| June 29, 2008 | - The Supreme Court overturned the 32-year ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., ruling 5-4 that there is a Second Amendment right to own a gun for personal use. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his dissent that the court's ruling, its first on the Second Amendment in 70 years, showed a lack of “respect for the well-settled views of all of our predecessors on the court, and for the rule of law itself.” The National Rifle Association promptly brought lawsuits against five other cities with handgun bans, including San Francisco, Chicago, and Oak Park, Illinois. “It's just completely befuddling,” said the Oak Park village manager, “that our Supreme Court would be in alliance with the gangbangers.”
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
NPR
|
| June 26, 2008 | - The Supreme Court determined that Exxon need pay only $507.5 million (about four days' worth of recent profits) of the $5 billion in punitive damages initially awarded to victims of the 1989 “Valdez” oil spill.
| Source 1:
CNN Money
Source 2:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| June 25, 2008 | - The Supreme Court determined that child rapists should not be sentenced to death if their crime “did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death.” John McCain disagreed with that ruling and suggested that by executing those found guilty of “the most heinous of crimes” the United States could protect the innocence of its children, while Barack Obama suggested that the rape of a small child, “six or eight years old,” could be punished by death without violating the Constitution.
| Source:
AFP
|
| June 14, 2008 | - The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that detainees held as “enemy combatants” by the United States in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus petitions in federal courts. “Liberty and security can be reconciled...within the framework of the law,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the court's decision. “The Framers decided that habeas corpus...must be...a part of that law.” Dissenting, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court's analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation.” Defense lawyers for the detainees moved to establish that their clients have the right to other constitutional protections and sought to halt ongoing military-commission trials, which permit hearsay and evidence gained from torture.
John McCain called the ruling “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Barack Obama said, “I think the Supreme Court was right.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
cnn
|
| December 6, 2007 | - The Supreme Court debated the limits of habeas corpus.
| Source:
WP
|
| April 19, 2007 | - The United States
Supreme Court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is legal.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| April 2, 2007 | - The Supreme Court forbade the Environmental Protection Agency to shirk its responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 26, 2007 | - Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that being the only female Supreme Court justice made her feel lonely.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| January 5, 2007 | - Newly released FBI files revealed that the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist checked into a hospital for sedative dependency in 1981. During his rehabilitation, Rehnquist spoke of “a CIA plot against him” and tried to escape from the hospital clad in his pajamas.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 3, 2006 | - The Supreme Court refused to consider the constitutionality of Ignacio Sergio Acosta v. state of Texas, a case that challenged the Texas law that makes it illegal to promote genitalia-shaped sex toys.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| July 8, 2006 | -
President Bush said that he was “willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court” in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that the administration's scheme to try prisoners at Guantánamo in military tribunals is illegal. “It didn't say we couldn't have done—couldn't have made that decision, see?” Bush added. “They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo—whether we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 29, 2006 | - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President George W. Bush had overstepped his authority in establishing military tribunals for Guantánamo Bay detainees. “I'd like to close Guantánamo,” said Bush, “But . . . we're holding some people that are darn dangerous.”
| Source 1:
Yahoo! News
Source 2:
Breitbart.com
|
| May 23, 2006 | - The Supreme Court voted unanimously that police may enter a house without a warrant in order to break up a fight.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| March 21, 2006 | - The Supreme Court voted to refuse Puerto Ricans the right to vote in U.S. Presidential elections.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 6, 2006 | -
Bush proposed legislation to give the President a line-item veto, even though the Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that a line-item veto was unconstitutional.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| February 1, 2006 | -
Samuel Alito was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| January 27, 2006 | -
Massachusetts Junior Senator
John Kerry, in Switzerland for the Davos economic forum, called for a filibuster to stop the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.
| Source:
The Salt Lake Tribune
|
| January 17, 2006 | - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Oregon law allowing for physician-assisted suicide.
| Source:
CBC.ca
|
| January 12, 2006 | - The U.S. Senate made Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's wife cry.
| Source:
NBC11.com
|
| January 5, 2006 | - Three Christian ministers claimed that they had sneaked into a Senate hearing room to anoint with oil the chairs used during Samuel Alito's Supreme Court confirmation.
