As a relatively new conlawprof with one solid year of review and teaching under my belt, I am surprised when I see a case summarized in one sentence that I’d wished I’d said in class as a way of recalling the principle of the case in an instant.
Reading and discussing cases in class doesn’t typically result in a pithy encapsulation of the case in a memorable ten-second sound bite, which is what I’m after when all is said and done.
Here are two examples of the above.
The first regards Palmore v. Sidoti (1984) 466 US 429, the "Marry a Black and Lose Your Baby" case out of Florida. The law professors’ brief in Lawrence, at p. 21, in objecting to the Texas sodomy statute, said it "reflected popular disapproval of gay people" and quoted one line from Palmore:
"Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect."
In other words, and here’s the sound bite for the principle: Government may not bow to popular prejudice, and this is a condensation of the next sentence in Palmore, a quote from an earlier case. I did harp on THAT in class.
Here’s the second, by Justice O’Connor, from p. 266 of her new book, "The Majesty of the Law," Random House, 2003:
"In the past fifty years the Supreme Court’s decisions on individual rights have recognized for the first time many of the freedoms that most Americans today assume is our birthright. Among them is the right to speak freely and advocate for change, the right to worship as we please, and the privilege of political participation. For example, not until the 1960s did the Court acknowledge the constitutional right of the media to criticize public officials... [Citation to New York Times v. Sullivan].
I was struck by the citation to Sullivan, a case I’ve been familiar with since it was handed down in 1964 when I was in law school in New York. Never did I conceive of it as the "first case acknowledging the right of the media to criticize public officials," probably because the media had been doing that since before John Peter Zenger wore long pants. Yet this is one way that Justice O’Connor views Sullivan. I’d thought the First Amendment standing alone accomplished that, and that Sullivan simply reinforced this by making it exceedingly difficult for a public official to sue a critic using a lawsuit for defamation even if the report is false, by interposing the new hurdle of ‘malice.’
Upon reflection, I see what Justice O'Connor is saying, that even though the principle has been around for a long time this was the first time the Court gave it such recognition. At least that's what I think she must mean.
Granting that there are many ways in which cases are understood, cited and used, and that usage will vary with the audience and purpose, I wondered whether members of the list might be willing to share any particularly succinct encapsulations of the meaning of any of the cases they’ve taught, especially meanings that don’t necessarily pop out at first glance but which ought to be noted and more importantly, remembered, amidst all the verbiage.
