If you could change 4 Supreme Court cases what would you change

[Mr. Reactionary]

Tough to limit it to 4.

Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798) - Ruled Constitutional prohibition on Ex Post Facto laws doesn't apply to civil Ex Post Facto laws.

Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) - Ruled that a non-commercial, intrastate activity is somehow commerce among the States.
 
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944) - Ruled that American citizens can be thrown into concentration camps without due process.

Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964) - Ruled that even though the Constitution does not address State legislative districts and even though the Senate is not apportioned by population, for some reason State legislative districts must only be based on population.

If I could go 5, I'd definitely overturn:
Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) - Ruled that the government can use eminent domain to steal land from one private party and then give it to another private party.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Can someone explain to me the massive dislike of Kelo v New London? I get that if you have a massive distrust in corporate entities, it seems like a horrible path to go down. But wouldn't that distrust lead to opposing basically any private contracting from the federal government? Apologies for my ignorance on the case.

Many freedom-lovers like myself see the ownership of private property (including land) as being important for securing liberty and security. You can (almost) do whatever you want in your own home, limited to 4 general categories: 1.) Law + Regulatory Enforcement 2.) Taxation 3.) Eminent Domain 4.) Escheat.

In Kelo, SCOTUS changed the test for category # 3 from public use (requiring the government to have a specific need to control the land) to public purpose (only requiring that the government benefit from the transaction in some way). This means its now OK for the government to take your house or mine or the Synagogue down the street. Family farms. Small Businesses. All the government has to do is show that the "anticipated" revenues from giving the land to Wal-Mart or Pep Boys or Monsanto are higher than if the previous owner stayed. Higher tax revenues from corporations getting whatever land they want "benefits" the public, so our ownership rights are greatly threatened. Eminent Domain isn't as sexy as Free Speech or guns or the death penalty, but it is still a bill of rights issue. And SCOTUS dropped the ball on Kelo.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Hans v. Louisiana
California Democratic Party v. Jones

Interesting, unusual choices.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Hans v. Louisiana because I think the history of the 11th amendment and the whole concept of state sovereign immunity is silly to begin with, and Hans set off a line of cases that expanded sovereign immunity in a way that makes nonsense of the text of the 11th amendment.

My Fed Courts professor had the same view. Textually the 11th Amendment just eliminated one of the explicit grants of jurisdiction under Article 3, but now its interpreted as having guaranteed English Sovereign Immunity. Nice reference.

[Mr. Reactionary]

The Bible is the most influential book in the forming of the Constitution and The Bill of Rights. So it's relevance on American jurisprudence should be self evident.

Um. That's not right.

Not entirely. But the general idea that rights come from God and exist independent of government was a bedrock principle for the founders. We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights which the government may never take away.