Every Day Is Special: June 13 - Great Days in the Supreme Court!

June 13 - Great Days in the Supreme Court!

Posted on June 13, 2019

There were two momentous Supreme-Court events on back-to-back June 13ths:

June 13, 1966 - The Supreme Court ruled that police officers have to inform suspects of their rights BEFORE questioning them.

The case was Miranda v. Arizona, and that's why we call this the Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

We sometimes call these rights our Miranda rights.

June 13, 1967 - President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to become the first black jurist on the Supreme Court.

Marshall was already super important to the nation, because he had used the law to destroy some unfair laws, with his work as legal counsel for the NAACP taking apart Jim Crow laws that maintained racial segregation and racial discrimination. And while serving on the Supreme Court, Marshall used the power of dissent to promote equity for women and for racial minorities - he used the power of dissent to shine a bright light on the problem with the death penalty - he used the power of dissent to support women's right to make their own medical decisions for their own bodies.

For more about Marshall and about the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court, check out this earlier post.

For more about the U.S. Supreme Court, check out these earlier posts.