Skinner V. Oklahoma (1942): Due Process, Sterilization

• Oklahoma's Criminal Sterilization Act allowed the state to sterilize a person who had been convicted three or more times of crimes "amounting to felonies involving moral turpitude." Did the Act violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14^th A.?

• Majority: DOUGLAS: The Court held that the Act violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th A. Since some crimes such as embezzlement, punishable as felonies in OK, were excluded from the Act's jurisdiction. Douglas reasoned that the law had laid "an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense." Douglas viewed procreation as one of the fundamental rights requiring the judiciary's strict scrutiny.

• Concurring: STONE: The State could, after appropriate inquiry, sterilize someone “to prevent the transmission by inheritance of his socially injurious tendencies.”

• Concurring: JACKSON: There are limits to the extent that legislatures “may conduct biological experiments at the expense of the dignity and personality and natural powers of a minority – even those who have been guilty of what the majority defines as crimes.” Jackson’s reservations have been underscored by more recent cases involving rights of MARRIAGE, FAMILY, and PRIVACY.

Lochner V. New York (1905): Substantive Due Process, Freedom to Contract

• NY passed laws prohibiting employees from working over 60 hours in 10 days. Designed to protect workers threatened by health and safety. This is a case where the power of the state to regulate economic activity conflicts with the “liberty” protected by the 14^th A. to contract without unreasonable interference by the state.

• Majority: PECKHAM: Laissez-faire rigidity – He found no “reasonable grounds” to interfere with the liberty of a person to contract for as many hours as desired. The statute seemed to serve no purpose in safeguarding public health or the health of the worker. Such laws were “mere meddlesome interferences” with the rights of an individual to enter into contracts.

• Dissent: HOLMES, HARLAN, WHITE, DAY: The majority interpreted police power generously to support economic regulation. Holmes accused the majority of deciding “upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain.” He said the Constitution is “not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire.” However, laissez faire did not mean free market. Corporations were busily involved in forming pools, trusts, “community of interests,” and other devices to protect themselves form competition.

• It is interesting to see how the laissez-faire attitude of the Court is “changed” by the New Deal legislation.

Bailey V. Alabama (1910): 13th a., Race Discrimination

• Bailey contracted to work on a farm for a year at $12 a month. He quit after a month and did not return $15 advanced to him. Under Alabama law, Bailey's act was criminal. He was sentenced to 136 hours of hard labor under the Alabama peonage law. Did the Alabama law violate involuntary servitude of the 13^th A.?

• Majority: HUGHES: The Court, argued that the law was a restriction on personal rights. Judged by its effect and not by its pretense, the law violated the 13^th A. Involuntary servitude meant more than slavery. The state may impose involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime, but it may not compel one man to labor for another in payment of a debt, by punishing him as a criminal if he does not perform the service or pay the debt.

• Dissent: HOLMES, LURTON: Breach of a legal contract without excuse is wrong conduct, even if the contract is for labor; and if a state adds to civil liability a criminal liability to fine, it simply intensifies the legal motive for doing right; it does not make the laborer a slave.