All the cool kids can name a U.S. Supreme Court decision

I've seen variations on this meme mocking Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge about key U.S. Supreme Court decisions in a few places. This one I swiped from xochiquetzl:

Sarah Palin managed to get Roe v. Wade, but was stumped when asked to name any other Supreme Court decisions. In the spirit of remembering that there is more to law than that one case, I am participating in this meme.

The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historic to your lj. (Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade.) For those who see this on your f-list, take the meme to your OWN lj to spread the fun.


I'll pick Griswold v. Connecticut. This 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned a law that made the distribution of contraceptive devices to married couples illegal, and by arguing that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, established the concept of right to privacy.

Griswold v. Connecticut was later used as a precedent in such cases as Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), which extended the right to possess contraception to unmarried couples, Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 decision that decriminalised sodomy between consenting adults in private.