The Constitution: Major Cases and Conflicts provides students with a road map through the evolution of the Supreme Court, giving clarity to complex issues. This book has chosen pivotal cases based on the importance of the decisions in law, history, and American society. The Constitution has full decisions, not mere excerpts, allowing students to read for themselves and fully understand the logic of the Supreme Court majority and dissenters. These cases involve criminal justice, civil liberties, State's rights, gender, and racial justice as these issues correspond with the balance of powers between the three branches of government. The cases are placed in a historical context with thoughtful questions for discussion. Readers will follow the Supreme Court as it grapples with slavery in early colonial America to 21st century concerns regarding same-sex marriage and technology.

Written primarily for undergraduate courses in criminal justice, constitutional law, and government, The Constitution: Major Cases and Conflicts offers the full text of many landmark Supreme Court cases, selected both for the combinations of constitutional issues they involve and for their continuing relevance today.

This text is of particular interest to criminal justice students because it includes civil cases as well. This is important because various situations involving First Amendment issues, such as protest, can give rise to criminal justice issues when protesters are arrested for disorderly conduct. Thus, this book exposes the criminal justice (and any other) student to both civil and criminal Supreme Court cases along with explanations of their social and historical importance.

The decisions in The Constitution: Major Cases and Conflicts, chosen from among the thousands available, involve multiple layers of legal conflict, so that by studying them, the student can come to understand converging ideals within the Constitution. They also offer insights into American culture that remain relevant to present-day society, and provide a road map through the evolution of the Supreme Court and its shifting reasoning on issues such as federalism, protest, the right to counsel, search and seizure, and civil rights.