Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia

This case established that under the Equal Protection Clause, a state cannot regulate marriages because the partners are of different skin color, religions or national origins.

When the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted it was designed to ensure all Americans the same civil rights and equal protection under the law. But it went further than that. It took the power away from the individual states to withhold equal protection of the laws.

Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment voided state laws which wholly discriminated against any race. It warned against the passage of laws which appeared fair and equal, but that were not expected to be upheld in a fair and equal manner. "Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution." These principles were called into question in the case of Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia.

Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, two Virginia residents, got married in June of 1958, in the District of Columbia, according to its laws. Shortly after that, the couple moved back to Virginia and established their household in Caroline County. During the October of 1958 term of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment for the Lovings' arrest.

Mildred Jeter was an African American woman and Richard Loving was Caucasian. They were charged with violating Virginia's law forbidding interracial marriages. At the time, Virginia was one of 16 states that prohibited and punished interracial marriages. These statutes had a tradition almost as old as America itself. Virginia has had miscegenation penalties since colonial times, arising as a consequence of slavery.

The statutory scheme at the time of the Lovings' offense dated from the adoption of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The kernel of this act was the absolute prohibition of a white person marrying anyone other than another white person.

The Lovings were convicted and sentenced under two Virginia statutes. Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia. Section 20-59 defined the penalty for miscegenation, stating that those who are guilty of this "crime," are felons and "shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years."

On 6 January 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail. The trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the state and not return to Virginia together for a period of 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

After their convictions, the Lovings moved to the District of Columbia. On 6 November 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment.

When the motion hadn't been decided by 28 October 1964, the Lovings began a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. They requested that a three-judge court convene to declare the Virginia anti-miscegenation statutes unconstitutional and to keep state officials from enforcing their convictions.

On 22 January 1965, the state trial judge denied the motion to vacate the sentences, and the Lovings perfected an appeal to Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals. On 11 February 1965, the three-judge district court decided to allow the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the highest state court.

The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes and, after modifying the sentence, affirmed the convictions. This court cited its 1955 decision in Naim v. Naim where the state court concluded that it was legitimate for the state "to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens," and to prevent "the corruption of blood," "a mongrel breed of citizens," and "the obliteration of racial pride." The state also argued that in this case the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause did not hold because both the white and African American participants are punished equally. Therefore, there is no "invidious discrimination against race."

The U.S. Supreme Court felt otherwise. It decided that marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man." Therefore, to deny the Lovings this basic freedom based on the racial classification that these state statutes implied, deprived them of a freedom of choice. Chief Justice Warren held that "miscegenation statutes adopted by Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on basis of racial classification violate equal protection and due process clauses of Fourteenth Amendment." The Court furthermore ruled that people whose skins are colored differently have the freedom to choose whether or not to marry. The state has no power over them. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed the Lovings' convictions and thereby struck down all state miscegenation laws.