Korematsu v. United States (1944)
Fred Korematsu was a U.S.-born Japanese-American who deliberately decided to stay in California and not be moved to…
Bush v. Gore (2000)
Ruled that the Florida recounts in the presidential election violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment,…
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886)
A complicated tax case stemming from a California law that stated railroads could not deduct the value of…
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Homer Plessy was a Louisiana black man who boarded a “whites only” railroad car. He was arrested and…
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
Dred Scott was a slave born in Virginia who claimed he should have been emancipated when his owner…
Head-Scratchers from the Nine
The recent ruling on corporate political rights left some observers to cry the sky is falling. Some past decisions really did merit Chicken Little's exclamation.
An Effort to Find the Missing Missing
Legislation named for a missing 31-year-old man would tie together the various data threads on the nation's missing persons.
U.S. Prison Populations Drifting Down
Hammered by budget shortfalls and seeing declines in crime rates, 20 states have reduced inmate counts.
Review: The Importance of Being Not So Earnest
The documentary "The End of Poverty?" takes an impassioned if clunky look at international capitalism over the last half millennium. Guess what it finds?
The Low-Tech Reality of Identity Theft
Stop worrying so much about that vaguely Eastern European computer hacker and start worrying about that clerk at the DMV.