Petitioner
Arthur Skinner
Respondent
State of Oklahoma
Petitioner's Claim
That a state law authorizing sterilization of selected felons held in the Oklahoma penitentiary violates the Fourteenth Amendment's due process of law guarantee.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
W. J. Hulsey, H. I. Aston, Guy L. Andrews
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Mac Q. Williamson, Attorney General of Oklahoma
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, James Francis Byrnes, William O. Douglas (writing for the Court), Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Frank Murphy, Stanley FormanReed, Owen Josephus Roberts, Harlan Fiske Stone
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
6 May 1942
Decision
Unanimously upheld Skinner's claim and overturned two lower courts' decisionsholding that he was a suitable vasectomy candidate.
Significance
The ruling, the first modern fundamental rights decision by the Court, recognized marriage and procreation (to have children) as basic civil liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. In addition, the Court applied the "substantive due process" doctrine, previously reserved only for issues involving economic rights, to personal rights and liberties. Other rights similarly recognized over the next 30 years were voting, privacy,interstate travel, and access to justice. Because none of these rights are clearly provided in the Constitution, much public debate grew concerning theirlegal validity, including within the Court itself.
Following the Civil War, three amendments were added to the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Section 1 of the amendment reads, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, withoutdue process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equalprotection of the laws." For many years courts applied the Due Process Clauseto questions of procedure when states treated classifications of people differently. By the late nineteenth century, the Court added a "substantive" element to due process deliberations by asserting the courts' role was to assessthe character of the activity being regulated, not just the manner of the regulation process.
Until the 1920s, the Court applied substantive due process review proceduresonly to state laws regulating economic and property rights, such as wage andhour laws and price regulation. Then, in 1923 for the first time the Court recognized a noneconomic fundamental right, the right to acquire knowledge through education. The Court held in Meyer v. Nebraska certain personal rights not described in the Constitution exist that enable individuals "to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderlypursuit of happiness by free men."
Early in the twentieth century, a number of laws were passed across the nation establishing sterilization programs to rid the nation of "undesirables." Shortly after passage of a 1924 Virginia law the first question concerning application of state sterilization came to the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell (1927). The Court upheld the Virginia law and approved the sterilization of Carrie Buck, an 18-year old "feeble-minded" woman held in a state institution. Buck's mental condition was clearly evident in three generations of her family, indicating it was genetically transmittable. The Court held that the sterilization of Buck was best for society and due process had been adequatelyserved.
The protection of personal rights was yet to gain prominence. However, the era of the Court reviewing economic regulation law did come to an end during the 1930s under pressures stemming from the Great Depression and New Deal policies. The Court, as customary, relied on the best judgement of legislators inrestricting individual behavior and applied relatively weak tests in assessing fairness.
Oklahoma Prisoner Sterilization
Arthur Skinner, a citizen of the State of Oklahoma, was habitually in troublewith the law. In 1926 Skinner was convicted of stealing three chickens and sentenced to the State Reformatory. In 1929 he was convicted of armed robberyand returned to the Reformatory. In 1934, he was again convicted of armed robbery but this time sent to the Oklahoma state penitentiary. The following year, in 1935, the Oklahoma state legislature passed the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act. The law defined a "habitual criminal" as one who is convicted of two or more felony convictions in Oklahoma or any other state for crimes of"moral turpitude" and then convicted of a third felony and imprisoned in theState of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma attorney general had authority to initiate actions to sexually sterilize such a felon. If male, sterilization would be byvasectomy. The law provided a right to a jury trial for the felon, but limited the grounds for challenge to whether he fit the definition of a habitual criminal and did not have a health condition precluding sterilization. The lawexcluded certain crimes, such as embezzlement, as constituting a convictionfor sterilization purposes. In 1936 the attorney general selected Skinner forsterilization. Skinner challenged the action and the case went to trial, where he lost. The Oklahoma Supreme Court soon affirmed the decision.
Skinner then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing the Oklahoma law violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee. He was given no opportunity to challenge the notion that he might parent socially undesirable children. He also contended sterilization was cruel and unusual punishment. Because of the fundamental constitutional questions raised by the case, the Court granted the petition for certiorari.
