|
|
|
This century has been filled with numerous important decisions and some of them affect our lives in very personal ways. The following court cases have had lasting impact on America and help define the country we live in today:
This landmark case in the 1950s led by future Supreme Court Justic Thurgood Marshall, marked the beginning of the end of segregation in public schools. In law terms, this Supreme Court case overturned its previous ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court rejected the separate but equal concept in its ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson. Although it was at first ignored and protested by the southern states, the walls of segregation gradually began to crumble after this case. The incident in Little Rock, Arkansas exemplified the feelings of the time. The governor of Arkansas sent National Guard troops into Central High School to stop 9 black students from entering. After the courts ordered the troops out of the high school, a mob of white students blocked the black entrance. Finally, President Eisenhower mobilized federal troops to protect these black students and desegregate the school.
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade is the most controversial case ever to be decided upon by the Supreme Court in the 20th century. The basic decision in Roe v. Wade was that laws and/or states could not violate the personal rights of a woman, and one of those was the right to life. If a law or state denied a woman an abortion, that would be in violation of the woman's personal rights. This basically made abortion legal for all people which angered Pro- Life advocates who screamed "bloody murder" when they heard of the decision. Although the case tries to maintain its neutrality, it is decidedly Pro-Choice and many people felt that this decision was a biased one towards that direction. Even to this day politicians will not take a firm stand on abortion because of its implications and its power to make or break an election.
OJ Simpson Criminal Trial
Welcome to the world of high powered lawyers, high speed chases, high priced shoes, and impossibly high ratings. Possibly the biggest media sensation since the Scopes Monkey trial in the 1920s, the OJ Simpson trial brought interpretive law and the legal lexicon into the 6 o'clock news and every newspaper across the country. People remember where they were when they heard that OJ was found innocent the same way they remember where they were when Mark McGwire hit #62. There is a lesson to be learned from Marcia Clark, forensics experts, Johnny Cochran, and the entire Dream Team of OJ Simpson's defense. A celebrity can get off the hook with immense amounts of time and money, but not forever. The civil trial of OJ Simpson found him guilty and forced to pay millions in damages to the Brown and Goldman families.
In Your Defense
These three court cases will probably help you out somewhere down the line. In Yates v. US, the ruling limited prosecutions of people preaching revolutionary doctrines like Das Kapital or the Nazi Fascism. In Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court made it mandatory of the police to read you your constitutional rights if you were arrested. These rights will be known as Miranda rights or Miranda laws. The last one. Loving v. Virginia. strikes down marriage prohibitions between marriage of people of different races. So, if you ever become a extreme activist, get arrested, or have an interracial marriage, you will know to say thank you to Mr. Warren, the chief justice who oversaw these decisions.
Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton
We now know that presidents cannot be impeached because of lying about hanky panky with the secretary. As defined by the Supreme Court, the Founding Fathers did not give the Congress the right to impeach the president on accounts of personal things and about things that do not impede his ability to perform his duties in office. Thank heavens the Supreme Court found a nice way of saying that a Republican majority Congress wasn't going to go out and beat up the poor Democratic president for smoking cigars with his intern. Clinton was able to avoid further embarrassment in his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The media coverage for this fiasco was unprecedented and images of the debacle linger even today.
These cases will have lasting impacts on American society and law. Whether they are positive impacts we have yet to find out… but the new millennium will test these decisions in ways we cannot even imagine. |
|
Cover Story | Discussions | Features | Store | About Hoching Copyright (C) 1996-99. All rights reserved. This page was progammed by THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE HOCHING CLAN, located in Edison , NJ |
