuit had not properly determined whether the plaintiff has suffered an "injury-in-fact" when analyzing whether he had standing to bring his case in federal court. The Court did not discuss whether "the Ninth Circuit’s ultimate conclusion — that Robins adequately alleged an injury in fact — was correct."
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2016 term, which began October 3, 2016 and concluded October 1, 2017.
Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held that price controls, when used to prohibit the communication of prices of goods with regards to a surcharge, was a regulation of speech and required an analysis of the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech.
United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k)'s five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for certain sex offenses committed by federal supervised releasees as unconstitutional unless the charges are proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined Gorsuch's plurality opinion, while Breyer provided the necessary fifth vote with his narrow concurrence that began by saying he agreed with much of Justice Alito's dissent, which was joined by Justices Roberts, Thomas, and Kavanaugh.
United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a case of the United States Supreme Court, in which the justices considered the constitutionality of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that criminalizes encouraging or inducing illegal immigration. The case attracted attention from civil liberties groups and immigration advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Immigrant Defense Project, and the National Lawyers Guild.
Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case related to trademark law under the Lanham Act. In the 9–0 decision on judgement, the Court ruled that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement lawsuit is not required to demonstrate that the defendant willfully infringed on their trademark to claim lost profit damages.
Agency for Int'l Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), also known as Alliance for Open Society II, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that compelled speech required as a condition for funding on foreign non-governmental affiliates of U.S. non-government organizations does not violate First Amendment rights.
Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118 (1943), was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving denaturalization. By a 5–3 vote, the justices rejected the federal government's attempt to denaturalize William Schneiderman, a self-avowed communist. The Court held that "clear, unequivocal, and convincing" proof was required to revoke citizenship; it determined that there was insufficient evidence that Schneiderman was not "attached to the principles of the Constitution" as required by federal law.