Marriage and Procreation Rights
The Court ruled unanimously in favor of Skinner. Justice Douglas, writing forthe Court, found the "case touches a sensitive and important area of human rights." Douglas wrote, "Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the veryexistence and survival of the race." Therefore, any classification a state makes in sterilization law should be subject to the closest judicial scrutiny to guard against "invidious discrimination." Douglas found certain aspects ofthe Oklahoma law so clearly violated the Equal Protection Clause it was unnecessary to consider arguments raised by Skinner. He found no basis for distinguishing which crimes allow sterilization and which do not since punishments for both embezzlement and larceny were nearly identical in Oklahoma law. Douglas wrote, "Sterilization of those who have thrice committed grand larceny with immunity for those who are embezzlers is a clear, pointed, unmistakable discrimination." Douglas further noted no scientific evidence was known to suggest that inheritability of criminal traits was associated with one form of violation and not the other. Therefore, the distinction was "conspicuously artificial." Douglas concluded that "Oklahoma deprives certain individuals of a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race--the right to have off-spring." The Court reversed the decision of the two lower courts.
In concurring, Chief Justice Stone disagreed with Douglas' application of theEqual Protection Clause, choosing to respond instead to Skinner's due process argument. Stone wrote that the "real question" was whether a whole class ofcitizens could be subjected to "such an invasion of personal liberty" without opportunity to question "whether his criminal tendencies are of an inheritable type." Stone wrote, "A law which condemns, without hearing, all the individuals of a class to so harsh a measure as the present because some or even many merit condemnation, is lacking in the first principles of due process."
Impact
With Skinner, the Court charted a new course determining what rights are so fundamental to personal liberty that any laws restricting those rightsviolate the due process guarantee simply because of the activity they affect.Such issues invoke the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "liberty." As a result, laws affecting such fundamental rights as marriage and procreation were subjected to closer scrutiny by the courts and could only be justified by agovernmental compelling interest. The decision thus created the "fundamentalinterest" test for equal protection cases. The scope of constitutional liberties would soon expand to include a list of newly recognized noneconomic fundamental rights. A line of rulings followed over the next half century considering the substance of state laws under the equal protection guarantee by applying the substantive due process doctrine.
In 1964 voting rights were recognized in Reynolds v. Sims. The right to vote, the Court found, bears on the preservation of "other basic civil andpolitical rights." The Court in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) held that the decision to use contraception was a family right and a right of privacy. Any state prohibitions against contraception deprived married couples of that liberty without due process of law. Justice Douglas noted the "right to privacy" surrounding the marital relationship is "older than the Bill of Rights." Two years later, the Court recognized the constitutional right to a choice in marriage in Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1967) by strikingdown a state law prohibiting interracial marriages. In finding the law violated equal protection and denied due process, the Court held, "The freedom tomarry (is) . . . one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." As expressed in the Griswold decision, there exists a "realm of family life which the state cannot enter without substantial justification." Through these series of rulings, the Court interpreted the Constitution as placing limits on states' rights to interfere in a person's fundamental decisions concerning family and parenthood. Other fundamental rights identified in the 1960s were an indigent's right to equal accessto justice and the right of unhindered interstate travel.
The right to privacy established in Griswold rose to greater prominence in Roe v. Wade (1973) in recognizing the right of a woman to chooseabortion. In Roe, the Court found the Fourteenth Amendment's implicitguarantee of personal privacy extended to "activities relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationship, and child rearing and education." The Court further stated only those personal rights determined "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" can be included in the guarantee of personal privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Some justices responded they found no right to these liberties expressed or implied anywhere in the Constitution. Justice William Rehnquist in 1972 described such interests "as a judicial superstructure, awkwardly engrafted upon the Constitution itself." Consequently, no further fundamental rights have beenidentified after the 1960s. The Court denied fundamental rights protection to food, housing, education, and, in the mid-1990s, to sexual orientation in Romer v. Evans (1996).
The Skinner finding continued to be cited in numerous Court decisionsfor over a half century after it was issued. The "right to control one's person" was reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). The Court held that,
The procreation right became much more complex in the 1980s as artificial reproduction technologies expanded. Procreation issues grew beyond the family toinclude sperm and egg donors and surrogate mothers, and the rights to frozensperm and embryos after divorce, or even after the death of a spouse. As highlighted in Kass v. Kass (1998), courts initially resorted to contractlaw to resolve such disputes. Many believed these issues would ultimately have to be resolved in the realm of human rights.
