Supreme Court of the United States, 1970

In four original-jurisdiction suits testing the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, Justice Black announced the Court's judgments: Congress could set 18 as the voting age in federal elections under Art.

The Supreme Court reversed a Fifth Circuit habeas ruling that had invalidated Alex Evans' Georgia murder conviction because the trial court admitted, over objection, a fellow prisoner's testimony repeating an alleged accomplice's out-of-court statement blaming Evans for his predicament.

The Court held that a guilty plea is not rendered involuntary merely because the defendant entered it to avoid a possible death sentence, so long as it represents a voluntary and intelligent choice among available alternatives.

The Court held that accrued but unpaid vacation pay of wage-earning bankrupts is not property that passes to the bankruptcy trustee under the Bankruptcy Act. Although the statute broadly reaches valuable interests rooted in the prebankruptcy past, vacation pay serves the debtor's basic economic needs and is closely…

The Court held that a bankrupt wage earner's accrued but unpaid vacation pay is not property that passes to the bankruptcy trustee under § 70a (5) of the Bankruptcy Act. It reasoned that the pay is part of the debtor's wages and is closely tied to the debtor's ability to obtain a fresh start and meet basic needs…

The Supreme Court held that the Confrontation Clause does not bar the substantive use of a witness's prior inconsistent statements where the witness testifies at trial and is subject to full and effective cross-examination, expressly rejecting the contrary rule of the California Supreme Court's decision in People v.

The Supreme Court affirmed petitioner's robbery conviction and life sentence, holding that Florida's notice-of-alibi rule does not violate the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment because it merely accelerates the timing of disclosure of information the…

The Court reversed and remanded because Kress failed to carry its initial summary-judgment burden of showing that no genuine dispute existed about whether a police officer was present in the restaurant and joined an understanding with a Kress employee to deny service.

The Court affirmed denial of collateral relief, holding that a guilty plea is not involuntary merely because the defendant accepted it to avoid a possible death sentence or obtain a lesser penalty.

The Supreme Court affirmed the New York courts' judgment upholding New York's property tax exemption for religious organizations against an Establishment Clause challenge. Chief Justice Burger's opinion for the Court held that the exemption's legislative purpose is neither the advancement nor the inhibition of…

The Court reversed the District Court and upheld Maryland's maximum grant regulation under both the Social Security Act and the Equal Protection Clause. It held that the federal statute gives States substantial discretion to allocate limited AFDC funds and requires aid to eligible families and children, but not…

The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt at the adjudicatory stage of a juvenile delinquency proceeding when the charged conduct would constitute a crime if committed by an adult.

The Court held that the 29‑hour detention of first‑class mail without a warrant was not an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and therefore reversed the Court of Appeals' decision. No separate opinions were filed.

The Supreme Court held that data processing companies had standing to challenge a 1966 ruling of the Comptroller of the Currency permitting national banks to provide data processing services to other banks and to bank customers.

The Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Stewart, held that the Arizona Fruit and Vegetable Standardization Act, as applied to the appellant’s order requiring cantaloupes to be packed in Arizona, imposes an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce and therefore the lower court's injunction is affirmed.

The Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause requires "one man, one vote" in elections of junior college trustees, and that Missouri’s statutory apportionment scheme, which systematically favored smaller districts, violated that requirement.

The Supreme Court affirmed the Special Master’s report that the Arkansas‑Tennessee boundary at Cow Island Bend is fixed in the middle of the former Mississippi River channel because an avulsion occurred, thereby placing the disputed land in Tennessee.

The Court sustained the statutory inference that unexplained possession of heroin proves the drug was smuggled and that the possessor knew it, affirming the convictions under 21 U.S.C. § 174 and 26 U.S.C.

The Supreme Court held that a shareholder suing retrospectively under § 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act establishes causation by showing that the proxy solicitation itself, rather than the particular defect in it, was an essential link in accomplishing the merger; a finding of materiality supplies the requisite…

The Court held that persons excluded from jury service because of race may bring a civil action seeking affirmative relief against officials administering a state jury-selection system.