John Yowan
Mr. Bruner
Government hour 4
February 26, 2004
Roe v. Wade
Norma McCorvey, a pregnant woman, in 1970, wanted to have the Texas anti-abortion statute, which was made in the 1850’s unconstitutional. McCorvey took the pseudonym Jane Roe to remain anonymous. The action was against the District Attorney of Dallas County, Texas, Henry Wade. McCorvey said that the statute was violating her right of privacy guaranteed by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The case was taken to the Supreme Court in December of 1971 and again in October of 1972.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared the Texas statute unconstitutional in January of 1973.The vote was seven to two. The majority agreed that McCorvey had the right of privacy and that this right included a woman’s decision to have an abortion or not, but the court said this right was not absolute.
The U.S. Supreme Court said the states could not make any laws that stop a woman from having an abortion in the first trimester. Laws that are allowed to be made by the state against abortion after the first trimester to protect the mother’s health, and laws against abortion during the third trimester to protect fetal life except when abortion is needed to protect the health of the mother.
Dred Scott
In 1799 Dred Scott was born in Virginia as a slave of the Peter Blow family. In 1830 the Blow Family moved to Missouri where Scott was sold to Dr. John Emerson who traveled with Scott, but in 1843 Emerson died and Mrs. Emerson received the slaves after his death. Then in 1846 Scott and his wife sued Mrs. Emerson for freedom in District Court but the court ruled against them. In 1850 the Scotts were allowed to re-file their case. That time he received a jury trial and it was decided that he was free because of the time he spent in free states. In 1852 Mrs. Emerson appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which ruled that Scott was a slave and a year later Scott was given to Emerson’s brother, John Stanford.
Later that year Scott tried to sue Stanford for his freedom, but the U.S. Federal Court ruled against him. In 1856 the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court where the court ruled that Scott did not have the right to sue because he was black and not a citizen.
Plessy v. Ferguson
In 1892 a thirty-year-old black shoemaker named Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in the “Whites Only” railroad car on a Louisiana Railroad. The case went through the court system and made it to the Louisiana Supreme Court where Plessy was found guilty. In 1896 the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court where Plessy argued that the restriction was violating his Fourteenth Amendment Rights. Judge John Ferguson argued that the State of Louisiana had the power to create laws that would preserve order and public peace under the Tenth Amendment. The verdict was seven to one in favor of Ferguson.
Brown v. Board of Education
In 1950 in Topeka Kansas Linda Brown wanted to attend an all white school less than four blocks from her house but was forced to travel more than twenty minutes to an all black school. Brown verse The Board of Education was a combination of several court cases that had reached the Supreme Court. The NAACP and Thurgood Marshall, a black attorney who would later become the first black Justice in the Supreme Court, represented Brown. Marshall argued that under the Fourteenth Amendment Brown should be able to go to any school she wanted to. After two years a verdict was returned on May 17, 1954. The court ruled that separate is not equal.