Minimum Competence

This Day in Legal History: Wesberry v. Sanders On February 17, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Wesberry v. Sanders, one of the most consequential voting rights cases in American history. The dispute arose from Georgia’s congressional districts, where vast population disparities meant that some districts had two or even three times as many residents as others. In practical terms, this imbalanc...

This Day in Legal History: Powell v. Alabama On February 16, 1932, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Powell v. Alabama, a case that would become a cornerstone of modern criminal procedure. The appeal arose from the notorious Scottsboro Boys prosecutions in Alabama, where nine young Black men were accused of raping two white women aboard a train. The trials moved with alarming...

This Day in Legal History: Bruno Hauptmann Convicted On February 13, 1935, a New Jersey jury convicted Bruno Hauptmann of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. The crime had transfixed the nation for nearly three years and was widely labeled the “Crime of the Century.” The child was taken from the Lindbergh home in 1932, and despite a ransom payment, was later...

This Day in Legal History: NAACP Founded On February 12, 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in New York City. Sparked by ongoing racial violence, including the 1908 Springfield Race Riot in Illinois, a group of Black and white activists came together to launch an interracial effort to combat racial injustice. The NAACP would become the most inf...

This Day in Legal History: Nelson Mandela Released On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison in South Africa after 27 years of incarceration, marking a seismic shift in the country’s legal and political landscape. Mandela’s release followed a period of secret negotiations between the apartheid government and the African National Congress (ANC), and it signaled th...

This Day in Legal History: 25th Amendment On February 10, 1967, the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, formally addressing presidential succession and disability for the first time in constitutional text. The need for such clarity had become urgent after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s repeated illnesses during...

This Day in Legal History: Opium is Prohibited in the US On February 9, 1909, the United States took its first significant federal step toward regulating narcotics when Congress passed a law banning the importation of opium for non-medical purposes. The act, officially titled “An Act to Prohibit the Importation and Use of Opium for Other Than Medicinal Purposes,” marked the beginning of a century-...

This Day in Legal History: 20th Amendment On February 6, 1933, the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially went into effect, reshaping the timeline of federal political power transitions in the United States. Commonly known as the “Lame Duck Amendment,” it was ratified just weeks earlier, on January 23, 1933, but became operative on this day. The amendment moved the inauguration dates o...

This Day in Legal History: FDR’s Court Packing Plan On February 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, better known as the “court-packing plan.” This controversial legislation aimed to expand the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court from nine to as many as fifteen. Roosevelt’s justification was to improve the efficiency of the judicia...

This Day in Legal History: Blockburger On February 4, 1932, the United States Supreme Court decided Blockburger v. United States , 284 U.S. 299 (1932), a case that established an enduring rule in American criminal law known as the Blockburger test. This test is used to determine whether two offenses are sufficiently distinct to permit multiple punishments or prosecutions under the Double Jeopardy...

This Day in Legal History: Fifteenth Amendment Ratified On February 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, marking a pivotal moment in American legal history. The amendment prohibits federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Its ratification was the third and final of...

This Day in Legal History: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, officially ending the Mexican-American War and significantly altering the legal and territorial landscape of the United States. The treaty ceded vast swaths of land to the U.S., including present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of several other western states—about...

This Day in Legal History: Hitler Appointed Chancellor On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, a moment that marked the beginning of one of the darkest legal and political transformations in modern history. Contrary to popular belief, Hitler did not seize power in a coup; his rise was accomplished through entirely legal means under the Weimar Constitution. Once in of...

This Day in Legal History: “Axis of Evil” On January 29, 2002, President George W. Bush delivered his first State of the Union address after the September 11 attacks, a speech that would shape U.S. legal and foreign policy for years to come. During the address, Bush coined the term “Axis of Evil” to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, alleging these nations were actively pursuing weapons of mass...

This Day in Legal History: Monkey Selfie On January 28, 2016, a federal judge in California dismissed a highly publicized copyright lawsuit that sought to establish whether a monkey could own intellectual property rights. The case stemmed from a 2011 incident in which a crested macaque named Naruto allegedly took a series of selfies using wildlife photographer David Slater’s unattended camera in I...

This Day in Legal History: Paris Peace Accords On January 27, 1973, the United States signed the Paris Peace Accords, effectively marking the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Though primarily a geopolitical and military agreement, the Paris Peace Accords had significant legal dimensions. Negotiated between the U.S., South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong (under the banner of th...

This Day in Legal History: Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill On January 26, 1922, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, a landmark but ultimately thwarted attempt to make lynching a federal crime. Introduced by Missouri Republican Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer, the bill was drafted in response to the widespread and brutal practice of lynching—acts of racial terror largely aime...

We launched something new — and it’s for anyone tired of hearing sloppy arguments pass unchallenged. LSAT Logic Applied is a new short-form podcast hosted by me, Andrew Leahey, the steady (?) voice at the helm of Minimum Competence. Twice a week, we’ll take the tools used in LSAT Logical Reasoning — assumptions, flaws, causation, strengthen/weaken — and apply them to the real world: news stories,...

This Day in Legal History: League of Nations Meets On January 23, 1920, the League of Nations held its first official meeting, marking a major experiment in international law and collective governance. The League was created in the aftermath of World War I as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Its core mission was to prevent future wars through diplomacy, arbitration, and collective security. For t...

This Day in Legal History: Roe v. Wade On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade , fundamentally reshaping American constitutional law and reproductive rights. In a 7–2 ruling, the Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects a person’s right to privacy, which includes the right to choose to have an abortion. The...

This Day in Legal History: Nixon Aides Convicted On January 21, 1975, three of Richard Nixon’s closest aides—H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and former Attorney General John Mitchell—were convicted for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. The charges? Conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury. These convictions weren’t just about punishing political wrongdoing; they were the direct legal a...

This Day in Legal History: Marbury v. Madison On January 20, 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Marbury v. Madison, a case that began as a minor dispute over an undelivered judicial commission and ended by redefining American constitutional law. The story traces back to the final days of the Adams administration, when outgoing President John Adams rushed to appoint Federalist judges before Thoma...

This Day in Legal History: 18th Amendment to the US Constitution On January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, marking a pivotal moment in American legal history by establishing the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The amendment prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” for consumption in the United States and its ter...

This Day in Legal History: Williams v. Florida On January 15, 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Williams v. Florida , a significant case interpreting the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a trial by jury. The petitioner, Johnny Paul Williams, was convicted in a Florida court by a six-member jury and argued on appeal that his constitutional rights had been violated because the jury did not consist...

This Day in Legal History: Wong Kim Ark On January 14, 1898, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its landmark decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark , firmly establishing the doctrine of birthright citizenship under the Constitution. The case arose after Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were not U.S. citizens, was denied reentry to the country following a tri...