The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that law enforcement in the United States must warn a person of their constitutional rights before interrogating them, or else the person's statements cannot be used as evidence at their trial. Specifically, the Court held that under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot use a person's statements made in response to an interrogation while in police custody as evidence at the person's criminal trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with a lawyer before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights but also voluntarily waived them before answering questions.
R v Clay [2003] 3 S.C.R. 735, 2003 SCC 75 is a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of the prohibition to possess marijuana. The accused claimed that his section 7 Charter rights were violated. The Court dismissed the claim.
Cory Jermaine Maye is a former American prisoner. He was originally convicted of murder in the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron W. Jones, during a drug raid on the other half of Maye's duplex.
R v Lavallee, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 852 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on the legal recognition of battered woman syndrome. The judgment, written by Justice Bertha Wilson, is generally considered one of her most famous. The court held in favour of allowing battered woman syndrome to explain how the mental conditions for self-defence were present in this case, and Lavallee's acquittal was restored.
On May 22, 1995, 16-year-old Jimmy Farris, the son of a Los Angeles Police Department officer, was stabbed to death. Farris and his friend, Michael McLoren, were next to a clubhouse-type fort in McLoren's backyard. Four acquaintances of Farris and McLoren jumped the chainlink fence and approached the fort. There was a fight inside the fort. Farris and McLoren went into the house, bleeding from stab wounds, while the other four climbed back over the fence and left. Farris died before paramedics arrived. McLoren was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center.
William Alan Fletcher is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Fletcher was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1998. Fletcher is a Professor (Emeritus) at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he still teaches federal courts.
Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249 (2007), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that all occupants of a car are "seized" for purposes of the Fourth Amendment during a traffic stop, not just the driver.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Mumia Abu-Jamal was a 1982 murder trial in which Mumia Abu-Jamal was tried for the first-degree murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. A jury convicted Abu-Jamal on all counts and sentenced him to death.
Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454 (1981), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, per Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the state may not force a defendant to submit to a psychiatric examination solely for the purposes of sentencing. Any such examination violates the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination as well as the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and is therefore inadmissible at sentencing.
United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court case relating to Miranda warnings.
Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927 (1995), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the traditional, common-law-derived "knock and announce" rule for executing search warrants must be incorporated into the "reasonableness" analysis of whether the actual execution of the warrant is/was justified under the 4th Amendment. The high court thus ruled that the old "knock and announce" rule while not a hard requirement, was also not a dead letter.
Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that a person in police custody following a misdemeanor traffic offense was entitled to the protections of the Fifth Amendment pursuant to the decision in Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Previously, some courts had been applying Miranda only to serious offenses.
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that it was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation for a prosecutor to submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the person who performed the test. While the court ruled that the then-common practice of submitting these reports without testimony was unconstitutional, it also held that so called "notice-and-demand" statutes are constitutional. A state would not violate the Constitution through a "notice-and-demand" statute by both putting the defendant on notice that the prosecution would submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the scientist and also giving the defendant sufficient time to raise an objection.
Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323 (2009), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held, by unanimous decision, that police may conduct a pat down search of a passenger in an automobile that has been lawfully stopped for a minor traffic violation, provided the police reasonably suspect the passenger is armed and dangerous.
Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96 (1975), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a criminal suspect's assertion of his right to remain silent after a Miranda warning does not preclude the police from re-Mirandizing him and questioning him about a different crime.
Kansas v. Cheever, 571 U.S. 87 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous Court held that the Fifth Amendment does not prevent the prosecution from introducing psychiatric evidence to rebut psychiatric evidence presented by the defense.
Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of the right of to confront accusers in state court proceedings. The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that, in criminal prosecutions, the defendant has a right "...to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor..." In this case, a person arrested in Texas for robbery was deprived of the ability to cross-examine a witness when the lower court allowed the introduction of a transcript of that witness's earlier testimony at a preliminary proceeding instead of compelling attendance by the witness at trial.
State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin was an American criminal case in the District Court of Minnesota in 2021. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was tried and convicted for the murder of George Floyd, which occurred during an arrest on May 25, 2020, and led to global protests over racial injustice and police brutality. A 12-member jury found Chauvin guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. It was the first conviction of a white police officer in Minnesota for the murder of a black person.
Brown v. United States,, is a United States Supreme Court case about the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The Supreme Court affirmed both courts of appeals, holding that a state drug conviction counts as an ACCA predicate if it involved a drug on the federal schedules at the time of that conviction.
