Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed flyers to draft-age men urging resistance to induction could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. The First Amendment did not protect the defendants from prosecution, even though, "in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done." In this case, Holmes said, "the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." Therefore, the defendants could be punished.
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Released by Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study; they were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of The New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress."
William Orville Douglas was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive views, and is often cited as the Supreme Court's most liberal justice ever. In 1975, Time magazine called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court."
United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that a criminal prohibition against burning a draft card did not violate the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. Though the Court recognized that O'Brien's conduct was expressive as a protest against the Vietnam War, it considered the law justified by a significant government interest unrelated to the suppression of speech and was tailored towards that end.
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 protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision expanded the Fourth Amendment's protections from the right of search and seizures of an individual's "persons, houses, papers, and effects", as specified in the U.S. Constitution, to include as a constitutionally protected area "what [a person] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public".
Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court limited the ability of local governments to charge fees for the use of public places for private activities. By 5—4, the court ruled that an ordinance allowing the local government to set varying fees for different events violated the First Amendment due to the lack of "narrowly drawn, reasonable, and definite standards" governing the amount of the fee.
Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. 627 (1999), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States relating to the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967), was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled that the United States government cannot deprive the people of constitutional rights - in this case, freedom of association - even in the interests of national security.
Cox v. United States, 332 U.S. 442 (1947), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States found that courts have only limited scope of review over a Selective Service Board's classification of a Jehovah's Witness as a conscientious objector rather than a minister.
United States v. Correll, 389 U.S. 299 (1967), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that in order for the taxpayer to be allowed to deduct the cost of his meals incurred while on a business trip, the trip must have required him to stop for sleep or rest.
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, in which the Court held that “a search and seizure [was] equivalent [to] a compulsory production of a man's private papers” and that the search was “an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”
Gunn v. University Committee to End the War in Viet Nam, 399 U.S. 383 (1970), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court that since the District Court has issued neither an injunction nor an order granting or denying one, Supreme Court has no jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1253, which provides for review of orders granting or denying interlocutory or permanent injunctions.
McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm'n, 411 U.S. 164 (1973), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States holding that Arizona has no jurisdiction to impose a tax on the income of Navajo Indians residing on the Navajo Reservation and whose income is wholly derived from reservation sources.
Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court ruling that the passing out of anti-war leaflets at the Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon, was an infringement on property rights. This differed from Marsh v. Alabama (1946) and Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza (1968) in that Marsh had the attributes of a municipality and Logan Valley related to picketing a particular store, while the current case, the distribution of leaflets, is unrelated to any activity in the property.
A minimally intrusive/invasive warrantless search is a type of search that does not breach the boundaries of the property and is performed without any prerequisite search warrant. These searches are contested regularly in courts, and have been ruled for and against under different circumstances. The primary debate concerns the method in which the search is conducted, and also the area being searched. Issues concerning warrantless search and subsequent seizure are always of local concern, because they are a community law enforcement issue as well as a national law issue.
The Fort Hood Three were three soldiers of the US Army – Private First Class James Johnson, Jr. Private David A. Samas, and Private Dennis Mora – who refused to be deployed to Vietnam on June 30, 1966. This was the first public refusal of orders to Vietnam, and one of the earliest acts of resistance to the war from within the U.S. military. Their refusal was widely publicized and became a cause célèbre within the growing antiwar movement. They filed a federal suit against Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor to prevent their shipment to Southeast Asia and were court-martialed by the Army for insubordination.
The New York University Journal of Law & Liberty is a law journal at the New York University School of Law that publishes scholarship related to law and classical liberalism.
