The court case, Ingraham V. Wright took place in 1977, in Miami, Florida. In the this article I learned about how a James Ingraham, a 14 year-old eighth-grader was put through a cruel punishment after he was misbehaving in school. The particular case connects to the 8th Amendment and how it is against the law to apply cruel or excessive punishment. James Ingraham was sent to the principal's office after being too rowdy in the auditorium. The principal of Drew Junior High School decide that the best punishment would be 5 swats with a paddle. James resisted against the punishment because he claimed he hadn't done anything wrong. The principal increased the amount of swats to 20 and after that James was kept out of school for 10 days because
In a Georgia Court, Timothy Foster was convicted of capital murder and penalized to death. During his trial, the State Court use peremptory challenges to strike all four black prospective jurors qualified to serve on the Jury. However, Foster argued that the use of these strikes was racially motivated, in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S.79. That led his claim to be rejected by the trial court, and the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. The state courts rejected relief, and the Foster’s Batson claim had been adjudicated on direct appeal. Finally, his Batson claim had been failed by the court because it failed to show “any change in the facts sufficient to overcome”.
Her little boy wasn't expected to make it through the night, the voice on the line said (“Determined to be heard”). Joshua Deshaney had been hospitalized in a life threatening coma after being brutally beat up by his father, Randy Deshaney. Randy had a history of abuse to his son prior to this event and had been working with the Department of Social Services to keep custody over his son. The court case was filed by Joshua's mother, Melody Deshaney, who was suing the DSS employees on behalf of failing to protect her son from his father. To understand the Deshaney v. Winnebago County Court case and the Supreme courts ruling, it's important to analyze the background, the court's decision, and how this case has impacted our society.
A very controversial court case in American history was Texas vs. Johnson (1984). In 1984, a man named Gregory Lee Johnson followed a group of anti – Reagan protesters to oppose the American exploitation of third world countries. This act of rebellion resulted in the burning of the American flag. Out of a total of approximately one hundred demonstrators who were involved in this ordeal, Johnson was solely charged with a crime. Johnson was arrested under Texas law, which made the burning of the United States or Texas flags crimes. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail and fined two thousand dollars for his crime in restitution. Texas reasoned that the police were preventing the breach of peace; consider the flag a symbol of national unity. At Johnson's court trial, he was convicted of aiding, abetting and encouraging the burning of the Texan flag. This, in turn, made Johnson guilty under Texas state law.
Board of Education (1954). In the Constitution it?s found in the 14th Amendment, Equal Protection Clause, which prohibits any state from denying equal rights to any person and equal protection of the laws. In a 5-4 decision, delivered by Justice Sandra Day O?Conner they argued that under Title IX Jackson had the right to pursue his case in court (Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015c). The majority was lead to believe and ruled that it was intentional retaliation of the Birmingham Board of Education to fire Jackson from his position in the school (Mahon, 2015). Concurring opinion was stated by O?Connor and the dissenting opinions were stated by Thomas (Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education,
In 1992 Alfonso Lopez, Jr. was a senior at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas. Acting on an anonymous tip, school authorities confronted Lopez and discovered that he was carrying a .38 caliber handgun and five bullets. A federal grand jury subsequently indicted Lopez, who then moved to have the indictment dismissed on grounds that the federal government had no authority to legislate control over the public schools. At a bench trial, the federal district court judge found Lopez guilty and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment and two years’ supervised release. Lopez then appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which reversed the conviction and held the Gun-Free School Zone Act unconstitutional as an invalid exercise dy congress of the commerce power.
Mary Beth Tinker was only thirteen years old in December of 1964 when she and four other students were suspended from school because they wore black armbands. The black armbands were a sign of protest against the Vietnam War. The school suspended the students and told them that they could not return to school until they agreed to take off the armbands. The students did not return to school until after the school’s Christmas break, and they wore black the rest of the year, as a sign of protest. The Tinker family, along with other supporters, did not think that the suspension was constitutional and sued the Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Supreme Court’s majority decision was a 7-2 vote that the suspension was unconstitutional (Tinker V. Des Moines).
The famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka can be used to illustrate when judicial review should be implemented to aid one or a faction in actions that are unconstitutional. In the town of Topeka, Kansas a black third-grader was forced to walk one mile through a switchyard in order to get to her black elementary school, although a white elementary school was only a few blocks away. Her parents attempted to enroll her into the white school but were repeatedly denied. The Brown v. Board of Education case was tried on behalf of the black minority that was the target of racial segregation in public schools.
