Case Library
Constitutional Law case briefs
12 briefs in 5 topics. Each one gives the facts, issue and holding, IRAC and CREAC versions, key quotes with pinpoint pages and the citation in the book’s form.
Judicial review
Judicial review on its own pageMarbury v. Madison
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).
Did Marbury have a right to his commission once the President had signed it and the seal of the United States had been affixed?
Supreme Court of the United States
Federalism
Federalism on its own pageMcCulloch v. Maryland
McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819).
Does Congress have power to incorporate a bank when the Constitution does not list that power among the enumerated powers?
Supreme Court of the United States
The Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause on its own pageWickard v. Filburn
Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).
Does the commerce power let Congress apply a wheat marketing quota and penalty to wheat that a farmer grows not for sale but wholly for consumption on his own farm?
Supreme Court of the United States
United States v. Lopez
United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).
Does the Commerce Clause give Congress the power to make it a federal crime to possess a gun in a local school zone, when the statute regulates no commercial activity and requires no connection to interstate commerce?
Supreme Court of the United States
United States v. Morrison
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000).
Does the Commerce Clause give Congress power to enact §13981's civil remedy as a regulation of activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, when the remedy reaches gender-motivated crimes of violence wherever they occur?
Supreme Court of the United States
Due process
Due process on its own pageLochner v. New York
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
Was New York's limit of sixty hours a week and ten hours a day for bakery workers a fair, reasonable and appropriate exercise of the State's police power, or an unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the liberty of contract the Fourteenth Amendment protects?
Supreme Court of the United States
Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
Do Griswold and Buxton, convicted as accessories for serving married couples, have standing to raise the constitutional rights of those married people?
Supreme Court of the United States
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
Does the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment allow two adults to engage in private, consensual sexual conduct, so that Texas cannot make Lawrence and Garner's conduct a crime?
Supreme Court of the United States
Obergefell v. Hodges
Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015).
Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?
Supreme Court of the United States
Equal protection
Equal protection on its own pageKorematsu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).
Was it within the war power of Congress and the Executive to exclude those of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war area at the time they did?
Supreme Court of the United States
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even where tangible factors are equal, deprive minority children of equal educational opportunities under the Fourteenth Amendment?
Supreme Court of the United States
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
Does Virginia's statutory scheme, which bars and punishes marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Supreme Court of the United States