Which was tried first: Goodridge v. Department of Public Health or Dred Scott v. Sandford?
Dred Scott v. Sandford Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) , also known simply as the Dred Scott case, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on US labor law and constitutional law. It held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves", whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved man of "the negro African race" who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the court denied Scott's request. The decision was only the second time that the Supreme Court had ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.
Clark v. Arizona Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. 735 (2006) , is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of the insanity defense used by the State of Arizona. The ruling affirmed the murder conviction of a man with paranoid schizophrenia, for the killing of a police officer. The man had argued that his inability to understand the nature of his acts at the time they were committed should be a sufficient basis for showing he lacked the requisite mental state required as an element of the charged crime. The Court upheld Arizona's restriction of admissible mental health evidence only to the issue of insanity. Arizona does not allow mental health evidence to show that the defendant did not possess the required mental intent level necessary to satisfy an element of the crime. The evidence is only admissible if used to show that the defendant was insane at the time of the crime's commission. In this case, the defendant knew right from wrong so he could not qualify under Arizona's insanity defense.