Talk:List of landmark court decisions in the United States

message: You should strongly consider adding Gitlow v. N.Y. (1925).  The 1st case in in which the Court utilized the 14th Amendment to nationalize the Bill of Rights.  Basically set the table for the activism of the past 60 years. Hshudgins (talk) 15:49, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Gitlow v. N.Y.

message: This article requires careful review. In a few cases the summaries mischaracterized the decisions. For example, U.S. v. Lopez was described as a federalism case prohibiting federal interference with local school operations, whereas in fact it was a commerce clause case with nothing to do with state or local government. Each case should be reviewed carefully. Best, --Shirahadasha 06:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summaries 

message: The Slaughter-House Cases should be included in landmark decisions. Argueably one of the most pivotal cases in the late 19th century limiting the impact of the 14gth ammendment.
66.189.99.58 (talk) 23:08, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slaughter- House Cases 

message: It seems to me that this case ought to be added to the list of federalism cases, as it set an extremely wide boundary on Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. chrylis (talk) 05:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Gonzales v. Raich]] 

message: i forget which case it was but there was something about the Klan right to march in some town in Il (if memory serves) and the ACLU (and a jewish lawyer) took up their case which they won. There was another case they had vs. San Antonio where they won the right to march but the city closed the 2 roads besides it so no one would be at their march to preserve the peace. Pretty cases on free expression these 2.Lihaas (talk) 08:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Klan case 

message: Perry v. Schwarzenegger is not yet a landmark case.  First, it was cited as 591 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2010), which is incorrect.  That cite goes to the 9th Cir. mandamus hearing on a protective order in the case, and is not the cite to be used for the actual case at the District Court level.  The actual cite will look something like this: Perry v. Schwarzenegger, ___ F.Supp. ___, No. C 09-2292 VRW (N.D. Calif., 2010).
Second, it is a district court decision, and those are not landmark decisions, those being almost exclusively U.S. Supreme Court decisions, with some Circuit Court decisions and some state Supreme Court decisions.  I can think of no District Court decisions that are landmark cases. 
Be patient.  This case will go to the 9th Circuit and then to SCOTUS.  Until then, it is simply not a landmark case.
Regards, GregJackP Boomer!  19:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: SCOTUSBlog is a good resource, I use is a lot.  They're wrong in this context though.  It'll take a while, and no one really listens to the District Court on this - not when both sides will continue to appeal it as far as they can.  The trial judge did do a good job though - his findings of fact are detailed and meticulous, and the appellate courts have to accept those as gospel.  They will only rule on issues of law, not fact.  GregJackP Boomer!  04:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reversion of [[Perry v. Schwarzenegger]] 

message: It seems there are some cases that aren't on here that should be (Ex Parte Young, Ex Parte Milligan, Slaughter-House, and Erie, the no federal common law one, not the nude dancing one, just to name some obvious ones off the top of my head), especially in light of some of the really trivial cases on here (like the aforementioned nude dancing case), but I don't know if they can just be added unilaterally based on one editor's opinion of what cases are "landmarks".  As a whole, this case is badly biased towards Constitutional cases about substantive rights (obviously an important area, but hardly the only important area of law), as well as towards recent cases. 71.116.66.31 (talk) 18:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that there are huge inconsistencies in the list, with many trivial cases included and Landmark ones not mentioned. The Federalism Section, for instance has absolutely nothing related to the New Deal and crucial interpretations of the Commerce Clause. Edit boldly here, I say. Nwlaw63 (talk) 03:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Began by adding Wickard v. Filburn.  Obviously a lot more work to be done here. Nwlaw63 (talk) 21:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Added Steward Machine Company v. Davis. Federalism section still missing key cases. Work here would be appreciated. Nwlaw63 (talk) 05:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless there are objections, I'll be editing down the McCulloch v. Maryland case description. Seems a bit excessive, and has unsourced commentary about implied powers that seems inappropriate in this kind of a list article. Nwlaw63 (talk) 22:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are there standards for this list? 

