Landmark law cases & American society

Discusses laws, court challenges, and issues regarding flag burning in the United States.

When the New York Times published an advertisement that accused Alabama officials of willfully abusing civil rights activists, Montgomery police commissioner Lester Sullivan filed suit for defamation. Alabama courts, citing factual errors in the ad, ordered the Times to pay half a million dollars in damages. The Times appealed to the Supreme Court, which had previously deferred to the states on libel issues. The justices, recognizing that Alabama's application of libel law threatened both the nation's free press and equal rights for African Americans, unanimously sided with the Times. The decision introduced a new First Amendment test: a public official cannot recover damages for libel unless he proves that the statement was made with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false.-Publisher description.

"After joining a tiny and insignificant extreme left-wing group, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), in the 1930s, Kutcher was drafted shortly before American entry into World War II. He saw frequent battle action in North Africa and Italy, and both of his legs were blown off by a German mortar shell during the American invasion of Italy in late 1943. After having both legs amputated and learning to walk with artificial limbs and two canes, Kutcher was hired in 1946 in a menial position as a Veterans Administration (VA) file clerk, with no access to national security information. However, as a result of President Truman's March 1946 federal loyalty program, and more specifically due to the listing of the SWP on the so-called "Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations" ... in 1948 as seeking the violent overthrow of the government, Kutcher was fired from his VA position. Subsequently ... the government also sought to take away Kutcher's World War II disability pension and to evict him (and his ill and aged parents, whom he supported) from their federally subsidized public housing unit in Newark, New Jersey. ... Kutcher described the decision he made to fight his case to the end as one he preferably would never have had to make ... . In the end, Kutcher won all of the fights for his rights, and in doing so helped to expose some of the worse abuses of the Red Scare."--Preface, page ix-xi.

"William Furman, an African-American and career criminal, shot and killed a white homeowner during a 1967 burglary in Savannah, Georgia. In short order he was arrested, put on trial, convicted by a nearly all-white jury, and sentenced to death. Furman's attorney, aided by the NAACP, doggedly appealed the verdict all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which voided Furman's sentence in a highly contentious 5-4 vote. That decision overturned Georgia's capital punishment statute, and by implication all other state death penalty laws, for violating the Eighth amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment." Furman, thus, effectively halted capital punishment in the United States. But the reprieve was only temporary, for the decision did not rule the death penalty per se to be unconstitutional; rather it struck down the laws that currently governed its application, leaving the states free to devise new ones that the Court might find acceptable. And that is exactly what happened. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Oshinsky's compact and insightful study of the case showcases his talent for clarifying the complex and often confusing legal issues that surround a subject as controversial as capital punishment."--Back cover.

The Supreme Court's intervention in the 2000 election will shape American law and democracy long after George W. Bush has left the White House. This book brings together a broad range of preeminent legal scholars who address the larger questions raised by the Supreme Court's actions. Did the Court's decision violate the rule of law? Did it inaugurate an era of super-politicized jurisprudence? How should Bush v. Gore change the terms of debate over the next round of Supreme Court appointments? The contributors -- Bruce Ackerman, Jack Balkin, Guido Calabresi, Steven Calabresi, Owen Fiss, Charles Fried, Robert Post, Margaret Jane Radin, Jeffrey Rosen, Jed Rubenreid, Cass Sunstein, Laurence Tribe, and Mark Tushnet -- represent a broad political spectrum. Their reactions to the case are varied and surprising, filled with sparkling argument and spirited debate.

Tension between free speech and social stability has been a central concern throughout American history. In the 1960s that concern reached a fever pitch with the anti-Vietnam War movement. When antiwar sentiment "invaded" American schools, official resolve to retain order in the classroom vied with the rights of students to speak freely. A key event in that face-off was the Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines. As the most important student rights case ever to reach the Supreme Court, Tinker raises important issues regarding First Amendment freedoms and provides a fascinating legal window on a turbulent era.