Talk:Landmark decision

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This page was voted on for deletion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Landmark decision. dbenbenn | talk 22:32, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Surely Marbury v. Madison ought to be referenced here?! 18.24.0.120 04:32, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, feel free to add it. Pakaran 04:32, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I hold that Brown v. Board of Education is the most famous case in U.S. history. - Woodrow 22:21, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I question the need for this article. First, there is already a List of United States Supreme Court cases, which this article really does not add to —it only lists Supreme Court cases, though it gives somewhat longer descriptions. Second, it tries to give a stricter definition than is really warranted by the imprecise manner in which the term is popularly used. Third, any such list is going to be inherently subjective, as there is no consensus as to which cases are the most important. Though there are a few that may standout as "uncontroversially" landmark, strictly speaking all this article should really be based on the title is a dicdef with several examples, which is not worth keeping. I'm really inclined to list it on VFD, but I want to hear contrary arguments for keeping it first. Postdlf 15:27, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I recommend a merge. Ellsworth 22:22, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If this article is not merged as above then it should either be expanded to inlcude significant cases from countries other than the United States, or moved to a title that reflects its US bias. Thryduulf 23:17, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There really isn't anything to merge. The first paragraph is blatantly inaccurate, as the precedential and binding effects it describes are true of ALL appellate court cases. EVERY court decision in common law countries is supposed to guide how future decisions come out (see stare decisis) and EVERY higher court decision is binding upon lower courts. Once you remove that, all you have is an arbitrary Americentric list and a one-sentence dictionary definition of a vague, popular usage. Postdlf 01:04, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Rewrite 2 Categorization 3 Hurley v. GLIB is WRONG 4 Is Provaby a word? 5 Nix v. Hedden - not a landmark 6 Gonzales v. Oregon 7 Case citations

[edit] Rewrite

Can we re-structure the article and tone down the parts that deal with actual cases? The point of a landmark decision is the process itself: how does a nation's legal system work and how does a court maximize its influence. I don't think the U.S. Supreme Court would decide for sam-sex marriage, pot legalization, sending all the blacks to Africa or a total ban or Darwinism in public schools any time too soon no matter who's in charge of it. The Supreme Court is a coward. It never wants to be a public enemy. For a court to form a law-changing decision, there must be some reasons that enables it to do so. I think some people might have written some articles about this kind of struggle. If this article can introduce the readers the interplay of law, politics and the ever-changing public opinions, this article will be great. -- Toytoy 02:08, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization

I've divided up the US Supreme Court cases into categories, which breaks up the monotony. Really, all of them are landmark cases - if you consider that the Supremes have been averaging about 100 cases a year for over 200 years, it doesn't seem like the opinions listed represent too big a chunk of the 20,000 from which there are to choose. -- 8^D BD2412^gab 04:48, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)

[edit] Hurley v. GLIB is WRONG

The description of the case Hurley v. Irish American Gay Group of Boston is wrong. The decision actually asserted the right of the parade organizers under the first amendment to pick who they wanted in the parade and therefore kept the gays out.

The case really seems somewhat unremarkable to me, especially under this heading. A far better example of 1st Amendment association rights would be Dale v. BSA where the Supreme Court said private organizations have the freedom to select their own membership even if their selection is in violation of anti-discrimination laws.

[edit] Is Provaby a word?

Is Provaby a word?

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[edit] Nix v. Hedden - not a landmark

I suggest that Nix v. Hedden (the case where the Court holds that the tomato is, in fact, a vegetable), while certainly a fun little case, is in no way a "landmark decision". Does anyone disagree?  BD2412 ^talk 22:38, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gonzales v. Oregon

Doesn't this recent decision count as a significent landmark decision?? tduwhs

To the extent that there can be any objective substance to this term, no. For one thing, I'd say wait more than a couple days to actually see what its impact will be; it takes an historical perspective to tell. But unless a flurry of states suddenly legalize assisted suicide in response, I doubt it will ever become much of a landmark even in time. The ruling was a rather narrow one on the issue of an executive official's interpretation of a statute. If it had ruled that Congress couldn't criminalize assisted suicide, that would be significant. But it just ruled that Congress didn't and the AG was wrong in saying that it had. All it would take is for Congress to amend the CSA and this case would be largely irrelevant. Postdlf 05:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Tough I hardly think that Congress would over turn that ruling. The GOP has a full plate as it is. I think it needs to pick up its image before focus on something else. I think it is significent and I know my thoughts dont really say much. So I say we look up news stories about the case and see what laywers, politicians and historical analists say.

Or we could actually wait awhile and see how history views it...? News stories hardly present an objective perspective on what's truly significant in the long run. Postdlf 07:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Case citations

I note that it is common for articles describing USSC decisions to wikilink the cite of the case to case citation (which wikilink also appears in the See also section of this article). IMHO, it would be more useful to use the {{Ussc}} template. Is there some reason that I should not edit relevant pages to make this change? -- Boracay Bill 02:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

That template links to findlaw? I didn't even know it existed or else I would have changed it myself. I think that's a brilliant idea. There's a million articles on cases that just link to case cite. In my opinion they should all be changed to this template.--Velvet elvis81 17:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)