1. Loving V. Virginia

In June of 1958, Mildred Jetter and Richard Loving were married in the District of Columbia, which, at the time, had laws permitting their marriage, which was interracial. Shortly after being wed, the couple moved and was subject to what was the majority law of Virginia: no interracial marriage. "At the October Term, 1958, of the Circut Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages" (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html).

Shortly thereafter, the Lovings claimed guilt to the charge, leading to a year-long jail sentence. The judge overviewing the trial, however, claimed he would suspend the sentence if the Lovings would "leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years" (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html).

Choosing to leave, the Lovings moved back to the District of Columbia, and, several years into their exile, filed a complaint in a state trial court. They claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment was violated.

The Fourteenth Amendment states: "all persons born or naturalized in the United States," which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws" (http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/14thamendment.html).

After the case went through both the state trial court, and the court of appeals, it was filed for the Supreme Court, which accepted it into its docket on the basis of questionable constitutionality.