It was on this day in 1963 that the Supreme Court handed down the Gideon decision, which guaranteed the rights of the accused to have a public defender in court.

On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Dred Scott case, which had a direct impact on the coming of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's presidency four years later.

On March 3, 1820, Congress approved the Missouri compromise, a law that maintained a balance in the Senate between free and slave states. The pact only lasted 34 years, and its elimination was one of the contributing factors that led to the Civil War.

In a unanimous ruling on Tuesday, the Supreme Court overturned an Indiana Supreme Court decision that said that part of federal Constitution’s Eighth Amendment didn’t apply to the states.

On February 15, 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a new law that would admit women as members of the Supreme Court bar and allow them to submit and argue cases at the high court.

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that continues to divide the nation to this day.

January 1 is one of the most noteworthy days in American history, marking President Abraham Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

On November 3, 1884, the United States Supreme Court issued one of its most controversial decisions, when it said that American Indians who paid taxes didn’t have the right to vote in elections.

President Trump has started a new debate about what the Constitution’s “Citizenship Clause” means, but the final answer no doubt will have to come from the courts. The next word from that sector could come in a matter of weeks, from a federal trial judge in Salt Lake City.

A dispute about a dog that bit a cat is now at Iowa’s Supreme Court and it addresses an important question about how municipalities can regulate dog breeds deemed as dangerous.