← Landmark cases
Supreme Court Opinion Library
Read the available opinion text for 55 landmark decisions and connect each source to its plain-English explainer. Some texts are excerpts; each page links to the original source record.
Browse decisions by year
1796
Hylton v. United States
Read the plain-English explainer →1798
Calder v. Bull
Read the plain-English explainer →1819
Dartmouth College v. Woodward
Read the plain-English explainer →1819
McCulloch v. Maryland
Read the plain-English explainer →1821
Cohens v. Virginia
Read the plain-English explainer →1824
Gibbons v. Ogden
Read the plain-English explainer →1866
Ex Parte Milligan
Read the plain-English explainer →1883
Civil Rights Cases
Read the plain-English explainer →1896
Plessy v. Ferguson
Read the plain-English explainer →1905
Lochner v. New York
Read the plain-English explainer →1919
Schenck v. United States
Read the plain-English explainer →1923
Meyer v. Nebraska
Read the plain-English explainer →1925
Gitlow v. New York
Read the plain-English explainer →1931
Near v. Minnesota
Read the plain-English explainer →1937
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish
Read the plain-English explainer →1938
United States v. Carolene Products
Read the plain-English explainer →1943
Boone v. Lightner
Read the plain-English explainer →1944
Korematsu v. United States
Read the plain-English explainer →1944
Prince v. Massachusetts
Read the plain-English explainer →1954
Brown v. Board of Education
Read the plain-English explainer →1958
Cooper v. Aaron
Read the plain-English explainer →1962
Engel v. Vitale
Read the plain-English explainer →1963
Gideon v. Wainwright
Read the plain-English explainer →1966
Miranda v. Arizona
Read the plain-English explainer →1967
Loving v. Virginia
Read the plain-English explainer →1969
Tinker v. Des Moines
Read the plain-English explainer →1972
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Read the plain-English explainer →1973
Roe v. Wade
Read the plain-English explainer →1974
United States v. Nixon
Read the plain-English explainer →1978
Regents v. Bakke
Read the plain-English explainer →1983
INS v. Chadha
Read the plain-English explainer →1985
New Jersey v. TLO
Read the plain-English explainer →1989
Texas v. Johnson
Read the plain-English explainer →1992
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Read the plain-English explainer →1993
Conroy v. Aniskoff
Read the plain-English explainer →1995
US Term Limits v. Thornton
Read the plain-English explainer →1998
Clinton v. City of New York
Read the plain-English explainer →2000
Bush v. Gore
Read the plain-English explainer →2000
Troxel v. Granville
Read the plain-English explainer →2003
Lawrence v. Texas
Read the plain-English explainer →2006
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Read the plain-English explainer →2007
Massachusetts v. EPA
Read the plain-English explainer →2008
DC v. Heller
Read the plain-English explainer →2010
Citizens United v. FEC
Read the plain-English explainer →2010
McDonald v. Chicago
Read the plain-English explainer →2012
NFIB v. Sebelius
Read the plain-English explainer →2013
Shelby County v. Holder
Read the plain-English explainer →2015
Obergefell v. Hodges
Read the plain-English explainer →2019
Rucho v. Common Cause
Read the plain-English explainer →2022
Dobbs v. Jackson
Read the plain-English explainer →2022
West Virginia v. EPA
Read the plain-English explainer →2023
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
Read the plain-English explainer →2024
FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine
Read the plain-English explainer →2024
Trump v. United States
Read the plain-English explainer →2025
Medina v. Planned Parenthood
Read the plain-English explainer →