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The Supreme Court Case Of Plessy Vs. Ferguson

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The Supreme Court is a federal court, the highest body in the judicial branch of the United States government. The Supreme Court contains a chief justice and eight associate justices. All of these are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. The Supreme Court contains the plaintiff, defendant, chief lawyer for plaintiffs, chief defense lawyer, justices of the court, and the justices dissenting. The plaintiff is a person who brings a case against another in a court of law. The defendant is the person or company being sued in the court of law. A chief lawyer is in the legal department of a company or government. The justice of the court is one of the nine Supreme Court judges chosen by the president. The justices …show more content…

Ferguson, the plaintiff was Homer Plessy. The defendant was John H. Ferguson. The chief lawyer for the plaintiff was F.D McKenny and S.F Phillips. The justices were Henry Billings Brown, Stephen Johnson Field, Melville Fuller, Horace Gray, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, George Shiras Jr, and Edward Douglas White. The judges dissenting were John Marshall Harlan I. This case took place in Washington D.C. and was decided on May 18, 1896. Plessy V.S. Ferguson case dealt with the segregation, 14th amendment Equal Protection Clause. Homer Plessy brought a train ticket intending to go from New Orleans to Covington Louisiana. Homer Plessy was removed from the train and arrested after attempting to sit in an all-white railroad car. He was arrested for violating the Louisiana statute that stated “separate but equal” accommodations. Homer Plessy was sitting in the white train car since he was considered seven-eighths white and one-eighth black. Since he had that one-eighths black he was considered African American, he was not allowed to sit in the all-white railroad car. Homer Plessy refused to get up and move to the blacks-only railroad car, he then was arrested and put in the New Orleans jail. John H. Ferguson took this case and said that it was a crime that Homer Plessy didn’t switch train cars when he was asked to. This caused Homer Plessy to be convicted as guilty since it was against the law for Plessy to be in the wrong railroad car. Homer Plessy’s lawyers made a point that the Supreme Court was violating Homer Plessy’s fourteenth amendment. The fourteenth amendment stated that all citizens with citizenship had rights and equal protection under the law. Since the “separate but equal” was violated also the fourteenth amendment was violated since Homer Plessy wasn’t treated equally even though he was separate. The Louisiana law required that there should be “separate but equal” seating for the whites and African American citizens.

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