Supreme Court Cases/Notes

Supreme Court Cases

​4th Amendment

Exclusionary Rule

• ​This rule holds that if police violate your constitutional rights in order to obtain evidence, they cannot use that evidence against you.

​5th/6th Amendment

​In Miranda v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is not limited to in-court testimony, but also applies when a person is taken into police custody for questioning. The Court also rules that criminal suspects must be told of their Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. Once a person “indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated,” the police must stop asking questions – even if the person has answered questions up to that point, the Court says.

​6th Amendment

​In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously extends to state court trials the rule it established for federal court trials nearly 30 years earlier in Johnson v. Zerbst: The Sixth and 14th Amendments guarantee indigent defendants the right to have an attorney appointed, at the government’s expense, if they are charged with a serious crime.

​8th Amendment

In Ingraham v. Wright, the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to find that the Eighth Amendment bars punishment of schoolchildren by “paddling.” Based on the amendment’s history and its language, the Court concludes that the amendment applies only to punishment of criminal offenses, not civil offenses such as breaking school rules.

Marbury v. Madison (1803) Argued: February 11, 1803 Decided: February 24, 1803 

In the early 1800s, the Constitution was still very new. There were a lot of questions about what it meant and what powers it gave to the different branches of the government. This was true when it came to the powers of the Supreme Court. Many of the powers the Supreme Court has today, like the power to declare laws unconstitutional, did not yet exist. This case is important because it explains how the Supreme Court got that power.