4th Amendment Supreme Court Cases:
Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio
Dollree Mapp appealed citing 4th amendment
after being convicted of obtaining illegal materials. She said that the police
didn’t have the right to come into her house and she had a right to freedom of
expressions. This court case asked the question: Should evidence from search
and seizure, not protected by the 4th amendment, be admitted to a state court?
The court ruled in favor of Mapp (in a 6 to 3 decision) stating that evidence
obtained by this sort of search and seizure is NOT permitted to be allowed at
the state courts.
Katz v. United Sates
Katz was suspected of revealing gambling information over the phone
to someone in another state. The police attached an eavesdropping device to the
phone booth and found out that Katz, was in fact, illegally partaking in
gambling over the phone. Katz was arrested, but pleaded that wiretapping violated his 4th amendment rights. No physical being was in the phone
booth, so Katz believed that the eavesdropping device wasn’t legal The Court
discussed the issue whether the 4th amendment protected unreasonable search and seizure such
as this. The Court ruled that “the fourth amendment protects people, not
places”; therefore, ruling in favor of Katz.
5th Amendment Supreme Court Cases:
Penn Central v.
New York City (1978)
A certain 1965
law, New York City Landmarks Preservation
Law, protected certain historical sites from being affected by modernization in
any way. Penn Central was rejected to build offices above Grand Central Station
because that particular site was “landmarked”. The court was asked the
questions: Does this law have the right to violate the 5th amendment
and the 14th amendment due to the taking clause? The court came to
the conclusion that New York City was right to reject the addition of any sort
of construction to this historical landmark. The court wasn’t going against the
right to private property, but was more objecting the certain nature of this
particular construction and its violation of the Takings Clause.
Lucas v. South
Carolina Coastal Com’ n (1992)
Lucas bought
land on the Isle of Palms in South Carolina. He wanted to build more houses on
his property, but South Carolina rejected this idea in order to protect from the beach from erosion. This law, the Beachfront Management Act,
was the subject of this cas which considered whether or not Lucas should be granted compensation because his 5th and 14th amendments were violated. The Court ruled that Lucas was eligible for
compensation because he had suffered a loss of economic value.
6th Amendment Supreme Court Cases:
Gideon vs. Wainwright
Clarence Earl Gideon was convicted of the felony of breaking and entering in 1962. In his case, he didn’t have the money to obtain a lawyer he had asked the Florida State Court to appoint one in his defense. He served five years in a state prison when the court denied his request because the judge had held that they were only required to appoint attorneys in capital cases for the indignent. This case considered the question of whether this denial of an attorney at state level violated his right in the sixth amendment to a fair trial. The decision was unanimously decided that Gideon had the right to be appointed an attorney by the court and it overruled the case of Betts v. Brady in 1942.
Texas v. Cobb
Raymond Levi Cobb, first arrested in 1994 and confessed to a home burglary. He denied then later confessed to his own father that he killed the woman and child in the home, prompting his father to report to the police. Although Cobb later waived his Miranda rights and confessed, he was still indicted and sentenced to death. He argued to the Texas Court of Appeals that he was denied his right to counsel after confession because his request for an attorney wasn't renewed after the burglary case. The court said that the right to counsel carries on to the reason charged if any other offenses are closely related to the case. This case questions whether the sixth amendment extends to crimes that are "factually related" to the cases already charged. It was declared with a five to four vote under Chief Justice Rehnquist that the sixth amendment is offense specific and does not count for cases already been charged from previous offenses and Cobb's confession of murder was allowed to be continued into court.
7th Amendment Supreme Court Cases:
Tull v. United States (1987)
Tull was charged with a civil suit by the United States due to dumping fill material into the Wetlands which violated the clean water act and charged him over $22 million relief. Tulls proposal for a jury trial was denied by the district court and entered the right for united states for$325,000. The court of appeals denied the jury trial and the SUCO granted cert. The two questions that were present were whether the seventh amendment can hold the right to give a jury trial on the merits and for which cases does it order the right to a jury trial for the purpose of civil penalties? The decision was decided that the right to jury was improperly denied.