In 1972, the Furman v. Georgia case temporarily caused capital punishment in the United States to cease until distinct guidelines about the crimes that required the death penalty were written. Until states revised their laws, capital punishment was ruled cruel and unusual punishment. Before Furman, there were no clearly defined laws about what constituted capital punishment, so the process to sentence a capital criminal was much faster and easier. By adding an appeal system, most states permitted capital punishment once again, but the prisoner’s time spent on death row drastically increased. Adding an appeal system did not make killing a human being any less cruel and unusual; in fact, ordering a person to live in fear, uncertainty, and agony for an even longer period of time is crueler than quickly ending the
They took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, but were told that the ruling in Penry did not apply to Graham because it was not retroactive, i.e., it would only apply to future cases. (Graham v. Collins). In a later ruling, the Court held that even in a case where Penry did apply, a defendant’s youth is not the same as a defendant’s mental retardation. Texas’ law did not have to change to give special consideration to the age of the defendant. (Johnson v. Texas). Ultimately, the Court struck down the death penalty for both juveniles and the mentally retarded. (Roper v. Simmons; Atkins v.
The case started in Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school seven blocks from her house, but the principal of the school refused simply because the child was black. Brown went to McKinley Burnett, the head of Topeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help (All Deliberate Speed pg 23). The NAACP was eager to assist the Browns, as it had long wanted to challenge segregation in public schools. The NAACP was looking for a case like this because they figured if they could just expose what had really been going on in "separate but equal society" that the circumstances really were not separate but equal, bur really much more disadvantaged to the colored people, that everything would be changed. The NAACP was hoping that if they could just prove this to society that the case would uplift most of the separate but equal facilities. The hopes of this case were for much more than just the school system, the colored people wanted to get this case to the top to abolish separate but equal.
In 1984, there was a protest in the streets of Dallas; Gregory Lee Johnson was one of the many protesters there. During the protest Johnson set an American Flag on fire. There were some who agreed with what Johnson had done, but there were several others who felt extremely offended. This caused Johnson to go to court When Johnson went to court he was found guilty and was charged with "the desecration of a venerated object.”, and was sentence to a $2,000 fine, and one year in prison. Jonson should have not gone to court in the first place because what he had done was protected under the first amendment, the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly.
The Little Rock Nine were nine African-American teenagers who sought to attend Little Rock Central High School in the Fall of 1957. The supreme court had ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case. A couple years later, nine African-American students began to try and attend segregated schools. This was both historic and tragic at the same time. Because of this, much violence broke out in the South.
Cruel and unusual punishments played a major role in the Salem Witch Trials as the accused were subjected to many inhumane acts. For example, the “Swim Test” was very popular to test if a person was or was not a witch. They would tie the person up and throw them in the water, if they sank they were innocent, but if they swam they were a Witch so the person would be sentenced to death. Either way the outcome on this test was the same no matter the result, the person was destined to die. Additionally, when the accused was found guilty of Witchcraft the person would be burned at the stake. Thankfully, the Eighth Amendment was made to prevent punishments similar to the ones imposed in the Salem Witch
In 1971 in Mobile County Alabama the School Board created a state statute that set aside time at the beginning of each day for silent ’meditation’ (statute 6-1-20), and in 1981 they added another statute 16-1-20.1 which set aside a minute for ‘silent prayer’ as well. In addition to these, in 1982 the Mobile County School Board enacted statute 16-1-20.2, which specified a prayer that teachers could lead ‘willing’ students in “From henceforth, any teacher or professor in any public educational institution within the State of Alabama, recognizing that the Lord God is one, at the beginning of any homeroom or any class, may pray, may lead willing students in prayer, or may lead the willing students in the following prayer to God… “ (Jaffree By and Through Jaffree v. James). Ishmael Jaffree was the father of three students, Jamael Aakki Jaffree, Makeba Green, and Chioke Saleem Jaffree, who attended a school in Mobile County Alabama. Jaffree complained that his children had been pressured into participating in religious activities by their teachers and their peers, and that he had requested that these activities stopped. When the school did nothing about Jaffree’s complaints he filed an official complaint with the Mobile County School Board through the United States District Courts. The original complaint never mentioned the three state statutes that involved school prayer. However, on June 4, 1982 Jaffree changed his complaint. He now wanted to challenge the constitutionality of statutes 16-1-20, 16-1-20.1 and 16-1-20.2, and motioned for a preliminary injunction. The argument against these state laws was that they were an infringement of the Establishment Clause within the First Amendment of the Constitution, which states that Congr...
It was irrational for these students to be suspended from the school. The high school students named John F. Tinker, who was fifteen-years-old, John’s younger sister Mary Beth Tinker, who was thirteen-years-old, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, who was sixteen years old, should not have been suspended. They were under the protection of the First Amendment. The parents of those students sued the school district for violating the students’ right of expressions and sought an injunction to prevent the school from decupling the students. The Supreme Court of the United Sates stepped in and the question of law was if. They ruled in the favor of the Tinker’s because it was in a seven to two decision "Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District."