Related Cases
Arthur Skinner
Respondent
State of Oklahoma
Petitioner's Claim
That a state law authorizing sterilization of selected felons held in the Oklahoma penitentiary violates the Fourteenth Amendment's due process of law guarantee.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
W. J. Hulsey, H. I. Aston, Guy L. Andrews
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Mac Q. Williamson, Attorney General of Oklahoma
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, James Francis Byrnes, William O. Douglas (writing for the Court), Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Frank Murphy, Stanley FormanReed, Owen Josephus Roberts, Harlan Fiske Stone
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
6 May 1942
Decision
Unanimously upheld Skinner's claim and overturned two lower courts' decisionsholding that he was a suitable vasectomy candidate.
Significance
The ruling, the first modern fundamental rights decision by the Court, recognized marriage and procreation (to have children) as basic civil liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. In addition, the Court applied the "substantive due process" doctrine, previously reserved only for issues involving economic rights, to personal rights and liberties. Other rights similarly recognized over the next 30 years were voting, privacy,interstate travel, and access to justice. Because none of these rights are clearly provided in the Constitution, much public debate grew concerning theirlegal validity, including within the Court itself.
Following the Civil War, three amendments were added to the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Section 1 of the amendment reads, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, withoutdue process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equalprotection of the laws." For many years courts applied the Due Process Clauseto questions of procedure when states treated classifications of people differently. By the late nineteenth century, the Court added a "substantive" element to due process deliberations by asserting the courts' role was to assessthe character of the activity being regulated, not just the manner of the regulation process.
Until the 1920s, the Court applied substantive due process review proceduresonly to state laws regulating economic and property rights, such as wage andhour laws and price regulation. Then, in 1923 for the first time the Court recognized a noneconomic fundamental right, the right to acquire knowledge through education. The Court held in Meyer v. Nebraska certain personal rights not described in the Constitution exist that enable individuals "to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderlypursuit of happiness by free men."
Early in the twentieth century, a number of laws were passed across the nation establishing sterilization programs to rid the nation of "undesirables." Shortly after passage of a 1924 Virginia law the first question concerning application of state sterilization came to the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell (1927). The Court upheld the Virginia law and approved the sterilization of Carrie Buck, an 18-year old "feeble-minded" woman held in a state institution. Buck's mental condition was clearly evident in three generations of her family, indicating it was genetically transmittable. The Court held that the sterilization of Buck was best for society and due process had been adequatelyserved.
The protection of personal rights was yet to gain prominence. However, the era of the Court reviewing economic regulation law did come to an end during the 1930s under pressures stemming from the Great Depression and New Deal policies. The Court, as customary, relied on the best judgement of legislators inrestricting individual behavior and applied relatively weak tests in assessing fairness.
Oklahoma Prisoner Sterilization
Arthur Skinner, a citizen of the State of Oklahoma, was habitually in troublewith the law. In 1926 Skinner was convicted of stealing three chickens and sentenced to the State Reformatory. In 1929 he was convicted of armed robberyand returned to the Reformatory. In 1934, he was again convicted of armed robbery but this time sent to the Oklahoma state penitentiary. The following year, in 1935, the Oklahoma state legislature passed the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act. The law defined a "habitual criminal" as one who is convicted of two or more felony convictions in Oklahoma or any other state for crimes of"moral turpitude" and then convicted of a third felony and imprisoned in theState of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma attorney general had authority to initiate actions to sexually sterilize such a felon. If male, sterilization would be byvasectomy. The law provided a right to a jury trial for the felon, but limited the grounds for challenge to whether he fit the definition of a habitual criminal and did not have a health condition precluding sterilization. The lawexcluded certain crimes, such as embezzlement, as constituting a convictionfor sterilization purposes. In 1936 the attorney general selected Skinner forsterilization. Skinner challenged the action and the case went to trial, where he lost. The Oklahoma Supreme Court soon affirmed the decision.
Skinner then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing the Oklahoma law violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee. He was given no opportunity to challenge the notion that he might parent socially undesirable children. He also contended sterilization was cruel and unusual punishment. Because of the fundamental constitutional questions raised by the case, the Court granted the petition for certiorari.
