This is a list of cases reported in volume 286 of United States Reports, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1932.
Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of volume 286 U.S.
The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court . . .". The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 Congress originally fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices). Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices (always including one chief justice).
When the cases in volume 286 were decided the Court comprised the following nine members:
Portrait Justice Office Home State Succeeded Date confirmed by the Senate(Vote) Tenure on Supreme Court Charles Evans Hughes Chief Justice New York William Howard Taft (52–26) –June 30, 1941(Retired) Willis Van Devanter Associate Justice Wyoming Edward Douglass White (as Associate Justice) (Acclamation) –June 2, 1937(Retired) James Clark McReynolds Associate Justice Tennessee Horace Harmon Lurton (44–6) –January 31, 1941(Retired) Louis Brandeis Associate Justice Massachusetts Joseph Rucker Lamar (47–22) –February 13, 1939(Retired) George Sutherland Associate Justice Utah John Hessin Clarke (Acclamation) –January 17, 1938(Retired) Pierce Butler Associate Justice Minnesota William R. Day (61–8) –November 16, 1939(Died) Harlan F. Stone Associate Justice New York Joseph McKenna (71–6) –July 2, 1941(Continued as chief justice) Owen Roberts Associate Justice Pennsylvania Edward Terry Sanford (Acclamation) –July 31, 1945(Resigned) Benjamin N. Cardozo Associate Justice New York Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (Acclamation) –July 9, 1938(Died)
Notable Case in 286 U.S. Nixon v. Condon In Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73 (1932), the Supreme Court held the all-white Democratic Party primary in Texas unconstitutional. This was one of four cases brought to challenge the Texas all-white Democratic Party primary. All challenges were supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Jim Crow Supreme Court Cases: Texas, accessed 21 March 2008 The Court reasoned that because a Texas statute gave the party's executive committee the authority to exclude would-be members of the party – an authority, the Court said, that the executive committee hitherto had not possessed – the executive committee was acting under a state grant of power. Because there was state action, the case was controlled by Nixon v. Herndon (1927), which prohibited state officials from "discharg[ing] their official functions in such a way as to discriminate invidiously between white citizens and black".
Federal court system
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 the federal court structure at the time comprised District Courts, which had general trial jurisdiction; Circuit Courts, which had mixed trial and appellate (from the US District Courts) jurisdiction; and the United States Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction over the federal District and Circuit courts—and for certain issues over state courts. The Supreme Court also had limited original jurisdiction (i.e., in which cases could be filed directly with the Supreme Court without first having been heard by a lower federal or state court). There were one or more federal District Courts and/or Circuit Courts in each state, territory, or other geographical region.
The Judiciary Act of 1891 created the United States Courts of Appeals and reassigned the jurisdiction of most routine appeals from the district and circuit courts to these appellate courts. The Act created nine new courts that were originally known as the "United States Circuit Courts of Appeals." The new courts had jurisdiction over most appeals of lower court decisions. The Supreme Court could review either legal issues that a court of appeals certified or decisions of court of appeals by writ of certiorari. On January 1, 1912, the effective date of the Judicial Code of 1911, the old Circuit Courts were abolished, with their remaining trial court jurisdiction transferred to the U.S. District Courts.
List of cases in volume 286 U.S.