Cantwell V Connecticut Case Study

21. Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940): The solicitation statute or the "breach of the peace" ordinance violated the Cantwells' First Amendment free speech or free exercise rights. Although the Cantwells’ did not have the right permits for solicitation, the statute itself that made him have a permit to spread his religion was inherently unconstitutional and violated the first and fourteenth amendments. The freedoms outlined in those amendments allow citizens to exercise whatever they wish to when it comes to religion.
22. West Virginia v. Barnette (1943): The Court held that compelling students and faculty to salute the flag was unconstitutional under the first amendment. Not saluting or saluting is a form of expression and speech and forcing people to say “under god” violated their right to freedom of religion. Justice Jackson argued that "[i]f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters

of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
23. Engel v. Vitale (1962): The Supreme Court decision held that state officials violated the first amendment when they wrote a prayer to be recited by New York’s schoolchildren, so no state-sponsored prayer in public schools. Forcing students to recite prayer in school violated the establishment clause of the first amendment but praying in schools if one chooses to is constitutional.
24. School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp (1963): The Pennsylvania law and Abington's policy, requiring public school students to participate in classroom religious exercises, violated the religious freedom of students as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Forcing students to recite prayer in school violated the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the first amendment but reading the bible in schools if one chooses to is constitutional, just no state-sponsored bible reading in public school is allowed.
25. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): This Supreme Court decision established that aid to church-related schools must 1. Have a secular legislative purpose; 2. Have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits a certain religion and 3. Not foster excessive government entanglement with religion. This case also created the “Lemon Test” (above) determining if the aid is justified or not for private religious schools. This case set the precedent for many other cases involving religion as well as religion in schools.
26.

Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972): In a unanimous decision, the Court held that individual's interests in the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment outweighed the State's interests in compelling school attendance beyond the eighth grade. The first amendment rights of the Amish families were violated because their religion did not allow the children to attend school past eighth grade and therefore their freedom of religion was infringed upon.
27. Stone v. Graham (1980): The Court ruled that the Kentucky law violated the first part of the test established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, and thus violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Court found that the requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted "had no secular legislative purpose" and was "plainly religious in nature." The Court noted that the Commandments did not singularly address secular matters, but also addressed separate specific religious information as

well.
28. Wallace v. Jaffree (1985): The Court determined the constitutionality of Alabama's prayer and meditation statute by applying the secular purpose test, which asked if the state's actual purpose was to endorse or disapprove of religion. The Court held that Alabama's passage of the prayer and meditation statute was not only a deviation from the state's duty to maintain absolute neutrality toward religion, but was a definite endorsement of religion. Because of this, the statute clearly lacked any secular purpose as it sought to establish religion in public schools, and therefore violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
29. Santa Fe v. Doe (2000): The Court held that the District's policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games violates the Establishment Clause. The Court concluded that the football game prayers were public speech authorized by a government policy and taking place on government property at government-sponsored school-related events and that the District's policy involved both perceived and actual government endorsement of the delivery of prayer at important school events.
30. McCreary County v. ACLU (2005): The majority held that the displays of the 10 commandments outside court houses and public schools violated the establishment clause because their purpose had been to advance religion. In the case of each of the displays, the Court held, an observer would have concluded that the government was endorsing religion. The first display for presenting the Ten Commandments in isolation; the second for showing the Commandments along with other religious passages; the third for presenting the Commandments in a presentation of the "Foundations of American Law," an exhibit in which the county reached "for any way to keep a religious document on the walls of courthouses."
31. Van Orden v. Perry (2005): The Court held that the establishment clause did not disallow the monument on the grounds of Texas' state capitol building. The majority deemed the Texas monument part of the nation's tradition of recognizing the Ten Commandments' historical meaning. Though the Commandments are religious, the majority argued that simply having a relation to anything religious does not automatically violate the 1st amendment under the Constitution.
32. Pleasant Grove v. Summum (2009): The Supreme Court reversed the Tenth Circuit holding that the placement of a monument in a public park is a form of government speech and therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The displays of the Ten Commandments had been construed by the Court as "having an undeniable historical meaning" and thus did not attempt to establish a religion and therefore not violate the first amendment freedom of religion.
2nd Amendment
33. D.C. v. Heller (2009): The Supreme Court decided that the ban on registering handguns and the requirement to keep guns in the home disassembled or nonfunctional with a trigger lock mechanism violated the Second Amendment. The Court analyzed the wording of the second amendment “militia” and determined that it meant more than just the military, in an originalist view of the constitution. This case in particular created much dissent within the court about originalism and what is relevant in today’s world.
34. McDonald v. Chicago (2010): The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment allows the second amendment, the right to bear arms in the purpose of self-defense, to be applied to the states as well through the Heller case: incorporation. The Court reasoned that rights that are "fundamental to the Nation's scheme of ordered liberty" or that are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" are appropriately applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
4th Amendment
35. Weeks v. U.S. (1914): The Court held that the seizure of items from Weeks' residence that were used to convict him directly violated his constitutional rights. The Court also held that the government's refusal to return Weeks' possessions violated the Fourth Amendment. To allow private documents to be seized and then held as evidence against citizens would have meant that the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring the right to be secure against such searches and seizures would be of no value whatsoever. This was the first application of what eventually became known as the "exclusionary rule."
36. Terry v. Ohio (1968): The Court held that the search undertaken by the officer was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the weapons seized could be introduced into evidence against Terry. Attempting to focus narrowly on the facts of this particular case, the Court found that the officer acted on more than a "hunch" and that "a reasonably prudent man would have been warranted in believing [Terry] was armed and thus presented a threat to the officer's safety while he was investigating his suspicious behavior." The Court found that the searches undertaken were limited in scope and designed to protect the officer's safety incident to the investigation, which officer safety comes first.
37. New Jersey v. T.L.O (1985): The exclusionary rule does not apply at public schools where students on school grounds subject themselves to searches even if they were not warranted. The exclusionary rule still applies to public school officials but when students are at school they are subject to unwanted search and seizure of property when the school officials a reason to want to search. In this case, T.L.O’s fourth amendment rights were not violated.
38. Vernonia School District v. Acton (1995): The urinalysis testing for illegal drug use in student athletes at school does not violate their 4th amendment right to unlawful search and seizure. The reasonableness of a search is judged by how much the individuals 4th amendment rights are being intruded versus legitimate government interests. In the case of high school athletes who are under State supervision during school hours, they are subject to greater control than over adults. The privacy interests compromised by urine samples are negligible since the conditions of collection are similar to public restrooms, and the results are viewed only by limited authorities. Furthermore, the governmental concern over the safety of minors under their supervision overrides the minimal, if any, intrusion in student-athletes' privacy.
39. Safford Unified School District v. Redding (2009): The Supreme Court held that Savanna Redding’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when school officials searched her underwear for non-prescription painkillers from a tip from another student. The Court reiterated that, based on a reasonable suspicion, search measures used by school officials to root out contraband must be "reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction." Although the process of search and seizures in public schools becomes more complicated, there is still a social and moral responsibility that the court has to protect minors.
40. Arizona v. Gant (2009): The search of Gant’s car after she was arrested for driving on a suspended license was unconstitutional under the fourth amendment. The Supreme Court held that police may search the vehicle of its recent occupant after his arrest only if it is reasonable to believe that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of the arrest, which it did not in Gant’s case.
5th Amendment