Katherine just posted a review of the most important Supreme Court civil rights cases, so I though I'd follow up with a list of cases involving dissent. The documentary we started in class on Tuesday mentions the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, which was dissented by Justice John Marshall Harlan. I did some more research and compiled a list of five influential dissented SC civil rights cases:
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
Case & Ruling: Slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom following his owner's death, but the SC did not rule in his favor. Led by Chief Justice Robert Taney, the SC held that slaves were not citizens and therefore did not have the right to file a lawsuit. And, even if Scott had indeed been a citizen of a state, he was not a a citizen under federal law.
Dissent: Benjamin Curtis, a Whig and former defender of the Fugitive Slave Law, opposed the ruling because Taney used the SC ruling to further his political agenda. Curtis also argued that any citizen of a state was, by definition, a citizen of the United States, thereby providing a legal basis for citizenship for blacks.
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1873)
Case & Ruling: The state of Massachusetts chartered the Warren Bridge Co. to construct a free bridge across Charles River, which would challenge the business of toll-collecting Charles River Bridge. Charles River Bridge Co. claimed that their state charter provided them exclusive rights to a bridge in the vicinity, but the SC (headed by Taney) held that Massachusetts' charter of the new bridge was legal.
Dissent: Justice Joseph Story opposed Taney, arguing that if MA had not intended to give the Charles River Bridge Co. exclusive rights, the legislation should have specifically stated so. Contrary to the rest of the SC, Story believed that old corporations should have the right to prevent development of new corporations to protect their own interests.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Case & Ruling: Homer Plessy, who was 1/8 African, was arrested for boarding a white-only train car. He challenged the constitutionality of separate but equal facilities, but the SC ruled that the segregation of races was not in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Dissent: Justice John Marshall Harlan contrasted his established proslavery stance by arguing that while whites might be superior in education, wealth, and power, all people were "equal before the law."
Abrams v. US (1919)
Case & Ruling: A group of Russian immigrants was arrested and convicted under the Sedition Act for distributing anti-war pamphlets. The SC upheld the prison sentence of 15-20 years on the basis that the pamphlets were "intended to provoke and encourage resistance to the United States in the war."
Dissent: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had previously supported government restrictions on free speech, surprisingly changed his views in the Abrams case. With Justice Louis Brandeis, Holmes encouraged a more strict standard of judicial scrutiny, under which the anti-war pamphlets would not be ruled a "clear and imminent danger."
Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
Case & Ruling: A Louisiana statute granted the Crescent City Livestock Landing & Slaughterhouse Company the exclusive right to deal in and butcher livestock in New Orleans. A group of butchers who had been left out claimed that their Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated, but the SC ruled that states were allowed to create monopolies, once again distinguishing between federal and state power.
Dissent: Four justices, led by Justice Stephen J. Field, dissented on the basis that the 14th Amendment applied to national and state government's, and that it was unconstitutional for states to have such broad economic regulatory power as to infringe upon individual liberties.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on these cases and any others that interest you!
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/landmark.html
Thanks for the great post, Sierra! I found Justice Joseph Story interesting so I did some research about him. I learned that he opposed Jacksonian democracy and reshaped American law in favor of protecting individual property rights. This agrees with his ruling in the Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge case- he would want to allow corporations to prevent competition because he would agree with the corporation protecting themselves.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Story
Thanks for this post Sierra! Even though I had heard of some of these cases I did not know that some Supreme Court judges has dissented against the verdicts, so this post changed my opinion on the Supreme Court regarding those cases.
ReplyDeleteI thought I would look up what exactly the policy on dissenting is because I certainly needed some clarification. Technically, a dissent is a disagreement between one or more judges over the decision of a major case. A dissent is usually followed by a written dissenting opinion, where the judge who disagrees explains why he does so, although a dissent and written dissenting opinion are used interchangeably. Despite the fact that dissents have no influence on the future decisions of the Supreme Court, the weight of the legal verdict made on the particular case to which the dissent pertains may be diminished if enough judges sign the dissent. Dissenting opinions did not begin to appear until the late nineteenth century, when the Supreme Court was truly establishing itself as the "law of the land."
I hope this clarified things for other confused individuals like myself. I was wondering if there were any recent cases, that perhaps have affected our generation, that involved a dissenting opinion?
Hey Jenny, thanks for the clarification on dissenting! I thought I would just elaborate on a recent Supreme Court case that involved a dissenting opinion.
DeleteAn example of a modern case with a dissent is the controversial and highly publicized ruling in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, which occurred from March to June this year. Basically, Hobby Lobby was arguing against the contraceptive mandate, which says that corporations must provide certain types of contraceptives to female workers in their health insurance plans. Hobby Lobby argued that the company's owners' religious views interfered with the law, so the company should be exempt from it. The court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby (5-4), allowing corporations to be exempt from federal laws on a religious basis. This ruling was extremely controversial, and a dissent was presented by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, backed fully by Justice Sotomayor and partly by Justices Breyer and Kagan. They challenged whether or not a corporation could actually qualify as a person in order to claim religious exemption.
There are some more examples of modern Supreme Court decisions that involved dissents, but the Hobby Lobby one was the first that came to mind because it was very recent and very publicized. Hope this helped!
Thanks so much for the reply Kristen! I think it's really cool how we are able to compare the past we're learning about with issues relevant to today's society because they are subject to the same laws.
Delete