Guinn v. United States
E934442
Guinn v. United States was a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Oklahoma’s “grandfather clause,” marking an important early victory against racially discriminatory voting laws targeting Black citizens.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Guinn v. United States canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11576361 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Guinn v. United States Context triple: [United States Supreme Court cases of the White Court, hasNotableCase, Guinn v. United States]
-
A.
Girouard v. United States
Girouard v. United States is a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held religious pacifists could become naturalized citizens without being willing to bear arms in defense of the country.
-
B.
Gall v. United States
Gall v. United States is a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that clarified federal sentencing discretion by holding that appellate courts must review all sentences, including those outside the Sentencing Guidelines, under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.
-
C.
Dennis v. United States
Dennis v. United States is a landmark 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, significantly shaping First Amendment jurisprudence on speech advocating the overthrow of the government.
-
D.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States is an 1879 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the distinction between protected religious belief and regulable religiously motivated conduct, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with otherwise valid criminal laws such as those banning polygamy.
-
E.
Kimbrough v. United States
Kimbrough v. United States is a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that federal judges may deviate from the Sentencing Guidelines, particularly the crack–powder cocaine disparity, based on policy disagreements with those guidelines.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Guinn v. United States Target entity description: Guinn v. United States was a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Oklahoma’s “grandfather clause,” marking an important early victory against racially discriminatory voting laws targeting Black citizens.
-
A.
Girouard v. United States
Girouard v. United States is a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held religious pacifists could become naturalized citizens without being willing to bear arms in defense of the country.
-
B.
Gall v. United States
Gall v. United States is a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that clarified federal sentencing discretion by holding that appellate courts must review all sentences, including those outside the Sentencing Guidelines, under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.
-
C.
Dennis v. United States
Dennis v. United States is a landmark 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, significantly shaping First Amendment jurisprudence on speech advocating the overthrow of the government.
-
D.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States is an 1879 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the distinction between protected religious belief and regulable religiously motivated conduct, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with otherwise valid criminal laws such as those banning polygamy.
-
E.
Kimbrough v. United States
Kimbrough v. United States is a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that federal judges may deviate from the Sentencing Guidelines, particularly the crack–powder cocaine disparity, based on policy disagreements with those guidelines.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
civil rights case ⓘ voting rights case ⓘ |
| affectedGroup |
African American citizens
ⓘ
Black voters in Oklahoma ⓘ |
| challengedLaw | Oklahoma grandfather clause for voter registration ⓘ |
| challengedPractice | exemption of voters whose ancestors could vote before 1866 from literacy tests ⓘ |
| charge | conspiracy to deprive Black citizens of the right to vote ⓘ |
| citation | 238 U.S. 347 ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted | Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1915-06-21 ⓘ |
| era |
Jim Crow era
ⓘ
linked to:
Jim Crow laws
post-Reconstruction era ⓘ |
| geographicScope |
State of Oklahoma
ⓘ
linked to:
U.S. state of Oklahoma
|
| held |
Oklahoma’s grandfather clause violated the Fifteenth Amendment
ⓘ
grandfather clauses that exempt white voters from literacy tests are unconstitutional ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
first major Supreme Court decision invalidating a Jim Crow voting restriction
ⓘ
important early victory for the NAACP and civil rights advocates ⓘ |
| impact |
early federal protection of Black voting rights after Reconstruction
ⓘ
invalidated Oklahoma’s grandfather clause ⓘ limited use of grandfather clauses in other states ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| legalIssue |
constitutionality of grandfather clauses
ⓘ
racial discrimination in voting ⓘ voting rights ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
Chief Justice Edward Douglass White
ⓘ
linked to:
Edward Douglass White
|
| party |
Frank Guinn
ⓘ
J. J. Beal ⓘ United States ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| proceduralPosture | criminal convictions of election officials reviewed on writ of error ⓘ |
| reasoning |
facially race-neutral voting qualifications can be unconstitutional if designed to disenfranchise a racial group
ⓘ
grandfather clause was a device to evade the Fifteenth Amendment ⓘ |
| relatedCase | Myers v. Anderson ⓘ |
| relatedTopic |
Black disenfranchisement in the United States
ⓘ
Jim Crow laws ⓘ grandfather clause ⓘ literacy tests for voting ⓘ |
| stateInvolved | Oklahoma ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
civil rights law
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ election law ⓘ |
| subsequentDevelopment | states adopted new devices such as poll taxes and complex registration schemes after the decision ⓘ |
| typeOfDiscriminationAddressed | racial discrimination ⓘ |
| unanimity | largely unanimous decision ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Guinn v. United States Description of subject: Guinn v. United States was a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Oklahoma’s “grandfather clause,” marking an important early victory against racially discriminatory voting laws targeting Black citizens.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.