The Thursday Quiz XXX

The Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is an "Is It or Isn't It" game. From the list of twelve items, your job is to determine whether each IS or ISN'T a true example of the week's category.

Remember always the Principle of Common Law:

No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. The Thursday
Quiz is a POP quiz. Violators will have to make it on their own.

This Week's Category will take it all the way to, well, you!

Real and Bogus at the (U.S.) Supreme Court

These are all important Supreme Court cases, all right. Except some of them happened more or less as described here, and others have been extruded through the michael5000 plausible nonsense machine. Which ones are correct as described?

1. Marbury v. Madison (1803) The case itself involves relatively trivial issues about the commissioning of Justices of the Peace, but the implications of the case will be huge. In Marbury, the Court asserts its own ability to declare laws unconstitutional. This pretty much defines the role the Supreme Court has filled in more recent times, a role that however has no particular basis in the Constitution.

2. Dred Scott v. Sandford, the "Dred Scott Case" (1857) A Court split largely along regional lines finds that African-Americans who live or have lived in free states are full citizens entitled to equal protection under the law. Because this decision threatens the practice of slavery, it will be a direct cause of Southern succession and the Civil War.

3. The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States (1890) The Court upholds an Act of Congress that dissolves the Mormon church and authorizes the seizure of its assets and property because of its advocacy of polygamy. Later that year, the church's president has a religious vision that instructs him to denounce the practice. He does, and the LDS church is allowed to reincorporate and retain its property.

4. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) In a case testing state laws that required the separation of blacks and whites in public places, the Court finds that the notion that segregation is in any way unfair is downright silly. For the next 60 years or so, "separate but equal" is the law of the land in the Southern states.

5. Korematsu v. United States (1944) The Court rules that internment camps set up to imprison Americans of Japanese descent during World War II are "an unconscionable violation of citizens' rights" and therefore unconstitutional. Deliberately slow implementation of the Court's order to disband the camps will mean that inmates are released only two weeks before the end of the war.

6. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court now rejects the idea of "separate but equal" with respects to education. Schooling students separately on the basis of their race, the court says, is an inherently discriminatory practice, and therefore unconstitutional.

7. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Considering a seldom-enforced Connecticut law against selling contraceptives, the Court finds the law unconstitutional because it violates a right to privacy that, although never directly stated, is kind of implied by the Bill of Rights.

8. Miranda v. Arizona (1966) The Miranda Case establishes the right of law enforcement officials to search any private or public property whenever a "reasonable person" would suspect that a crime had either just occurred or was "imminent."

9. Roe v. Wade (1972) In a case that turns on the question of whether a fetus is or is not a citizen, the Court decides that it is not, and that therefore the states may not enact any laws restricting the availability of abortion.

10. South Dakota v. Dole (1987) In this case, the specifics of which deal with highway funding and legal drinking age, the Court declares that the Federal government can not under any circumstances use its financial resources -- the so-called "power of the purse" -- to force states to enact particular laws.

11. Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000) The Court determines that the Boy Scouts organization was within its rights to dismiss a gay assistant Scoutmaster. The organization's Constitutional right to freedom of association, which implies the right to exclude as well as include members, was held to outweigh the Scoutmaster's protection, by state statute, against discrimination.

12. Bush V. Gore (2000) Faced with an ambiguous vote in Florida upon which the 2000 Presidential election hinges, the Court dictates that the principle of "One Man, One Vote" and the essential nature of democracy require that every effort be made to determine the correct result of the election. As a result, the nation endures a long, grueling recount before an unambiguous winner of the Florida popular vote is finally declared.

Submit your answers in the comments while the Justices interupt you every five seconds.