Part I: How the Courts Address or Respect Our Rights as Citizens – Outline

Part I: How the Courts Address or Respect Our Rights as Citizens – Outline

In Part I this week, choose a Federal Supreme Court case that originated in your state (Maryland) that involves civil rights or civil liberties that was heard by the United States Supreme Court, and a decision was rendered. If your state does not have a case that was decided by the United States Supreme Court, choose a civil rights case from another state for which the United States Supreme Court issued a decision.

You should be able to go online and look up your state and famous cases decided by the Supreme Court. For example, Brown v Board of Education (1951) started in Topeka, Kansas, and ended up in the Supreme Court of the United States. Another example would be Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v Steve Sisolak, Governor of Nevada (2020), which started in Nevada and ended up in the United States Supreme Court. A good source of information about cases decided by the United States Supreme Court is www.scotusblog.com, www.justia.com, or www.oyez.org.

Other sources can be researched online using search terms for “civil rights cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.” Be sure to use a case actually decided by the United States Supreme Court, and not a case decided by your state’s supreme court or a different court. A case that is still pending before the United States Supreme Court should not be used. If you are unsure, please contact your Professor BEFORE you pick your case and submit the assignment as this is a significant part of your overall grade.

Research your court case and write an outline of the case that you will be using to prepare a presentation, which will either be a narrated PowerPoint, a Kaltura Video, or some other format as approved by your instructor. If you are unsure, then verify the presentation format with your instructor before starting work on this assignment.

This week’s assignment should include (a) summary of the case; (b) a case outline; and a summary.

Summary of the Case

In one or two paragraphs, provide a general overview of the case that serves as a snapshot of what the case is about and how it ended up in your state high court. A summary is using your words to write a brief history of the case. Do not give your opinion or your interpretation but stick to the facts only.

Case Outline

Your court case outline should include:

Title: Name of the case

Facts of the case: Provide key facts involving the case.

History of the case: What legal action was taken based on what your state laws say about this case?

Legal questions: What were the legal issues the court had to decide?

Decision or holdings: Did the court decide for the plaintiff or the defendant? Explain the reason behind the decision?

Verdict and opinion (judgement): What were the concurring and dissenting opinions? How many judges decided for the defendant and how many justices decided against the defendant? What was the final verdict from the judge or the jury, if it was a jury trial? Part I: How the Courts Address or Respect Our Rights as Citizens – Outline

Conclusion:

What was the resulting impact of the ruling? How did the citizens of your state benefit from it? Was this a good decision?

The length of your outline will vary. Usually an outline is anywhere from 1-3 pages long. Make sure to write full sentences to explain your case. It is a concise list to be used as a reference for you during the presentation.
Using the outline, you will be describing the court case in your presentation and the scenario around the court case. The use of Wikipedia as a primary source of information is to be avoided – it is not a reliable source of information.
Search for an example of a case outline in the Internet. Without going into much detail at this state, each of the items listed above has a subject sentence with 3-6 bullet points that can help you expand on the topic.
For Week 7, you will be creating a narrated PowerPoint, or a video as approved by your instructor, from this week’s outline.
This assignment is worth 200 points.
1-inch margins
Double spaced
12-point Times New Roman font
Title page
References page (minimum of 2 scholarly sources in addition to textbook if cited)

Part I: How the Courts Address or Respect Our Rights as Citizens – Outline

Summary of the Case: Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130 (1964)

In 1960, five young African American men were arrested for participating in a protest against a racial segregation policy. They engaged in the protest by entering a park that practiced the policy and participating in the park activities. A park employee who was deputized as a sheriff to enforce the racial segregation policy was directed to ask them to leave the park. They refused to vacate the park, asserting that they had a right to the park as they had valid tickets. Following their refusal to vacate the park, the sheriff’s deputy arrested them for trespassing. They were convicted for trespassing under a Maryland criminal trespass statute, a conviction that the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld (Bell et al., 2023).

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The case was presented before the US Supreme Court to determine whether enforcing the racial segregation policy at the park entailed the deputized sheriff acting as a state agent and, if so, whether the action violated the Equal Protection Clause as presented in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld the decision to overturn the conviction, arguing that in acting as a deputized sheriff to enforce the segregation policy at the private park, the deputized sheriff had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a state officer, any action the deputized sheriff undertook would be considered state action, and enforcing the racial segregation policy resulted in the five convicted African Americans being denied equal protection under the law (Bell et al., 2023).

Case Outline

Title: Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130 (1964)

Facts of the case: in 1960, five African Americans visited a park that applied a racial segregation policy in Maryland. The private policy excluded African Americans from the park’s facilities. The five African Americans bought tickets to the park and used its facilities. The park management noted this and directed a deputized sheriff who worked at the park to expel the five from the premises. Wearing the deputy sheriff badge, the park employee issued the expulsion instructions, which were ignored by the five who argued that they were at the park with valid tickets. Subsequently, the sheriff’s deputy arrested the five for trespassing under a Maryland criminal trespass statute. They were convicted of the trespass charge, with the Maryland Court of Appeals upholding the conviction (Maggs & Smith, 2023).  

History of the case: The case was first presented in 225 Md. 422, and 171 A.2d 717, which affirmed the conviction of five African Americans for trespassing under a Maryland criminal trespass statute. The case was then presented in 236 Md. 184 and 202 A.2d 644, where the conviction was overturned. The case was eventually presented in case 378 U.S. 130 (1964), where the Supreme Court upheld the decision to overturn the conviction, arguing that it violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as the five were arrested by a state officer, thereby turning the arrest into a state action (Maggs & Smith, 2023).

Legal questions: The legal issue before the court was whether the arrest constituted a state action since it was conducted by a deputized sheriff who wore a badge at the time. In addition, the court sought to determine whether the arrest violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if it was a state action (Maggs & Smith, 2023) Part I: How the Courts Address or Respect Our Rights as Citizens – Outline .

Decision or holdings: The court decided for the petitioners, indicating that their conviction for criminal trespass was invalid since the segregation policy applied at the park was enforced by a deputized sheriff. Thus, the arrest became a state action and violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Burton & Derfner, 2021).

Verdict and opinion (judgement): The court decision was made by a vote of 6 to 3. The concurring opinion noted that the deputy sheriff’s arrest was a state action in support of the park’s segregation policy, which violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The dissenting opinion held that the park’s segregation policy was a private action outside the scope of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Burton & Derfner, 2021).

Conclusion: The case made it clear that while private entities may apply discriminatory policies that violate civil liberties, the state must act with care to ensure that these policies are not construed as state actions. The park, as private property, was free to implement racially discriminatory policies, but the enforcement by a law enforcement officer turned this into a state action, thereby violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The state citizens benefited by having clear boundaries between private prejudice and discrimination encouraged or sponsored by the state (Burton & Derfner, 2021).

References

Bell, D. A., Harris, C. I., Hansford, J., Akbar, A. A., Ellis, A., & McFarlane, A. G. (2023). Race, Racism, and American Law: Leading Cases and Materials, 2023. Aspen Publishing.

Burton, O. V., & Derfner, A. (2021). Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court.  Harvard University Press.

Maggs, G. E., & , P. J. (2023). Constitutional Law: A Contemporary Approach. West Academic Publishing. Part I: How the Courts Address or Respect Our Rights as Citizens – Outline