But more pertinent to Texas is Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which will address whether our attorney general’s enforcement of House Bill 1181 (the “anti-porn bill”) violates the First Amendment. This case will expound on prior precedent set in landmark cases like 1997’s Reno v. ACLU, in which a federal law prohibiting online transmission of “indecent” communications to minors was struck down on First Amendment grounds.
The Paxton case is poised to be a significant First Amendment case taught in American law schools moving forward, since the degree of pornography’s precise legal protections in the Internet age is still being determined. (Non-child pornography is generally protected by the First Amendment, but regulations on the porn industry have often passed constitutional muster.)
This, of course, is far from the first time our area has been at the forefront of significant Supreme Court battles. Below are five landmark cases that originated in North Texas.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
Henry Wade was the Dallas County District Attorney from 1951 to 1987. Along with the prosecution of Jack Ruby following his murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, this seminal case has come to define Wade’s legacy in Dallas. Abortion was outlawed in almost all cases in Texas, although there was an exception for medical necessity to save the mother or child’s life. A woman we now know to be named Norma McCorvey wanted to circumvent this prohibition, and simultaneously, lawyers Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee wanted to challenge this prohibition. So they had recurring meetings at a Dallas pizzeria named Columbo’s Pizza Parlor, which stood at 5734 E. Mockingbird Lane (today, a Walgreen’s and Take 5 Oil Change both occupy that space).
Strategic litigation soon followed, and on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued its 7-2 decision: the fundamental right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause meant that this Texas law was unconstitutional.
Before the Supreme Court overturned this historic decision in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, McCorvey led a fruitful career as an anti-abortion activist. However, she eventually claimed that “it was all an act.”
In the 2020 FX television movie AKA Jane Roe, McCorvey, who died in 2017, is shown saying, “I took their money, and they put me out in front of the camera and told me what to say, and that’s what I’d say.”
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989)
In 1984, the Republican National Convention took place in Dallas, and the usual protests came with it.One of these demonstrations was called the “Republican War Chest Tour,” and among its participants was a Marxist named Gregory Lee Johnson. Outside of Dallas City Hall, Johnson poured kerosene on an American flag, burned it and chanted, "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you.”
Johnson was arrested for this demonstration under a Texas law that prohibited desecration of the American flag. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court declared this arrest unconstitutional.
Said Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. in the opinion: “We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.”
Regardless, former President Donald Trump said in a July 2024 interview with Fox & Friends, “I think you should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag. Now, people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people.”
Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976)
The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment became more difficult to litigate because of this decision. In 1973, J.W. Gamble of Dallas was convicted by a Dallas County jury for the murder of his wife, Georgia Gamble, in the couple’s Cedar Crest home. Later that year, while Gamble and other prisoners were unloading cotton bales from a truck as part of their prison labor, a bale fell on him, resulting in back injuries. Although his back pain and a preexisting hernia were initially treated by medical professionals in the prison’s infirmary, the back pain persisted even as he was deemed capable of working. When Gamble complained about his injuries to prison officials, he was disciplined for refusal to work.
In this case, the Supreme Court found that an Eighth Amendment violation was not proven. From then on, plaintiffs suing for such violations had to prove “deliberate indifference” of medical problems rising to the level of “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.” On the other hand, it was recognized that prisons have a duty to treat a prisoner’s serious medical conditions, and the Court warmed up to the idea that prison conditions can be deemed punishment in their own right. Prior to this, the Eighth Amendment was mostly considered a procedural protection.
Columbia Law School professor Philip M. Genty said of Estelle, “Despite [its] noble goals (…), the decision is fundamentally flawed and has had a detrimental impact upon the very prisoners it was intended to protect.”
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)
Undocumented immigrant children have a right to public school education. Sort of. Public education is not a constitutional right at this point, but if the federal government decides to offer a public education program, undocumented children must be conferred this right in equal measure to documented ones. At least, that’s what the Supreme Court said here.
In 1975, the Texas State Legislature passed a law barring undocumented children from being admitted into public schools without paying tuition. This was challenged through a class-action lawsuit against the Tyler Independent School District, and the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas filed an amicus petition in support of the children.
The children and the Diocese ultimately got their wish, as the Court said that this legislation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies to everyone physically within a state’s borders, regardless of immigration status.
United States v. Rahimi, 144 S.Ct. 1889 (2024)
Arlington was at the center of a Second Amendment challenge earlier this year. And gun control activists breathed a sigh of relief when all the justices, except for the conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, upheld the regulation in question. The petitioner contended that prohibiting domestic abusers subject to restraining orders from owning firearms was a violation of their Second Amendment rights. In December 2019, Zackey Rahimi assaulted his then-girlfriend, C.M., after an argument in an Arlington parking lot. As she successfully escaped, Rahimi grabbed his gun and fired shots – the record does not seem to clarify where the gun was pointed. He reportedly called his girlfriend thereafter and threatened to shoot her if she reported it to law enforcement.
After the incident, Rahimi was named in a domestic violence restraining order issued by a Tarrant County judge in February 2020. The court found that family violence occurred and Rahimi was likely to reoffend. In violation of this restraining order, Rahimi continued contacting C.M. He also used his firearm once again on a different woman in November of that year, and because federal law prohibits subjects of a domestic violence restraining order from possessing firearms, he was prosecuted by federal authorities.
Rahimi is currently serving his sentence at the Green Bay Jail in Fort Worth.
