Supreme Court of the United States, 1965

The Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Circuit’s order remanding the case to state court, holding that an unincorporated labor union is not a citizen for purposes of federal diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §1332.

Justice White's opinion held that a union loses its antitrust exemption when it agrees with employers to impose wage standards on other bargaining units, although independently pursuing uniform wages remains protected.

The Court held that the Fifth Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits both prosecutorial comment and jury instructions treating a criminal defendant's failure to testify as evidence of guilt.

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Douglas, reversed the California Supreme Court's judgment, holding that the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids prosecutorial comment on an accused's silence and judicial instructions treating that silence as evidence of guilt.

Justice Stewart delivered the Court’s opinion holding that entry of an adoption decree permanently terminating a natural father’s parental rights without notice violated due process.

The Court held that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(d)(1), rather than Massachusetts's conflicting requirement of personal service on an executor, governed service in this diversity action.

Justice Brennan's majority opinion held that allegations of threatened prosecutions under overbroad speech regulations and bad-faith enforcement to suppress civil rights activities established grounds for federal equitable relief without abstention.

The Court held that an advertiser violates § 5 when it uses an undisclosed simulated prop to represent that television viewers are seeing objective visual proof of a product claim, even if the underlying claim and an actual supporting experiment are true.

The Court held that an advertiser engages in a deceptive trade practice under § 5 when it represents that viewers are seeing an actual test or demonstration providing objective proof of a product claim, while secretly using a simulated prop, even if the underlying product claim and experiment are truthful.

Justice Brennan's opinion held that the prosecutor's reading of an alleged accomplice confession implicating Douglas, while the accomplice refused to answer questions, denied Douglas the right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause.

The Court held that the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation, including cross-examination, applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment under the same standards applicable to federal prosecutions.

The Court unanimously held, per curiam, that Alabama courts lacked jurisdiction to restrain the union’s peaceful picketing and solicitation of advertisers. Although the radio station’s individual receipts fell below the National Labor Relations Board’s jurisdictional threshold, the record established that it belonged…

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Brennan, reversed Freedman's conviction for exhibiting a film without submitting it to Maryland's censorship board. Freedman had standing to challenge the submission requirement in its statutory context, even though he had not sought a license.

Chief Justice Warren's opinion held that the Secretary of the Interior reasonably interpreted Executive Order No. 8979 and Public Land Order No. 487 as permitting oil and gas leasing in the Kenai National Moose Range.

Justice Goldberg's opinion for the Court held that search-warrant affidavits must be read in a commonsense, realistic manner rather than hypertechnically, with doubtful or marginal cases generally resolved in favor of warrants.

The Court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to decide challenges to a bank holding company's organization and operation of a new national bank because the Bank Holding Company Act committed those issues initially and exclusively to the Federal Reserve Board, subject to review in the courts of appeals.

The Court, through Justice Goldberg, reversed Cox’s convictions for disturbing the peace and obstructing public passages. His peaceful civil rights demonstration was protected speech and assembly, and neither its provocative message nor the hostility of onlookers justified the disturbing-the-peace conviction.

Justice Clark's majority opinion held that challenges to a bank holding company's organization and operation of a new bank must proceed before the Federal Reserve Board, followed by the statutory review in a court of appeals, rather than through a collateral district-court action against the Comptroller of the…

The Supreme Court affirmed a three-judge district court's judgment sustaining Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and permanently enjoining the Heart of Atlanta Motel from refusing rooms to Negro transients. Applying Commerce Clause principles first formulated in Gibbons v.