25 Completely Crazy Facts About the Supreme Court

1. A woman once sued herself for the wrongful death of her husband. The district court threw out the suit saying that you can't sue yourself, but the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, who ruled that you can. -u/Kudos2Yousguys

2. Today I learned about Loving Day, June 12th; the day that Mildred and Richard Loving finally won their case against Virginia in the US Supreme Court in 1967, legalizing interracial marriage in the US. -u/KopyKita

3. When the Supreme Court of the US strikes down a law, the law doesn't get taken off the books; it is simply stopped from being enforced. So if SCOTUS later rules the other way, the existing laws go into effect again. -u/catras_new_haircut

4. African-Americans enjoyed equal rights in the aftermath of the Civil War. It was a series of policies and Supreme Court decisions that disenfranchised the black community and stripped them gradually over the decades over their newfound freedoms. In 1873, there was even a Black Governor of LA. -u/ChronosBlitz

5. In 1879 Alabama dissolved the debt-ridden city of Mobile and simultaneously incorporated the 'Port of Mobile', with most of Mobile's land and population but none of its debt. The Supreme Court ruled in 1886 that the new city was the successor to the old and still owned the debts. -u/squareabbey

6. The first Supreme Court confirmation hearing was held in 1916 - because President Woodrow Wilson nominated a Jewish person for the seat. -u/ManOfLaBook

7. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was influenced to pursue her career in law after watching 12 Angry Men, noting juror 11's reverence for the justice system. When she was a lower court judge, she would tell jurors not to follow the film's example because it was based on speculation, not fact. -u/murdo1tj

8. In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania high school officials lacked the authority to discipline a student for an off-campus, vulgar Snapchat post that she made in frustration after not making the varsity cheerleading squad. -u/Collective1985

9. Today I learned of Clarence Earl Gideon, who, from his prison cell in 1962, wrote and mailed a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court. The decision from the resulting case required U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own, per the 6th and 14th amendments. -u/The_Techsan

10. Before the United States Supreme Court held its Inaugural Session at the Royal Exchange Marketplace in New York City, city officials moved the market's butchers and placed chains across the street so as to spare the court of the sounds of the busy marketplace. -u/Pres-John-F-Kennedy

11. New York's Son of Sam Law, which prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court over the book Wiseguy. Which was turned into the movie Goodfellas. -u/AudibleNod

12. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults. It wasn't till 2003 the Supreme Court reversed the decision with Lawrence v. Texas, invalidating sodomy laws in the remaining 14 states. -u/DioriteLover

13. As a Naval intelligence officer, Byron White wrote the report on the sinking of PT-109, commanded by John F. Kennedy. During Kennedy's presidency, he nominated White to the Supreme Court. -u/rielephant

14. A school principal once made a student who'd gotten into trouble sit in the basement & read the U.S. Constitution as punishment. That student (who committed the Constitution to memory as a result) was Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice. -u/brucejoel99

15. It used to be illegal in the United States for actors to wear military uniforms in a production that portrayed the military negatively, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1970 that this was a violation of the First Amendment. -u/AporiaParadox

16. Chocolate was classified as “candy” under the Revenue Acts of 1918 and 1921, and so it was taxed as such. Hershey’s sued to recover about $8,000,000 in taxes by arguing it was “food”, and so had been wrongly taxed. The Supreme Court ruled it was “candy.” -u/Mad_Chemist_

17. In State v. Linkhaw, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a man who sang so badly in church that a jury had found him guilty of "disturbing a religious congregation." -u/3-24-21

18. The lone Supreme Court justice to dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson grew up in a household with a light-skinned, blue-eyed slave who was treated much like a family member. The slave, Robert Harlan, was believed to be John Harlan’s older half-brother. Even John’s father believed Robert was his son. -u/Aboveground_Plush

19. The United States Supreme Court ruled that Major League Baseball is exempt from anti-trust laws because baseball games are not interstate commerce. The Court has also ruled that the exemption is peculiar and unique to baseball and does not apply to other sports. -u/Ok-Needleworker-8876

20. The author of Carlito's Way is New York Supreme Court Judge Edwin Torres who served from 1980 to 2008. -u/MusicSole

21. Ronald Reagan appointed the first female Supreme Court justice as promised in his campaign - Sandra Day O'Connor. -deleted user

22. In 1990, Dr. Mary-Claire King discovered the human gene BRCA1 which is linked to breast cancer. Soon after, Myriad Genetics cloned and patented it. She was sent a cease-and-desist letter to stop researching it. Finally, in 2013, the US Supreme Court ruled that human genes cannot be patented. -u/AwesomeFrito

23. The U.S. Supreme Court has only tried one criminal case in its history, a 1906 contempt of court case against a Tennessee sheriff who ignored court rulings for the rights of a black man and allowed a mob to lynch him. -u/Richomeres

24. Because American textbooks are sold at a lower price in Thailand, somebody was reselling them in the US and making enough of a profit to get sued by the publishers. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the publishers because the "first sale" doctrine applies everywhere, not just the US. -u/AporiaParadox

25. Despite it being common practice for casinos to ban card counters, a 1979 New Jersey Supreme Court decision banned all Atlantic City casinos from doing so, making them the only state in America where a casino is forbidden from throwing out skilled blackjack players. -u/derstherower