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In 2002 Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board as a five-member entity appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Board oversees audits of public companies and possesses authority to inspect registered accounting firms, initiate investigations, and issue sanctions. Beckstead and Watts, LLP, a Nevada accounting firm, registered with the Board. The Board inspected the firm, released a report critical of its auditing procedures, and began a formal investigation. Free Enterprise Fund, a nonprofit organization of which the firm is a member, and Beckstead and Watts sued the Board and its members, the Commission, and the United States in federal district court. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief alleging that the Board's structure violated the Constitution. The district court determined it had jurisdiction and granted summary judgment to the defendants. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in full. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In March 1970, Jane Roe, a single woman residing in Dallas County, Texas, instituted a federal action against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face. She also sought an injunction restraining enforcement of the statutes. Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant. She wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent licensed physician under safe clinical conditions. She was unable to obtain a legal abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by continuation of the pregnancy. She could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction to secure a legal abortion. James Hubert Hallford, a licensed physician, sought and was granted leave to intervene in Roe's action. In his complaint he alleged that he had been arrested previously for violations of the Texas abortion statutes. Two such prosecutions were pending against him in the Criminal District Court of Dallas County. He described conditions of patients who came to him seeking abortions. He claimed that for many cases he was unable to determine whether they fell within or outside the exception recognized by Article 1196 of the Texas Penal Code. John and Mary Doe, a married couple, filed a companion complaint also naming the District Attorney as defendant. The Does alleged that they were a childless couple. Mrs. Doe was suffering from a neural-chemical disorder. Her physician had advised her to avoid pregnancy until her condition materially improved. She had discontinued use of birth control pills pursuant to medical advice. If she should become pregnant she would want to terminate the pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent licensed physician under safe clinical conditions. The two actions were consolidated and heard together by a duly convened three-judge district court for the Northern District of Texas. Upon the filing of affidavits, motions were made for dismissal and for summary judgment. The court held that Roe and members of her class and Dr. Hallford had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies. The Does had failed to allege facts sufficient to state a present controversy and did not have standing. It concluded that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were void on their face. The court dismissed the Does' complaint while denying injunctive relief. The plaintiffs Roe and Doe and the intervenor Hallford appealed to the Supreme Court from that part of the District Court's judgment denying the injunction. The defendant District Attorney cross-appealed from the grant of declaratory relief. Both sides also took protective appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court ordered the appeals held in abeyance pending decision by the Supreme Court.

In March 1963 Ernesto Miranda was arrested at his home in Phoenix and taken to the police station where he was identified by the complaining witness. He was then questioned by two officers in Interrogation Room No. 2 for two hours. The officers did not advise him of any right to counsel. Miranda signed a typed confession that was introduced at his trial for kidnapping and rape. On October 14 1960 Michael Vignera was arrested in connection with a Brooklyn robbery. He was taken first to the 17th Detective Squad headquarters in Manhattan and later to the 66th Detective Squad. A detective questioned him for several hours without any advice concerning counsel. Vignera made an oral admission. He was then questioned by an assistant district attorney whose transcribed statement was also introduced at his trial for first-degree robbery. On March 20 1963 Carl Calvin Westover was arrested by Kansas City police as a suspect in two local robberies. Kansas City police interrogated Westover on the night of his arrest. The next day local officers interrogated him again throughout the morning. Westover was then turned over to FBI agents who questioned him for two to two-and-a-half hours about California robberies and obtained signed confessions. At the time the FBI agents began questioning Westover he had been in custody for over fourteen hours. On January 31 1963 Roy Allen Stewart was arrested at his home in connection with a series of purse-snatch robberies. During the next five days police interrogated Stewart on nine different occasions without any advice of rights. On the ninth session Stewart confessed. Transcripts of the interrogations were introduced at his trial for kidnapping rape and murder. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed Miranda's conviction. The New York courts affirmed Vignera's conviction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed Westover's conviction. The California Supreme Court reversed Stewart's conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the four cases and consolidated them for argument.

After admission to the bar in 1972, appellants worked as attorneys with the Maricopa County Legal Aid Society. In March 1974, they left the Society and opened a law office in Phoenix that they called a legal clinic. Their aim was to provide legal services at modest fees to persons of moderate income who did not qualify for governmental legal aid by accepting only routine matters such as uncontested divorces, uncontested adoptions, simple personal bankruptcies, and changes of name. To keep costs down, they relied on extensive use of paralegals, automatic typewriting equipment, and standardized forms and office procedures. After conducting their practice in this manner for two years, they concluded that advertising, and in particular the advertising of fees, was necessary to generate the volume of business required for the clinic to survive. On February 22, 1976, they placed an advertisement in the Arizona Republic, a daily newspaper of general circulation in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The advertisement stated that appellants were offering legal services at very reasonable fees. It listed exact prices for the services, including $175 plus a $20 filing fee for an uncontested divorce or legal separation, $225 plus a $20 filing fee for an uncontested adoption, $250 plus a $55 filing fee for a non-business bankruptcy, and $95 plus a $20 filing fee for a change of name, with personal injury cases handled on a contingent fee basis. Upon the filing of a complaint initiated by the president of the State Bar, a hearing was held before a three-member Special Local Administrative Committee. The committee recommended that each of the appellants be suspended from the practice of law for not less than six months. Upon further review by the Board of Governors of the State Bar, the Board recommended only a one-week suspension for each appellant, the weeks to run consecutively. Appellants sought review in the Supreme Court of Arizona. The court rejected both their Sherman Act and First Amendment claims, concluded that the conduct violated the disciplinary rule, and imposed a sanction of censure. Appellants then appealed to this Court, which noted probable jurisdiction.