message: The summary of United States v. Miller says the Court "Held that a sawed-off shotgun did not constitute a weapon suitable for militia use"; yet it did no such thing. As the United States v. Miller article explains, they held that unless that weapon could be shown to be militia-related, it was not necessarily protected by the second amendment. The case was remanded to the lower court to determine that question.
I'm unable to come up with a good rewording of this summary, or I would have fixed the summary myself. ScottJ (talk) 03:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mischaracterization of Miller 

message: It is my understanding that the Supreme Court's majority opinion stated that Texas' statute violated the Due Process Clause and that substantive due process... "liberty"... and not an Equal Protection argument was at hand here and that all forms of sodomy prohibition were unconstitutional. Therefore, it seems to me that this case is not really based on sexual orientation but rather on privacy. Though it is clear that Texas' statue solely applied the homosexuals, the Court's opinion goes further than that. As we know, all sodomy laws in the States are unconstitutional... not just homosexual sodomy laws (unless Justice O'Conner had gotten her way). Please correct me if I'm wrong and if I'm not, I believe the article should be moved to privacy and the word "homosexual" should be removed.Blindman shady 03:44, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lawrence v. Texas 

message: I propose adding Schmerber v. California to the list. By all accounts, it was a landmark case in the development our nation's Fourth and Fifth Amendment jurisprudence (see Kelsey P. Black, Undue Prot. Versus Undue Punishment: Examining the Drinking & Driving Problem Across the United States, 40 Suffolk U.L. Rev. 463, 469 (2007) (describing Schmerber v. California as a "watershed case" in the nation's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence)). What are your thoughts? -- Notecardforfree (talk) 09:27, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Schmerber v. California

message: I like this list, but how do you justify it under WP guidelines? It seems to be people listing their favorite cases, without giving their criteria. It seems to be WP:OR. 
It's as if somebody were to make a list of "Favorite music albums" by listing his personal favorites and the favorites of his friends. 
Aren't there any WP:RS that list landmark cases? Is there an objective way to identify them, like Shepherd's Citations? --Nbauman (talk) 23:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm late to this party but I agree: this list is clearly WP:OR. It should probably be deleted and the "landmark" word/link removed from all of the case articles. If a particular case is truly a "landmark" case, the relevant reliable sources will make that clear.  White Whirlwind  咨  06:29, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I likewise agree that the list is inherently subjective and necessarily both under- and over-inclusive by any set of objective standards. I add this now (although this same point has been made for some ten years about this article) having come upon it from the recent addition of "landmark" to an article about a particular case that I follow, and which I thought was unwarranted.PDGPA (talk) 13:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who decides? What criteria? 

message: Can we add this case to the list?  I observed that  attempted to put in the article page for this case that it belong in the category of SCOTUS landmark cases here.  It certainly is arguable that it is a landmark case. I have seen it described as such in some RS which I can provide.  Since none of the other cases have secondary RS to back up why they are here, it seems finding RS secondary sources (law reviews for example) that describe it as landmark should be sufficient to include it?  --David Tornheim (talk) 04:33, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Diamond v. Chakrabarty]] 

message: It might be a good idea to remove American Legion v. American Humanist Association from this article. While the case received a lot of media attention, the decision was narrow and did not create any new precedent or legal doctrine. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:39, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Legion v. American Humanist Association -- remove? 

message: I've looked at the commentary from this article's deletion discussion in 2012 as well as other commentary on this page itself, including the criteria specified on the article, and I've compiled all of it into an essay which could be of use for the future: WP:LANDMARK.  Hope this proves helpful!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ex Parte (talk • contribs) 17:35, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compiled record of standards regarding what constitutes a "landmark" case. 

