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Skinner v. Oklahoma - Significance, Oklahoma Prisoner Sterilization, Marriage And Procreation Rights, Impact, Further Readings

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 Forman Reed, 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' decisions holding that he was a suitable vasectomy candidate.

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).

Additional Topics

Skinner v. Oklahoma - 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 sim…

Skinner v. Oklahoma - Further Readings

Skinner v. Oklahoma - Oklahoma Prisoner Sterilization

Arthur Skinner, a citizen of the State of Oklahoma, was habitually in trouble with the law. In 1926 Skinner was convicted of stealing three chickens and sentenced to the State Reformatory. In 1929 he was convicted of armed robbery and 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…

Skinner v. Oklahoma - Marriage And Procreation Rights

The Court ruled unanimously in favor of Skinner. Justice Douglas, writing for the Court, found the "case touches a sensitive and important area of human rights." Douglas wrote, "Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence 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…

Skinner v. Oklahoma - Impact

With Skinner, the Court charted a new course determining what rights are so fundamental to personal liberty that any laws restricting those rights violate 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 …

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