When has the Supreme Court messed up?

[CandidGamera]

@flurb

Since the OP is asking about decisions that arguably misinterpret the Constitution, not simply those that have been harshly judged in the light of history, how about the grandaddy of them all – Marbury v. Madison? Although the principle of judicial review has become fundamental to our way of government, the Consitution does not identify the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter of a legislative act’s constitutionality.

Have you read the opinion? It’s brilliant. And persuasive.

Rightly decided, IMO.

[mks57]

I’d vote for Wickard v. Filburn, where the court decided that growing wheat on your own farm, for your own use, was interstate commerce, and subject to federal regulation.

Roe v. Wade gets second-place for its use of penumbras and emanations to reach the court’s goal of legalizing abortion through the judicial process.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@mks57

I’d vote for Wickard v. Filburn, where the court decided that growing wheat on your own farm, for your own use, was interstate commerce, and subject to federal regulation.

Good one. Likewise the companion case of Baltimore v. National League, finding that major league baseball, with teams and players travelling all over the country, somehow was not interstate commerce.

[jackelope]

@Mouse_Maven

The Supreme Court supported Franklin D. Roosevelts Executive Order 9066 at the begining of WWII. Making it “legal” to hold Japanese-Americans in detainment camps.

Agreed. Korematsu v. United States was the first one that sprang to my mind, followed closely by Dred Scott v. Sandford and Wickard v. Fillburn.

[OneCentStamp]

@Rocketeer

The Dred Scott decision.

Chief Justice Roger Taney, a southerner, used the case as a springboard for a sweeping justification for slavery. However, from what I understand, his decision was inconsistent with the law and extended way beyond the actual scope of the case.

(emphasis mine)

I entered the thread to mention this case, and am gratified to see it’s been mentioned several times already.

Sadly, Roger Taney was from my home state of Maryland. So, not a Southerner by most people’s reckoning, but with a (19th Century) Southern ideological bent.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@mks57

I’d vote for Wickard v. Filburn, where the court decided that growing wheat on your own farm, for your own use, was interstate commerce, and subject to federal regulation.

That’s what I came in to mention. It was part of a long line of decisions expanding the power of the Federal government via the interstate commerce clause. The end result being all kinds of overreaching federal authority into areas that the states ought to have retained control of. By that argument everying affects commerce in one way or another.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@CandidGamera

Rightly decided, IMO.

Wrongly decided, IMO (Marbury v. Madison, that is)–and not because of judicial review, which I agree was natural and inevitable. (The Constitution explicitly provides for federal judicial review of state laws; all Marshall did was expand the concept to federal laws.)

Rather, it was wrongly decided because the Judiciary Act of 1789 wasn’t unconstitutional. All it did was empower the Supreme Court to issue writs of mandamus.

Meanwhile, Marshall let pass the blatantly unconstitutional Judiciary Act of 1802 (Stuart v. Laird), which solved the “problem” of inability to remove a judge from office by removing the office from the judge. But Marshall gets a pass on that one, because a contrary decision would have been ignored and would have made him look like a fool.