message: It did not concern the relative powers of the federal and state governments. Grover cleveland (talk) 06:38, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Grover cleveland (talk) I just created a new section called 'Separation of powers,' which relates to the Separation of powers under the United States Constitution. The Marbury v. Madison article states that the decision "established that the U.S. Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals, and helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government." Based on that, I moved it under the new section. If you think some cases under the federalism section or other section fit more with separation of powers, you can move them under the new section. Cheers. Phillip Samuel (talk) 23:56, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: How is Marbury v. Madison a federalism case? 

message: Can the following three cases be considered landmark cases? They're certainly significant/controversial, but I'm not sure whether they rise to the level of landmark per WP:LANDMARK:
*Plyler v. Doe (1982)
*Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021)
*Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021)
--1990'sguy (talk) 05:18, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly Plyler is landmark. Hassid is more doubtful, and I would at least wait to see (e.g., to what extent courts rely upon it in future cases). I don't think AFPF v. Bonta was much of a legal change from NAACP v. Alabama, but rather a controversial application of it. I would want to know what landmark changes it would have made (and, of course, see some links indicating as much). SilverLocust (talk) 04:09, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Plyler v. Doe'', ''AFP v. Bonta'', & ''Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid'': Landmark cases? 

message: I suggest that a news source from the time of a decision is not necessarily reliable in determining whether the case ultimately ends up being considered a "landmark" decision. If it later appears that there are not subsequent sources to support the label, then it should be removed. I am bringing this up mainly from SmithKline v. Abbott (9th Circuit 2014), which was described as landmark in a 2014 Reuters article, but does not even have its own Wikipedia page and is rarely mentioned today. (I also suggest a per se rule that a case should have its own Wikipedia article — and not a stub article – before being listed here.)  You may be interested. SilverLocust (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that a news source from the time of a decision is a reliable factor in determining whether the case is a "landmark" decision. But there can be other factors such as news sources which are not from the from the time of a decision. A case can be a Wikipedia article or a stub article. See for example Berghuis v. Thompkins,   and Salinas v. Texas,  as an example for a Wikipedia article and a stub article. --P3Y229 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is a factor, but in the absence of subsequent support (lasting reasons to see it as landmark), it should be insufficient. Meanwhile, what support do you have for asserting that Salinas is a landmark decision? You added it back in July 2013, a month after the decision was released, which is another example of my point about premature inclusion based on recent decisions being seen as more landmark than they may merit. The decision expands Berghuis to some extent (but that doesn't make it landmark), plus there isn't a majority holding. Even Berghuis is pretty questionable as being landmark. (Also, Salinas ought to be split into its own article. There is enough content to support it.) SilverLocust (talk) 01:57, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

text:  I agree with the general proposition that a decisions should still be considered a "landmark" decision some years out. Sometimes it will be immediately obvious, as with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade, but for cases that get less coverage in the immediate term, perhaps at least a two or three year test is called for. BD2412 T 03:49, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's correct that I added Salinas v. Texas on July 12, 2013. The reason for my addition remains a mystery to me because it's almost 10 years ago that I added Salinas v. Texas. The lead to the List of landmark court decisions in the United States states several criteria for a landmark court decision. A landmark decison can be based on the fact that it is distinguishing a new principle that refines a prior principle, thus departing from prior practice without violating the rule of stare decisis. The Supreme Court in Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010) decided that the right to remain silent during interrogation does not exist unless a suspect invokes it unambiguously. This was expanded in Salinas v. Texas (2013) by holding that a suspect's silence in response to a specific question posed during an interview with police when the suspect was not in custody and the suspect had been voluntarily answering other questions during that interview could be used against him in court where he did not explicitly invoke his Fifth Amendment right to silence in response to the specific question. --P3Y229 (talk • contribs) 06:38, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Landmark cases should be lastingly (not just contemporaneously) considered "landmark" 

message: I added this case as it defines what racial discrimination is in a modern sense and thus makes no sense as to why it isn't on the list. Few cases on this list could have been brought without citing this case due to its importance in the topic of racial discrimination. 76.133.68.82 (talk) 18:30, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Griggs v. Duke Power Co.