Baldus Study (Capital Punishment)
The Baldus Study, conducted by Professors David Baldus, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski, was a sophisticated empirical analysis of 2,484 Georgia homicide cases that were charged and sentenced in the 1970s.
Read the full storyRoger Baldwin (1884–1981)
Roger Baldwin was the founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and served as its director from 1920 to 1950. He was widely recognized as the foremost advocate of civil liberties in the United States during those years.
Read the full storyBallew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223 (1978)
The manager of an adult theater was charged in a state court with distributing obscene materials, a misdemeanor. Pursuant to state law, and over his claim that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial required a jury of at least six members, he was tried and convicted by a jury of five people.
Read the full storyBallot Initiatives
Method by which the people of various states exercise their retained right to initiate and adopt legislation directly.
Read the full storyBaltimore City Department of Social Services v. Bouknight, 493 U.S. 549 (1990)
MauriceM, after being hospitalized at age threemonths with fresh and partially healed bone fractures, was placed into shelter care by a court order but was later returned to his mother Jacqueline’s custody.
Read the full storyBaptists in Early America
From the time in the early 1600s that some of the early Puritans came to believe that infant baptism could not be justified on biblical grounds, to the final abolition of the last remaining compulsory religious taxation system in Massachusetts in 1833, the Baptists bore the brunt of the religious persecution and discrimination meted out in early American communities.
Read the full storyBeal v. Doe, 432 U.S. 438 (1977)
Indigents who were eligible for financial assistance under Title XIX of the Social Security Act’s Medicaid program challenged a Pennsylvania statute that denied funding for their desired abortions.
Read the full storyBeauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250 (1952)
In Beauharnais v. Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the validity of a 1917 Illinois group libel statute, finding that such speech fell outside the protections of the First Amendment.
Read the full storyBecker Amendment
The Becker amendment was one of the more significant congressional attempts to overturn an unpopular holding of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read the full storyBelief–Action Distinction in Free Exercise Clause History
One of the central issues in free exercise clause jurisprudence has been the question of whether the state is obliged to give individuals exemptions from government regulations that interfere with their free exercise of religion.
Read the full storyBelle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1 (1974)
When a local government zones, it typically classifies land uses according to use type (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), and then regulates uses within each classification according to height and density.
Read the full storyBellis v. United States, 417 U.S. 85 (1974)
Isadore Bellis was a partner in a small law firm who received a grand jury subpoena for the financial records of the partnership and sought to resist producing them by asserting his Fifth Amendment selfincrimination privilege.
Read the full storyBellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979)
As soon as the ink was dry on the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade, many state legislatures passed laws to limit a woman’s ability to get an abortion, or to at least place hurdles in her way.
Read the full storyBenton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784 (1969)
The double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall ‘‘be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.’’
Read the full storyBerger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (1967)
Berger v. New York addressed questions pertaining to the Fourth Amendment. This decision overruled the precedent set by Olmstead v. United States.
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