United States appellate procedure involves the rules and regulations for filing appeals in state courts and federal courts. The nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was prosecuted. There are many types of standard of review for appeals, such as de novo and abuse of discretion. However, most appeals begin when a party files a petition for review to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision.
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), is a case of the United States Supreme Court that unanimously struck down St. Paul's Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance and reversed the conviction of a teenager, referred to in court documents only as R.A.V., for burning a cross on the lawn of an African-American family since the ordinance was held to violate the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech. The Court reasoned that an ordinance like this constitutes "viewpoint discrimination" which may have the effect of driving certain ideas from the marketplace of ideas.
Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U.S. 621 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court struck down a longstanding New York State statute requiring that to be eligible to vote in certain school district elections, an individual must either own or rent taxable real property within the school district, be the spouse of a property owner or lessor, or be the parent or guardian of a child attending a public school in the district. By a 5-to-3 vote, the court held that these voting requirements violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513 (1958), was a U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the State of California's refusal to grant to ACLU lawyer Lawrence Speiser, a veteran of World War II, a tax exemption because that person refused to sign a loyalty oath as required by a California law enacted in 1954. The court reversed a lower court ruling that the loyalty oath provision did not violate the appellants' First Amendment rights.
Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496 (1939), is a US labor law case decided by the United States Supreme Court.
Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), was a case decided by the US Supreme Court, which ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk even though the sidewalk was part of a privately-owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment.
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141 (1943), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a law prohibiting the distribution of handbills from door to door violated the First Amendment rights of a Jehovah's Witness, specifically their freedom of speech. The ruling was 5-4 and deemed trespassing laws a better fit for the town imposing the ordinance.
Clarksville School of Theology is a seminary in Clayton, North Carolina. It was founded in Clarksville, Tennessee and was shut down in 1982 by legal action after it was determined that its curriculum did not meet state standards for granting an academic degree. In the case, Tennessee ex rel. McLemore v. Clarksville School of Theology, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld broad state regulation of a theological school that trained only ministers, offered no secular courses, and granted only theological degrees.
Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a New York state law making it a crime "publicly [to] mutilate, deface, defile, or defy, trample upon, or cast contempt upon either by words or act [any flag of the United States]" was, in part, unconstitutional because it prohibited speech against the flag. The Court left for a later day the question of whether it is constitutional or unconstitutional to prohibit, without reference to the utterance of words, the burning of the flag.
Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 (1986), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that claims of partisan gerrymandering were justiciable, but failed to agree on a clear standard for the judicial review of the class of claims of a political nature to which such cases belong. The decision was later limited with respect to many of the elements directly involving issues of redistricting and political gerrymandering, but was somewhat broadened with respect to less significant ancillary procedural issues. Democrats had won 51.9% of the votes, but only 43/100 seats. Democrats sued on basis of one man, one vote, however, California Democrats supported the Indiana GOP's plan.
Consuelo Bland Marshall is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that 18 U.S.C. § 48, a federal statute criminalizing the commercial production, sale, or possession of depictions of cruelty to animals, was an unconstitutional abridgment of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500 (1964), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on the right to travel and passport restrictions as they relate to Fifth Amendment due process rights and First Amendment free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association rights. It is the first case in which the US Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of personal restrictions on the right to travel abroad.
Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611 (1971), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a local city ordinance that made it a criminal offense for three or more persons to assemble on a sidewalk and "annoy" any passersby was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that it was unconstitutional to prohibit anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to distribute nonprescription contraceptives to persons 16 years of age or over, to prohibit the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives by any adult to minors under 16 years of age, and to prohibit anyone, including licensed pharmacists, to advertise or display contraceptives.
Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147 (1959), was a U.S. Supreme Court case upholding the freedom of the press. The decision deemed unconstitutional a city ordinance that made one in possession of obscene books criminally liable because it did not require proof that one had knowledge of the book's content, and thus violated the freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment. Smith v. California continued the Supreme Court precedent of ruling that questions of freedom of expression were protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action. It also established that in order for one to be criminally liable for possession of obscene material, there must be proof of one's knowledge of the material. It described that by requiring booksellers to know the contents of all of the books that they sell, this would lead to the government compelling booksellers to self-censor thereby restricting the public's access to books which the State could not constitutionally suppress directly.
Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (1994), is a United States Supreme Court case where Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of an injunction entered by a Florida state court which prohibits antiabortion protesters from demonstrating in certain places, and in various ways outside of a health clinic that performs abortions.
Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 578 U.S. 266 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in 2016 concerning the First Amendment rights of public employees. By a 6–2 margin, the Court held that a public employee's constitutional rights might be violated when an employer, believing that the employee was engaging in what would be protected speech, disciplines them because of that belief, even if the employee did not exercise such a constitutional right.
Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U.S., was a United States Supreme Court case that maintained the illegality of race-based segregation in public places. Ten African American student protesters were arrested and convicted in Greenville, South Carolina for attempting to purchase food at an S.H. Kress lunch counter. After the African American students arrived at the restaurant and sat at the lunch counter, the manager abruptly closed the store and instructed the protesters to leave. The manager and police argued that the protesters violated a state trespassing ordinance and were not arrested because of their race. While the Supreme Court of South Carolina maintained the students' guilt, the United States Supreme Court reversed the decision, citing that a "violation of the Fourteenth Amendment cannot be saved by attempting to separate the mental urges of the discriminators."
