''United States v. Maine'', 469 U.S. 504 (1985), also known as the ''Rhode Island and New York Boundary Case'', was a decision by the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, which held that the Long Island Sound and

Block Island Sound Block Island Sound is a strait in the open Atlantic Ocean, approximately wide, separating Block Island from the coast of mainland Rhode Island. On the west, it extends to Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island, as well as Plum Is ...

in part constitute a juridical bay under Article 7(6) of the

Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone The Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone of 1958 is an international treaty which entered into force on 10 September 1964, one of four agreed upon at the first United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I). 52 states ...

, Long Island being an extension of the mainland and the southern headland of the bay, and (b) that the bay closed at the line drawn from

Montauk Point Montauk ( ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of East Hampton in Suffolk County, New York, on the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2020 United States census, the CDP's population was 4,318. The ...

at the eastern tip of Long Island to Watch Hill Point on the

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

shore, the waters of the bay west of the closing line being internal

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

waters, and the waters of Block Island Sound east of that line being territorial waters and high seas. Maine is named in the title of the case because it is the northernmost of the thirteen defendant states with coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in a series of cases related to overlapping claims of state and federal jurisdiction over seas and the seafloor. The federal government and states didn't agree on who controlled the Long Island and Block Island sounds. The states wanted control to regulate shipping and commerce on the sounds. The key to the case was if Long Island was, for legal purposes, an extension of the mainland or an island. If it were simply an extension of the mainland, as the states argued, then the sounds would legally be inland bays controlled by the states. If it were, for legal purposes, an island, then the sounds would be considered open waters and be under federal control. The court ruled in favor of the states, determining that the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

, which separates Long Island from the mainland, was too shallow for safe ship passage until humans widened it. Thus, it was decided that Long Island is not a natural island. Long Island and the adjacent shore also share a common geological history.

External links

* United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court United States Supreme Court original jurisdiction cases 1985 in United States case law 1985 in Maine 1985 in New York (state) Internal territorial disputes of the United States {{SCOTUS-stub

See also

External links