Supreme Court of the United States, 1969

In a per curiam opinion, the Court vacated the Fifth Circuit’s order and remanded the case, directing that the school districts in Mississippi immediately cease operating dual school systems and operate as unitary schools, consistent with the Court’s prior holdings in Griffin and Green.

The Court held that the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment and that Maryland could not retry Benton for larceny after his acquittal on that charge, even though he had appealed a burglary conviction arising from the same trial.

The Court held that Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who met the Constitution's qualifications of age, citizenship, and residence, could not be excluded from the 90th Congress because Article I, § 5 commits each House to judging only the qualifications expressly prescribed in the Constitution.

The Supreme Court held that the FCC's fairness doctrine, including its 1967 personal attack and political editorializing regulations, is authorized by the public interest standard of the Communications Act as long construed by the Commission and ratified by Congress in the 1959 amendment to § 315, and that the…

The Supreme Court reversed a three-judge district court's dismissal of a Teamsters union member's suit challenging the 1967 Louisiana Act (Act No. 2) creating the Labor-Management Commission of Inquiry.

The Supreme Court reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court, holding that Wisconsin's prejudgment garnishment procedure—which froze a debtor's wages upon service on her employer, without prior notice or an opportunity to be heard—violated the procedural due process required by the Fourteenth Amendment.

A per curiam Supreme Court reversed a Ku Klux Klan leader's conviction under Ohio's Criminal Syndicalism Act, announcing that the First and Fourteenth Amendments do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of force or law violation except where the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent…

The Court, in an opinion delivered by Justice Marshall, held that the death of a petitioner’s mother does not terminate the statutory sole‑surviving‑son exemption and that a failure to exhaust the Selective Service administrative remedies does not bar a criminal‑defense challenge to a classification.

The Court held that the Court of Claims lacks jurisdiction to issue declaratory judgments because its statutory authority is limited to money claims, and the Declaratory Judgment Act does not expand that jurisdiction. The opinion, authored by Justice Black, reversed the judgment of the Court of Claims.

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Seventh Circuit's handling of Zenith Radio's Sherman Act counterclaim arising out of Hazeltine Research's patent-infringement suit.

The Supreme Court affirmed three-judge District Court judgments holding unconstitutional the one-year welfare residence requirements of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania.

The Supreme Court reversed Sidney Street's New York conviction under former N.Y. Penal Law § 1425, subd. 16, par. d, holding the statute unconstitutionally applied because it permitted him to be punished merely for speaking defiant or contemptuous words about the American flag, in violation of rights protected by the…

The Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit making mere private possession of obscene material a crime, reversing the Georgia Supreme Court's judgment and remanding for further proceedings. Justice Black filed a concurring opinion agreeing with the majority's First Amendment analysis.

The Court upheld the lower courts’ determination that the petitioner’s confession was voluntary under the constitutional standards applicable before the later interrogation decisions.

The Court upheld the lower courts’ determination that the confession introduced at trial was voluntary under the preexisting totality-of-the-circumstances standard. It nevertheless vacated the court of appeals’ judgment and remanded because the record strongly suggested that the death sentence may have resulted from…

The Supreme Court held that the 1966 amendment of Federal Rule 23 did not, and could not, alter the settled rule that separate and distinct claims of class members may not be aggregated to satisfy the $10,000 amount-in-controversy requirement of 28 U.S.C.

The Supreme Court held that the fruits of unlawful electronic surveillance are suppressible only by a defendant whose own Fourth Amendment rights were invaded: codefendants and coconspirators have no standing, but a defendant whose premises were bugged may suppress third-party conversations overheard there as fruits…

The Court reversed the convictions of demonstrators arrested after refusing a police order to disperse from a peaceful desegregation march. The Court held that the march was protected First Amendment activity, that the convictions lacked evidentiary support because petitioners were not charged with refusing a police…

The Court reversed the convictions because the record contained no evidence that the petitioners' peaceful, orderly march was disorderly, and due process forbids conviction without evidentiary support.