Supreme Court of the United States, 1973

The Supreme Court held that in a diversity class action under Rule 23(b)(3), every plaintiff — named or unnamed — must independently satisfy the $10,000 jurisdictional-amount requirement of 28 U.S.C.

The Supreme Court held that a full warrantless search of the person incident to a lawful custodial arrest based on probable cause is both an exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and a 'reasonable' search, requiring no additional justification even for a minor offense unlikely to produce evidence and…

The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that an Oregon trial judge's 'presumption of truthfulness' instruction, given alongside repeated instructions on the presumption of innocence and the State's burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment in an…

The Court held that South Carolina's Educational Facilities Authority Act, as interpreted and applied to the proposed revenue-bond financing for Baptist College at Charleston, did not violate the Establishment Clause.

The Supreme Court held that the warrantless seizure of an allegedly obscene film, taken incident to the theater manager's arrest for publicly exhibiting it at a commercial drive-in theater, was unreasonable under Fourth Amendment standards applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments do not require a prior adversary hearing on obscenity before a warrant issues for seizing a film as evidence in a criminal prosecution, provided the warrant issues from a neutral magistrate who has independently determined probable cause (here, the judge…

The Supreme Court vacated the Georgia Supreme Court's judgment enjoining two 'adult' films and remanded for reconsideration in light of Miller v. California. Chief Justice Burger's opinion reaffirmed that obscene material is wholly outside First Amendment protection, held that States have legitimate interests in…

Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Burger reaffirmed that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment and announced a new tripartite test for obscenity: whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest…

The Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit's grant of habeas relief, holding that the warrantless search of the trunk of Dombrowski's accident-disabled automobile, which police had caused to be towed to a private garage, was not unreasonable under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments solely because no warrant had…

The Court held that proof of intentional segregation in a meaningful portion of a school system creates a prima facie case that other segregated schools in that system also reflect intentional segregation, shifting the burden to school authorities to rebut that inference.

The Supreme Court reversed a three-judge District Court's invalidation of Connecticut's 1971 legislative reapportionment plan. It held that minor population deviations among state legislative districts — a 1.81% maximum total deviation in the Senate and 7.83% in the House — do not make out a prima facie case of…

The Court, through Chief Justice Burger, affirmed petitioners’ convictions under California’s prohibition on unauthorized duplication of sound recordings. The Copyright Clause does not vest copyright authority exclusively in Congress, and its requirement of protection for limited times restricts Congress rather than…

The Supreme Court sustained the environmental groups' standing to challenge the ICC's refusal to suspend a 2.5% freight surcharge, holding that allegations of specific injury to members' use of natural resources satisfied the injury-in-fact test even though the harm was widely shared and causally attenuated.

The Court held that under § 718 of the Emergency School Aid Act the prevailing plaintiff should ordinarily be awarded attorney's fees unless special circumstances make such an award unjust, mirroring the standard of § 204(b) of the Civil Rights Act, and therefore vacated the Sixth Circuit’s denial of fees and remanded…

Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the Court, holding that the absence of a Commission finding of reasonable cause does not bar a Title VII claim under §703(a)(1) and clarifying the burden‑shifting framework: once a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the employer must articulate a legitimate…

The Court held that a state prisoner challenging the fact or duration of physical confinement, and seeking immediate or speedier release through restoration of good-conduct-time credits, must proceed exclusively through federal habeas corpus rather than an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's recognition of a defense premised on "an intolerable degree of governmental participation in the criminal enterprise," holding that an undercover agent's supply of phenyl-2-propanone — a scarce but legal and independently obtainable ingredient — to an ongoing…

The Court, in a per curiam opinion, held that the proper standard of judicial review for the Comptroller's informal action is whether the adjudication is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law, rejecting de novo review. No separate concurrences or dissents were filed.

The Supreme Court affirmed a three-judge District Court's dismissal for want of standing of a suit by the mother of an illegitimate child challenging, under the Equal Protection Clause, a Texas district attorney's refusal to enforce the criminal nonsupport statute, Art. 602, against fathers of illegitimate children.

The Supreme Court held that the 'within their respective jurisdictions' language of 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a) does not confine federal habeas jurisdiction to prisoners physically present in the district: because the writ acts on the custodian rather than the prisoner, a district court may entertain the petition so long as…

The Court held that payments made by Kaiser into a retirement trust for physicians associated with the Permanente partnership were compensation for services and therefore income of the partnership, even though the payments were made directly to the trust.

The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Hobbs Act indictment, holding that the Act does not criminalize violence used during a lawful strike to obtain legitimate collective‑bargaining objectives.

The Court held that Virginia's House of Delegates reapportionment plan was constitutional even though it produced a maximum population deviation of 16.4%, because the deviations resulted from a rational state policy of preserving political-subdivision boundaries and remained within tolerable limits.

The Court held that Chambers was denied due process when Mississippi applied its voucher rule to prevent him from cross-examining a witness whose testimony was materially adverse and applied its hearsay rule to exclude corroborated, self-incriminating statements identifying another person as the shooter.

The Court held that Virginia's House of Delegates redistricting plan satisfied the Equal Protection Clause despite a maximum population deviation of 16.4%, because the deviation resulted from a rational policy of preserving political-subdivision boundaries and remained within tolerable limits.

The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects a qualified right of personal privacy encompassing a woman's decision whether to terminate a pregnancy, and that Texas's near-total abortion ban was unconstitutional because it did not account for pregnancy stage or the distinct state interests in maternal health…

Applying its same-day decision in Roe v. Wade, the Court sustained the justiciability and standing of Mary Doe and the physician-appellants and held that Georgia's 1968 abortion statute survives only in its core: the physician's 'best clinical judgment that an abortion is necessary' is not void for vagueness, but the…

The Court held that Texas statutes granting support rights to legitimate children while denying them to illegitimate children violate the Equal Protection Clause, and therefore reversed the Texas Court of Civil Appeals and remanded for further proceedings consistent with that holding.

The Court held that 42 U.S.C. § 407 bars the State of New Jersey from attaching, levying, or otherwise reaching the federal disability benefits deposited in the account, and therefore reversed the judgment of the New Jersey courts. No concurring or dissenting opinions were filed.