- Pick a Supreme Court Case
a. It must contain an “Opinion of the Court” and at least one “Dissent”
b. You may do cases that have to do with any of the Bill of Rights or the 14th Amendment (free speech, gun rights, search and seizure, rights of the accused, cruel and unusual punishment, cases about race, women, abortion, religion, etc.) You can also do cases about the executive branch (war powers, habeas corpus, treatment of detainees, issues in the military) or the commerce clause as it relates to civil rights. - Read the case carefully. Read the opinion of the court and one dissent. Ignore concurrences or additional dissents. Highlight or note the important passages. There may be much in the case that is technical. Don’t worry about that stuff. Be on the look out for the big statements, especially those that show how the Court is interpreting the part of the Constitution in question. Notice the kind of quotes I picked in the examples I gave you.
- Chart
a. In an excel document, input the Case information
i. Case name
ii. Case ID (e.g. 347 US 483)ackboar
iii. One-paragraph summary of the Facts of the case (in your own words)
iv. Constitutional Question (you can get from the opinion or websites like www.oyez.com, www.findlaw.com)
v. One paragraph summary in your own words of the holding. Include the vote count, 9-0, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3, 5-4 and a basic summary of the Court’s answer to the constitutional question.
Sample Solution
