Roger Brooke Taney ( /ˈtɔːni/ TAW-nee; March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was the first Roman Catholic to hold that office or sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also the eleventh United States Attorney General. He is most remembered for delivering the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), that ruled, among other things, that African Americans, having been considered inferior at the time the Constitution was drafted, were not part of the original community of citizens and could not be considered citizens of the United States.

Taney was a Jacksonian Democrat when he became Chief Justice. Described by his and President Andrew Jackson's critics as "[a] supple, cringing tool of Jacksonian power," Taney was a believer in states' rights but also the Union; a slaveholder who regretted the institution and manumitted his slaves. From Prince Frederick, Maryland, he had practiced law and politics simultaneously and succeeded in both. After abandoning Federalism as a losing cause, he rose to the top of the state's Jacksonian machine. As U.S. Attorney General (1831–1833) and then Secretary of the Treasury (1833–1834), Taney became one of Andrew Jackson's closest advisers.

Dred Scott (1795 – September 17, 1858), was an African American slave in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as "the Dred Scott Decision." His case was based on the fact that although he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, he had lived with his master Dr. John Emerson in states and territories where slavery was illegal according to both state laws and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota (which was then part of the Wisconsin Territory). The United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's temporary residence outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, which the court ruled unconstitutional as it would improperly deprive Scott's owner of his legal property.

Brigadier General Roger Brooke, M.D. (June 14, 1878, Sandy Springs, Maryland – December 18, 1940) was a surgeon and U.S. Army medical corps officer. Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, is named for him.

Brooke was the son of Roger and Louisa (Thomas) Brooke. He attended George School in Newton, Pennsylvania, and later entered the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore, where he graduated in 1900. He joined the Medical Corps, United States Army, June 29, 1901, as a First Lieutenant. After graduating from the Army Medical School in 1902, he was assigned to the Philippine Islands for a tour of duty. He married Grace M. Macomb in 1905 and became a specialist in infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis.

Other tours of duty included Fort Bayard, New Mexico, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Attending Surgeon in Washington, D.C.. He spent the period of the World War in instruction work, serving from September 1917 to December 1918, first as Senior Instructor and later as Commanding Officer of the Medical Officers' Training Camp, Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where 10,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men were prepared for service with the armed forces. For this he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

Jeffrey Scott Case (born May 17, 1962 in Waynoka, Oklahoma) is a former American football player in the National Football League who was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2nd round (32nd overall pick) of the 1984 NFL Draft. A 6'0", 178-lb defensive back from the University of Oklahoma, Case played professionally for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1995 for the Falcons and Dallas Cowboys. He has been known as one of the game's hardest hitting and most ruthless defensive backs ever to play the game.

Case was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1988 when he led the NFL in interceptions with 10 and won Super Bowl XXX with the Cowboys in 1995.

Case now lives in Buford, Georgia with his wife, Connie, and their four children. He is currently business partners with ex Atlanta Falcon teammate, Tom Pridemore at Pride Utility Construction Company.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.