What makes a Supreme Court decision bad? And what are the worst precedents handed down by our highest court?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and here are my nominees for the worst SCOTUS opinions to date.

The standard I'm using for “worst” is three-fold:

First, the holding of the case is unambiguously still guiding precedent.

Second, the holding of the case is inconsistent with the Constitution.

Third, the case either A) has egregious consequences for individual liberty or B) is clearly ideological- or policy-driven rubbish as a matter of constitutional law (whether or not I happen to like the consequences).

Under the first prong, I will exclude from consideration a number of infamously horrific decisions: Dred Scott (ruling black people aren't citizens), Plessy v. Ferguson (allowing separate-but-equal), Buck v. Bell (permitting compulsory sterilization), and Korematsu v. United States (upholding Japanese internment camps).

Dred Scott and Plessy have been clearly overruled. Buck and Korematsu may not be technically be overruled, but I think the reason is just that a similar case hasn't provided the opportunity. I may be wrong about that for Buck and Korematsu — I hope not — but I am making the assumption that they're not good law anymore.

Using the second and third prongs, I think the case that wins the “honor” for the worst active Supreme Court decision in American history is Helvering v. Davis (1937). Helvering upheld the constitutionality of Social Security on the basis that Congress has a general power to spend on whatever it deems to be in the general welfare.

This ruling completely upended the system of enumerated powers, in which Congress only had the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, and eviscerated the Tenth Amendment that restricted the federal government to its defined roles.

Since Helvering, Congress can spend money on anything it wants, facilitating the welfare state and the immense growth of the federal government in the last 80 years. If I had to make a rough estimate, I'd say about 75% or more of the spending currently done by the federal government relies on this holding in Helvering, making the overwhelming majority of what the federal government does unconstitutional.

Thus, Helvering is the central case that flipped the system from limiting the government to what is explicitly allowed to permitting anything that isn't explicitly banned — effectively ending federalism.

Here are various runners-up, in approximately chronological order:

I could think of a few other cases, but I feel like the worst ever and 14 runners-up are at least a pretty good start.

Feel free to disagree with any choice and add your own nominees for badly decided cases in the comments.