The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of U.S. Constitutional or federal law. It also has 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.
Melvin Robert Laird Jr. was an American politician, writer and statesman. He was a U.S. congressman from Wisconsin from 1953 to 1969 before serving as Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon. Laird was instrumental in forming the administration's policy of withdrawing U.S. soldiers from the Vietnam War; he coined the expression "Vietnamization," referring to the process of transferring more responsibility for combat to the South Vietnamese forces. First elected in 1952, Laird was the last surviving Representative elected to the 83rd Congress at the time of his death.
Robert Heron Bork was an American legal scholar who served as the solicitor general of the United States from 1973 until 1977. A professor at Yale Law School by occupation, he was later acting U.S. attorney general and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate rejected his nomination after a contentious and highly publicized confirmation hearing.
Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (No. 9487), was a controversial U.S. federal court case that arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" under the Constitution's Suspension Clause, when Congress was in recess and therefore unavailable to do so itself. More generally, the case raised questions about the ability of the executive branch to decline enforcement of judicial decisions when the executive believes them to be erroneous and harmful to its own legal powers.
United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court unanimously ordered President Richard Nixon to deliver tape recordings and other subpoenaed materials related to the Watergate scandal to a federal district court. Decided on July 24, 1974, the ruling was important to the late stages of the Watergate scandal, amidst an ongoing process to impeach Richard Nixon. United States v. Nixon is considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any U.S. president to claim executive privilege.
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 and civil libertarian views, and is often cited as the U.S. Supreme Court's most liberal justice ever. Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, Douglas was confirmed at the age of 40, becoming one of the youngest justices appointed to the court. In 1975, Time called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court." He is the longest-serving justice in history, with his term lasting 36 years and 211 days (1939–1975).
The Paris Peace Accords,, officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The treaty included the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ; the Republic of Vietnam ; the United States; and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which represented South Vietnamese communists. US ground forces had been sidelined with deteriorating morale and gradually withdrawn to coastal regions and not take part in offensive operations or much direct combat for the preceding two years. The Paris Agreement Treaty would in effect remove all remaining US forces, including air and naval forces in exchange. Direct U.S. military intervention was ended, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped for less than a day. The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Elizabeth Holtzman is an American attorney and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from New York's 16th congressional district as a member of the Democratic Party from 1973 to 1981. She then served as district attorney of Kings County from 1982 to 1989, and as the 40th Comptroller of New York City from 1990 to 1993.
Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court dismissed for lack of ripeness a claim in which the plaintiff accused the U.S. Army of alleged unlawful "surveillance of lawful citizen political activity." The appellant's specific nature of the harm caused by the surveillance was that it chilled the First Amendment rights of all citizens and undermined that right to express political dissent.
Jack Richard Miller was an American politician and jurist who served as a Republican United States Senator from Iowa for two terms from 1961 to 1973. He later served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Operation Menu was a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) tactical bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from 18 March 1969 to 26 May 1970 as part of both the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. The targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and base areas of the People's Army of Vietnam and forces of the Viet Cong (VC), which used them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in the Republic of Vietnam. The impact of the bombing campaign on the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, the PAVN, and Cambodian civilians in the bombed areas is disputed by historians.
Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the practice of requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional. After extensive hearings, floor debate and committee sessions on the matter, the United States Congress reauthorized the law, as it had previously been, to apply to men only. Several attorneys, including Robert L. Goldberg, subsequently challenged the Act as gender distinction. In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the Act, holding that its gender distinction was not a violation of the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court is a 1979 book by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. It gives a "behind-the-scenes" account of the United States Supreme Court during Warren Burger's early years as Chief Justice of the United States. The book covers the years from the 1969 term through the 1975 term. Using Woodward's trademark writing technique involving "off-the-record" sources, the book provides an account of the deliberations leading to some of the court's more controversial decisions from the 1970s. Among the cases with substantial treatment in the book was the decision in United States v. Nixon (1974), where the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon was legally obligated to turn over the Watergate tapes. In 1985, upon the death of Associate Justice Potter Stewart, Woodward disclosed that Stewart had been the primary source for The Brethren.
The Burger Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1969 to 1986, when Warren Burger served as Chief Justice of the United States. Burger succeeded Earl Warren as Chief Justice after the latter's retirement, and Burger served as Chief Justice until his retirement, at which point William Rehnquist was nominated and confirmed as Burger's replacement. The Burger Court is generally considered to be the last liberal court to date. It has been described as a "transitional" court, due to its transition from having the liberal rulings of the Warren Court to the conservative rulings of the Rehnquist Court.
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, the only U.S. president ever to do so. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, whom he had appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew became embroiled in a separate corruption scandal and was forced to resign. Nixon, a prominent member of the Republican Party from California who previously served as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower, took office following the 1968 presidential election, in which he defeated Hubert Humphrey, the then-incumbent vice president. Although he had built his reputation as a very active Republican campaigner, Nixon downplayed partisanship in his 1972 landslide reelection.
Orrin Grimmell Judd was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from 1986 until his death in 2005. Considered a staunch conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism, the Court, for the first time since the 1930s, struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its power under the Commerce Clause.
During President Richard Nixon's presidency, federal judicial appointments played a central role. Nixon appointed four individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States in just over five and a half years.
President Richard Nixon entered office in 1969 with Chief Justice Earl Warren having announced his retirement from the Supreme Court of the United States the previous year. Nixon appointed Warren E. Burger to replace Earl Warren, and during his time in office appointed three other members of the Supreme Court: Associate Justices Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, and William Rehnquist. Nixon also nominated Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell for the vacancy that was ultimately filled by Blackmun, but the nominations were rejected by the United States Senate. Nixon's failed Supreme Court nominations were the first since Herbert Hoover's nomination of John J. Parker was rejected by the Senate.