| Source:
Salon.com
|
| December 31, 2005 | - A study found that Antonin Scalia is the funniest of the Supreme Court justices; in fact Scalia is 19 times funnier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A former clerk defended Ginsburg's sense of humor: “Maybe not often, perhaps not loudly or with great vigor and the wild waving of arms,” said the clerk, “but laugh she does.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 28, 2005 | - The Supreme Court’s marble facade began to crumble.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 19, 2005 | -
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito attempted to distance himself from his statement, “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion,” which he wrote in an application for a job in the Reagan Administration. “It was a political job,” he clarified, “and that was 1985.”
| Source:
The Boston Globe
|
| November 3, 2005 | - It was revealed that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito once led a student conference that called for sodomy to be legalized.
| Source:
IndyStar.com
|
| October 28, 2005 | -
Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| October 10, 2005 | - Both Democratic and Republican senators were questioning the qualifications of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who has never argued a case before the Supreme Court but has been often referred to as President Bush's “work wife.”
| Source 1:
The Seattle Times
Source 2:
Slate.com
|
| September 29, 2005 | - John G. Roberts, Jr. was sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| September 29, 2005 | - President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers, a White House lawyer who has never been a judge, to the Supreme Court. Miers has allegedly described Bush as "brilliant."
| Source:
David Frum’s Diary/NRO
|
| September 14, 2005 | -
Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. was questioned by members of the Senate and managed to avoid direct answers to many of the questions posed to him. He did reveal, however, that "Dr. Zhivago" and "North by Northwest" were his favorite films. Antiabortion groups felt that Roberts was doing just fine.
| Source 1:
KPAX
Source 2:
The Washington Post
|
| September 3, 2005 | -
Chief Justice of the United States William H. Rehnquist died, and President Bush nominated John G. Roberts, Jr. as a replacement.
| Source 1:
Wikipedia
Source 2:
The Mercury News
|
| August 29, 2005 | -
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts was revealed to be a strict grammarian.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| August 17, 2005 | - A file folder describing the affirmative-action work of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts went missing from the Reagan Library after it was reviewed by White House lawyers, and it was revealed that Roberts had once refused a request from Michael Jackson for a special letter of commendation from the Reagan White House.
| Source 1:
The Washington Post
Source 2:
BBC News
|
| July 19, 2005 | - President George W. Bush nominated John G. Roberts, a federal appeals court judge, to the Supreme Court. Roberts has criticized U.S. abortion policy, but is considered very handsome. “American women will love him,” said an editor at More Magazine. “I love thee,” commentator David Brooks wrote of the nomination, “with the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. I love thee freely.”
| Source 1:
AP
Source 2:
Times Online
|
| July 14, 2005 | - William Rehnquist announced that he would not retire from the Supreme Court.
| Source:
AP
|
| July 4, 2005 | - Conservative groups began fighting to keep Attorney General Alberto Gonzales from being nominated to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor because he is not conservative enough.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| July 1, 2005 | - Sandra Day O'Connor announced that she would retire from the Supreme Court.
| Source:
AP
|
| June 23, 2005 | - The Supreme Court ruled that the government can take property under eminent domain for private development. “Under the banner of economic development,” said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, “all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 6, 2005 | - The Supreme Court made it impossible to obtain medical marijuana.
| Source:
Bloomberg.com
|
| March 25, 2005 | - The Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought by Terri Schiavo's parents to force the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 22, 2005 | - The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging the Alabama law that makes it a crime—punishable by a year in jail and a $10,000 fine—to sell vibrators, dildos, anal beads, and artificial vaginas.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 10, 2005 | - The Supreme Court ruled that the Ku Klux Klan could adopt a highway in Missouri.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 1, 2004 | - Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who underwent a tracheotomy last week, was recovering from treatment for thyroid cancer and was unable to return to work.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| October 1, 2004 | -
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that "sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged."
