Jonathan Zenkich

AP U.S. Government & Politics: Supreme Court Essay

As the Founders of our country crafted the constitution that we hold so dearly, they knew that implementing a check on the constitutionality of the actions of other branches of government would be crucial. In order to do this, in the third article of the constitution, right after the establishment of the executive branch, they put the judicial branch into place. On a federal level, the judiciary would exist of a singular Supreme court, appellate courts, and district courts. The Supreme court, which was meant to determine the constitutionality of laws and set precedent in landmark cases has done so consistently, and controversially, ever since. In three of these cases, Gideon v. Wainwright, McDonald v. Chicago, and Citizens United v. FEC, the courts ruled on issues surrounding the first, second, and sixth amendments to the constitution, and have had a lasting effect on American democracy. 

In modern American, many Supreme court rulings are very controversial and are heavily split along ideological lines in 5-4 votes. Yet, Gideon v. Wainwright is a case that most people are able to agree on and was decided unanimously by the court in 1963. When Clarence Gideon was arrested on charges of felony breaking and entering in the early 1960s, he requested that an attorney be provided to him, for he was unable to pay for one himself. At the time in Florida, the state that he was arrested in, an attorney could only be appointed for a defendant in a capital case, which this case was not. Gideon represented himself at trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Gideon then filed a habeas corpus petition petition in the Florida Supreme Court, and argued that his constitutional right to a defense, as stated in the sixth amendment. The court denied him habeas corpus relief, meaning Gideon appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. As the 9 justices of the Supreme Court heard Gideon’s argument, they agreed that his Sixth Amendment right to an attorney had been breached, and unanimously ruled in his favor. Representing this majority, Justice Hugo Black wrote that a defendant has a right to an attorney under the Sixth Amendment, and that this right is put upon the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, meaning that this case is mainly a sixth amendment case, but also a fourteenth amendment case. The court’s ruling was not really partisan, as both liberals and conservative’s agreed that a defendant has a right to an attorney under the sixth amendment to the constitution. Chief Justice Earl Warren did not play a great role in the deciding of this case because of it’s unanimity. To this day, the precedent set by Gideon v. Wainwright allows criminal defendants to have attorney representing them in legal proceedings, and may not without this case. Now that racial justice is at the front of many people’s minds in the United States, the right to an attorney is something essential in the fight to eliminate sentencing disparities along racial lines in the criminal justice system.

Not all cases end unanimously. In fact, in recent times it seems that more and more cases have been incredibly controversial. One of these cases in McDonald v. Chicago. After the D.C. v Heller decision in 2008, several lawsuits were filed against Chicago challenging their ban on guns. One of these suits came from Otis McDonald, Mr. McDonald lived Morgan Park, and felt that his neighborhood had been run down by “gangs and drug dealers”. He owned shotguns for hunting but felt that they would be inadequate for self defense and desired to purchase a handgun. Due to Chicago’s ban on unregistered handguns, and refusal to register handguns, Mr. McDonald was unable to legally own a handgun. This meant that this case was a case that focused on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, and it’s ability to apply the other amendments to the states. Otis McDonald sued the city of Chicago, where McDonald appealed the conclusion from both the federal district court and seventh circuit appellate court to eventually get to the supreme court. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. McDonald in a 5-4 decision, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms applicable to the states. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the right to bear arms is fundamental to the United States’ “scheme of ordered liberty”, and that these rights were rooted in America’s history. The Court determined that because of its decision in D.C. v Heller, the Second Amendment applies to the states. In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the Fourteenth Amendment did not incorporate the Second Amendment against the states. He also argued that the right to own a personal firearm was not an interest protected by the Due Process Clause. Justice Roberts, who voted in favor of Mr. McDonald was viewed as one of the swing votes in this case. Justice Roberts seemed to vote in a conservative manor in this case, since this ruling was relatively conservative. As mass shootings and gun violence have become more and more prevalent over recent years, people who are in favor of tougher gun control could view a case like McDonald v. Chicago, and cases like D.C. v. Heller as federal limitations on preventing and removing firearm access. 