Marriage and Procreation Rights
The Court ruled unanimously in favor of Skinner. Justice Douglas, writing forthe Court, found the "case touches a sensitive and important area of human rights." Douglas wrote, "Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the veryexistence and survival of the race." Therefore, any classification a state makes in sterilization law should be subject to the closest judicial scrutiny to guard against "invidious discrimination." Douglas found certain aspects ofthe Oklahoma law so clearly violated the Equal Protection Clause it was unnecessary to consider arguments raised by Skinner. He found no basis for distinguishing which crimes allow sterilization and which do not since punishments for both embezzlement and larceny were nearly identical in Oklahoma law. Douglas wrote, "Sterilization of those who have thrice committed grand larceny with immunity for those who are embezzlers is a clear, pointed, unmistakable discrimination." Douglas further noted no scientific evidence was known to suggest that inheritability of criminal traits was associated with one form of violation and not the other. Therefore, the distinction was "conspicuously artificial." Douglas concluded that "Oklahoma deprives certain individuals of a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race--the right to have off-spring." The Court reversed the decision of the two lower courts.
In concurring, Chief Justice Stone disagreed with Douglas' application of theEqual Protection Clause, choosing to respond instead to Skinner's due process argument. Stone wrote that the "real question" was whether a whole class ofcitizens could be subjected to "such an invasion of personal liberty" without opportunity to question "whether his criminal tendencies are of an inheritable type." Stone wrote, "A law which condemns, without hearing, all the individuals of a class to so harsh a measure as the present because some or even many merit condemnation, is lacking in the first principles of due process."
Impact
With Skinner, the Court charted a new course determining what rights are so fundamental to personal liberty that any laws restricting those rightsviolate the due process guarantee simply because of the activity they affect.Such issues invoke the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "liberty." As a result, laws affecting such fundamental rights as marriage and procreation were subjected to closer scrutiny by the courts and could only be justified by agovernmental compelling interest. The decision thus created the "fundamentalinterest" test for equal protection cases. The scope of constitutional liberties would soon expand to include a list of newly recognized noneconomic fundamental rights. A line of rulings followed over the next half century considering the substance of state laws under the equal protection guarantee by applying the substantive due process doctrine.
In 1964 voting rights were recognized in Reynolds v. Sims. The right to vote, the Court found, bears on the preservation of "other basic civil andpolitical rights." The Court in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) held that the decision to use contraception was a family right and a right of privacy. Any state prohibitions against contraception deprived married couples of that liberty without due process of law. Justice Douglas noted the "right to privacy" surrounding the marital relationship is "older than the Bill of Rights." Two years later, the Court recognized the constitutional right to a choice in marriage in Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1967) by strikingdown a state law prohibiting interracial marriages. In finding the law violated equal protection and denied due process, the Court held, "The freedom tomarry (is) . . . one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." As expressed in the Griswold decision, there exists a "realm of family life which the state cannot enter without substantial justification." Through these series of rulings, the Court interpreted the Constitution as placing limits on states' rights to interfere in a person's fundamental decisions concerning family and parenthood. Other fundamental rights identified in the 1960s were an indigent's right to equal accessto justice and the right of unhindered interstate travel.
The right to privacy established in Griswold rose to greater prominence in Roe v. Wade (1973) in recognizing the right of a woman to chooseabortion. In Roe, the Court found the Fourteenth Amendment's implicitguarantee of personal privacy extended to "activities relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationship, and child rearing and education." The Court further stated only those personal rights determined "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" can be included in the guarantee of personal privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Some justices responded they found no right to these liberties expressed or implied anywhere in the Constitution. Justice William Rehnquist in 1972 described such interests "as a judicial superstructure, awkwardly engrafted upon the Constitution itself." Consequently, no further fundamental rights have beenidentified after the 1960s. The Court denied fundamental rights protection to food, housing, education, and, in the mid-1990s, to sexual orientation in Romer v. Evans (1996).
The Skinner finding continued to be cited in numerous Court decisionsfor over a half century after it was issued. The "right to control one's person" was reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). The Court held that,
personal decisions relatingto marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education . . . (were) the most intimate and personal choices a personmay make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, . .. (and) central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment . . . the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
The procreation right became much more complex in the 1980s as artificial reproduction technologies expanded. Procreation issues grew beyond the family toinclude sperm and egg donors and surrogate mothers, and the rights to frozensperm and embryos after divorce, or even after the death of a spouse. As highlighted in Kass v. Kass (1998), courts initially resorted to contractlaw to resolve such disputes. Many believed these issues would ultimately have to be resolved in the realm of human rights.
Related Cases
- Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927).
- Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
- Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
- Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
- Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S.833 (1992).
- Romer v. Evans, 116 S. Ct. 1620 (1996).
- Kass v. Kass, 91 NY 2nd 554 (1998).
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