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 most of the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court wherein the court redefined its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". It is now referred to as the three-prong standard or the Miller test, with the third prong being informally known by the initialism and mnemonic device "SLAPS" or the term "SLAPS test".
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United States, currently used by 30 states, the federal government, and the military. Its existence can be traced to the beginning of the American colonies. The United States is the only developed Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly.
It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States one of 4 countries to use this method, along with China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18. The 5–4 decision overruled Stanford v. Kentucky, in which the court had upheld execution of offenders at or above age 16, and overturned statutes in 25 states.
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the long-standing male-only admission policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in a 7–1 decision.
United States v. Moreland, 258 U.S. 433 (1922), was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States on March 9 and 10, 1922, and decided a month later on April 17. The case involved a Fifth Amendment rights issue centering on whether or not hard labor was an infamous punishment or whether imprisonment in a penitentiary was a necessity for punishment to be considered infamous.
Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988), was the first case since the moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in the United States in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a minor on grounds of "cruel and unusual punishment." The holding in Thompson was expanded on by Roper v. Simmons (2005), where the Supreme Court extended the "evolving standards" rationale to those under 18 years old.
Florida v. J. L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000), held that a police officer may not legally stop and frisk anyone based solely on an anonymous tip that simply described that person's location and what he or she might look like but that did not furnish information as to any illegal conduct that the person might be planning.
Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court case that sanctioned the imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were at least 16 years of age at the time of the crime. This decision came one year after Thompson v. Oklahoma, in which the Court had held that a 15-year-old offender could not be executed because to do so would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. In 2003, the Governor of Kentucky Paul E. Patton commuted the death sentence of Kevin Stanford, an action followed by the Supreme Court two years later in Roper v. Simmons overruling Stanford and holding that all juvenile offenders are exempt from the death penalty.
In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held that "the Due Process clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged." It established this burden in all cases in all states. The decision did not specify which facts constitute the charged crime.
Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States existed until March 1, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court banned it in Roper v. Simmons.
Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984), was an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States overturning the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit's application of a Minnesota antidiscrimination law. The Eighth Circuit had concluded that, by requiring the United States Jaycees to admit women as full voting members, the Minnesota Human Rights Act violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the organization's members.
McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528 (1971), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that juveniles in juvenile criminal proceedings were not entitled to a jury trial by the Sixth or Fourteenth Amendments. The Court's plurality opinion left the precise reasoning for the decision unclear.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nineteen per curiam opinions during its 2009 term, which began on October 5, 2009, and concluded October 3, 2010.
Nitke v. Gonzalez, 413 F.Supp.2d 262 was a United States District Court for the Southern District of New York case regarding obscene materials published online. The plaintiff challenged the constitutionality of the obscenity provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). She claimed that it was overbroad when applied in the context of the Internet because certain contents deemed lawful in some communities and unlawful in others will be restricted due to the open access of the Internet. The plaintiff also sought a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the obscenity provision of the CDA. The court concluded that insufficient evidence was presented to show there was substantial variation in community standards, as applied in the "Miller test", and to show how much protected speech would actually be impaired because of these differences. The relief sought was denied, and the court ruled for the defendant. The Supreme Court subsequently affirmed this ruling without comment.
Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460(2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders. The ruling applied even to those persons who had committed murder as a juvenile, extending beyond the Graham v. Florida(2010) case, which had ruled juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional for crimes excluding murder.
California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case where the Court held that a fleeing suspect is not "seized" under the terms of the Fourth Amendment unless the pursuing officers apply physical force to the suspect or the suspect submits to officers' demands to halt. Consequently, evidence that is discarded by a fleeing suspect prior to the point in time at which they are seized is not subject to the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule.
Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that its previous ruling in Miller v. Alabama (2012), that a mandatory life sentence without parole should not apply to persons convicted of murder committed as juveniles, should be applied retroactively. This decision potentially affects up to 2,300 cases nationwide.
