Griswold v. Connecticut: 1964

Griswold and Buxton were arrested and their center closed on November 10, 1961. On December 8, 1961, the opening day of the Sixth Circuit Court trial, defense attorney Catherine G. Roraback argued that Connecticut's birth-control law violated their clients' constitutional right to freedom of speech. Judge J. Robert Lacey, saying he wished to study the defense's brief, continued the case indefinitely.

On January 2, 1962, the trial took place. It lasted only six hours. Julius Martez was the Sixth Circuit Court prosecutor who had requested warrants for Griswold's and Buxton's arrests. He now called his witnesses. John A. Blasi, a New Haven police detective who had entered the clinic on its third day of operation, testified that six women were in the waiting room at the time; that Estelle Griswold freely told him that the facility was, indeed, a birth-control clinic; and that Griswold had offered him contraceptive information and devices. Another detective offered similar testimony.

Dr. Buxton testified that he and his medical colleagues believed that "this type of advice" played a crucial part in women's health care.

Prosecutor Martez said that Griswold and Buxton had broken the law and that the Connecticut legislature, not the court, was the proper forum for anyone objecting to the 82-year-old statute.

Judge Lacey agreed with Martez. He described the statute as "absolute," and he emphasized that it had been upheld three times by the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors. Rejecting defense attorney Catherine Roraback's free speech argument, he characterized the prohibition of a physician's prescription of birth-control devices as a "constitutional exercise of the police powers of the State of Connecticut." Griswold and Buxton were then convicted of violating Connecticut's birth control law, and each was fined $100.00.

Ten days later, defense attorneys Roraback and Harriet Pilpel filed their clients' appeal with the Appellate Division of the Sixth Connecticut Circuit Court. A three-judge panel heard the case October 19, 1962, and upheld Griswold's and Buxton's convictions on January 18, 1963. However, citing questions "of great public importance," it certified the case for a review by the State Supreme Court of Errors.

That court upheld the convictions on May 11, 1964. Associate Justice John Comley's opinion declared: "We adhere to the principle that courts may not interfere with the exercise by a state of the police power to conserve the public safety and welfare, including health and morals."