One of the most controversial cases of the last decade, Citizens United v. FEC, has certainly had lasting effects on our political system, and its merits are still debated today. In 2008, conservative 501(c)(4) organization Citizens United created a movie about Hillary Clinton, explaining why she was not fit to be president. At the time, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) would have prevented this movie from being released. So, Citizens United filed an injunction against the FEC to prevent the BCRA from applying to their movie. The highly contested part of this lawsuit, Section 203 of the BCRA, said that corporations could not fund political communication. Citizens United argued that this law violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech. At first, the U.S. District Court denied the injunction filed by Citizens United, since there was precedent set by the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC, regarding section 203 of the BCRA. The District Court also held that the movie about Hillary Clinton was expressed advocacy, meaning section 203 was not unconstitutionally applied. The Court of Appeals held the lower court’s ruling, sending this case to the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court heard this case, they ended up overruling portions of their previous precedent, McConnell v. FEC, and the case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. In a 5-4 ruling along ideological lines, the court sided in favor of Citizens United. The majority ruled that under the First Amendment, corporate funding of political broadcasts cannot be limited. Chief Justice John Roberts, who was in the majority, did not play a major role in this case apart from his role as a justice in the Supreme Court. He did not write the majority or minority opinions, but he did write a concurring opinion to that written by Justice Anthony Kennedy with Justice Samual Alito, explaining that the courts ground to rule were very “narrow” and that the First Amendment implications of this case were what caused them to come to the conclusion they came to. This ruling was certainly a conservative ruling, since not only was Citizens United a conservative organization, but the view that corporations should not be limited in their campaign spending tends to be a small-government conservative idea. Since it had to do with speech, and Citizens United filed an injunction against the FEC on First Amendment grounds, it is also clear that this case was a First Amendment case. From this case, the phrase “Corporations are People” has come about, referring to the fact that corporations are able to spend money on political broadcasting like individuals are, which many Americans find to be ridiculous. Campaign contributions, PACs and SuperPACs, and money in politics are something that many people have started to take as a big issue in the United States. People feel that elections should be decided by the people and only the people, and not by corporate interests with loads of cash. In this way, Citizens United v. FEC is still relevant today, and will seemingly be relevant for a long time to come. 

All three of these cases have had a huge impact of American democracy, and have likely impacted many individuals lives, be it gun owners in Chicago, criminal defendants, or people running corporations. For better or worse, the Supreme Court must make rulings every day about the constitutionality of certain laws or policies, and their rulings have profound impacts on the country. Often, these rulings are viewed as something positive, such as in Gideon v. Wainwright, but there are dozens, if not hundreds of cases, that people on both sides of the aisle dispute the legitimacy of to this day. McDonald v. Chicago and Citizens United v. FEC are two examples where people who tend to have liberal views may have issues with the rulings, but the opposite is also very prevalent in cases like Roe v. Wade, a case that conservatives and the Republican party still tend to take issue with. With this being said, the Founders knew that in a Democracy there would be disagreement, and they entrusted the Supreme Court with making sure that this disagreement did not end up interfering with the rights of individuals as delegated to them by the constitution. While we may at times even disagree about what the Supreme Court ends up ruling, at a minimum, the fact that our country has a process for us to stand up for our rights and for legal precedent to be set is something that we should all be thankful for.


I wasn't able to make a comment on the comments section, so here is my comment on the essay that Chauncy wrote.

Chauncy-

I enjoyed reading your essay. I particularly enjoyed the fact that you were able to precisely connect all 3 of your cases back to the 14th amendment and it’s due process clause, I made the same connection. I also liked your summary of Citizens United v. FEC, as this case is incredibly complicated, and I think you did a really good job summing it up. The last two sentences of your essay stood out to me the most. You came to the conclusion that the right to bear arms is something that is enshrined in the constitution by the 14th amendment, which I agree with, but I wonder if this was by design, or if this is an additional product of the 14th amendment. I think that this is likely an additional product of the 14th amendment, because the initial purpose of the 14th amendment was to ensure that African American’s have the right to citizenship, but I certainly don’t see the access to additional rights as a negative thing.

Jonathan Zenkich