United States v. One Package

It took two years before the case came to trial. During this time, contraception was so popular that the government's regulatory agents could not stop birth control items from being bought and sold. Druggists and doctors dispensed them with impunity and even the Sears, Roebuck catalog advertised them as "preventives." In 1935, the American Medicine journal noted that mailing contraceptive devices was "as firmly established as the postage stamp."

Polls at this time showed that 70 percent of the American public wanted birth control made legal. One poll, commissioned by Ladies' Home Journal, found that 79 percent of readers--51 percent of them Catholic--favored loosening the laws.

Influenced by this change in attitude, the district court agreed to hear United States v. One Package in 1935. Dr. Stone testified that she had imported the pessaries for experimental purposes, to test them for reliability in preventing contraception and disease. She said she also prescribed them to women who should not bear children. The United States sought a decision directing the forfeiture and destruction of "one package" of pessaries. On 6 January 1936, Judge Grover Moscowitz ruled that the Tariff Act did not extend to the prevention of contraceptives intended for medical use.

However, the government appealed, and Ernst, relying on donations to cover his fees, defended his client before a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. At the trial, a number of doctors spoke on Dr. Stone's behalf. Even a government witness agreed with them, saying that from a medical standpoint, sometimes it was vital to prescribe a contraceptive for some patients to prevent or cure disease.

The judges reached their decision on 7 December 1936. They believed that while only the Tariff Act was at issue in this case, all aspects of the Comstock Act were part of a consistent effort to suppress immoral articles and obscene literature. As for the Tariff Act itself, Section 305(a) had coupled the word "unlawful" with the word "abortion," though not with the word "contraception," making the importation of contraceptive items legal. The court also decided contraceptives were necessary for the lawful purposes Dr. Stone had described and allowed them to enter the United States.