| Source:
Guardian
|
| September 23, 2004 | - After maintaining for three years that Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan, was so grave a threat to the United States that merely permitting him to meet with his lawyer would fatally compromise national security, the Bush Administration (having been told by Justice Antonin Scalia that "the very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive") declined to defend its case against Hamdi in open court and announced that he will be stripped of his citizenship and released in Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
Boston Globe, Washington Post, ZNet
|
| June 29, 2004 | - Observing that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president," the Supreme Court ruled that both foreign prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay and so-called enemy combatants held in the United States can use the American legal system to challenge their detention.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 29, 2004 | - The Supreme Court ruled that a federal law designed to shield children from Internet porn cannot be enforced, because it likely violates the First Amendment.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| June 24, 2004 | - The Supreme Court declined to make Dick Cheney release the records of his 2001 Energy Task Force and sent the case back to a lower court for further consideration.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 13, 2004 | -
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia apologized to two reporters whose recordings of a recent speech were erased by a federal marshal; Scalia had lamented in the speech that people just don't revere the Constitution the way they used to.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 12, 2004 | -
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended his duck-hunting trip with Dick Cheney and said he did not plan to recuse himself from a case involving the Vice President's shadowy energy task force.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| January 16, 2004 | - Five military lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in setting up military tribunals for their clients and the other detainees. "Under this monarchical regime," they wrote, "those who fall into the black hole may not contest the jurisdiction, competency or even the constitutionality of the military tribunals."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 13, 2004 | - The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal challenging the government's post-September 11 policy of secretly seizing and imprisoning Muslim men.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| December 11, 2003 | - The United States Supreme Court upheld the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, which bans unlimited political contributions to political parties. The majority concluded that "it was not unwarranted for Congress to conclude that the selling of access gives rise to the appearance of corruption."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 15, 2003 | - The Supreme Court let a ruling stand that the federal government may not prevent doctors from recommending marijuana as a pain reliever.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 16, 2003 | -
Pat Robertson called on his disciples to mount a "prayer offensive" against the Supreme Court aimed at forcing three of the justices, who Robertson said have "opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest," to retire.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| March 11, 2003 | -
The United States Supreme Court ruled that it is not cruel and unusual punishment to put a man in prison for 50 years for stealing a couple of videotapes for his children.
| |
| June 4, 2002 | - The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the state of Texas in the matter of Calvin Jerold Burdine, who was convicted of murdering his gay lover and was sentenced to die after his court-appointed lawyer slept through the trial; Texas officials, who had argued that having an unconscious lawyer did nothing to affect the fairness of his trial, must now retry Burdine or let him go.
| |
| October 2, 2001 | -
Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a New York audience that “we're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer denounced television personality Bill Maher for saying that firing cruise missiles at targets 2,000 miles away was perhaps more cowardly that flying a plane into a tall building: “There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.” “Watch what they say,” which was captured on tape, was omitted from the official White House transcript.
| |
| August 14, 2001 | -
Microsoft asked the Supreme Court to review its antitrust case.
| |
| July 10, 2001 | -
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told the Minnesota Women Lawyers Association that innocent people may have been executed in the United States; O'Connor also acknowledged that wealthy people are better served by the justice system.
| |
| July 10, 2001 | -
Florida's
supreme court was considering a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the right of pigs to spacious quarters while pregnant.
| |
| June 12, 2001 | - The United States Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a retarded Texan.
| |
| April 24, 2001 | - The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for a murderer who was represented by a lawyer who also represented the victim.
| |
| April 3, 2001 | - The Supreme Court said it would decide whether executing retarded murderers was cruel and unusual.
| |
| March 6, 2001 | - The United States Supreme Court rejected a challenge from industry groups to force the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis in setting clean-air standards.
| |
| February 6, 2001 | - The Democratic Party demonstrated its seriousness of purpose by failing to mount a filibuster to block the confirmation of former senator John Ashcroft, who was defeated by a dead man in the last election; Ashcroft was sworn in as Attorney General by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a private ceremony.
| |
| January 23, 2001 | -
Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, wearing his tacky Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired gold-striped robe, which he himself designed, swore in George W. Bush, whom he himself appointed president of the United States.
| |
| December 19, 2000 | - The Supreme Court of the United States made a gift of the presidency to George W. Bush.
| |
| December 19, 2000 | - General Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for an increase in military spending to stop the “fraying of our force.” Virginia Lamp Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was working for the rightist Heritage Foundation, vetting résumés of courtiers seeking places at the Republican banquet.
| |
| December 12, 2000 | - The United States Supreme Court then granted a stay requested by George W. Bush, whose lawyers said the recount would cause “irreparable harm” to their client.
| |
| December 5, 2000 | - The United States Supreme Court said that random highway drug searches were unconstitutional.
| |
| December 5, 2000 | - The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of a retarded
Texas killer who believes in Santa Claus; he was scheduled to die but got a reprieve.
| |
| October 3, 2000 | - The Supreme Court refused to hear the Microsoft antitrust appeal and sent the case back to a lower court.
| |
| September 5, 2000 | - The Supreme Court issued an emergency stay preventing California from allowing the medical use of marijuana.
| |
