Griswold v. Connecticut

The Court's decision

The Supreme Court overturned Griswold's conviction and invalidated the Connecticut law. The majority opinion, authored by William O. Douglas, joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Justices Tom C. Clark, William J. Brennan, Jr., and Arthur J. Goldberg, argued that according to precedent, the Bill of Rights guaranteed not only those rights which it enumerated, but also unenumerated rights that were contained in the "penumbras" of the enumerated rights:

Related Topics:
William O. Douglas - Earl Warren - Tom C. Clark - William J. Brennan, Jr. - Arthur J. Goldberg

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:The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 516-522 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. ... The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Related Topics:
Poe v. Ullman - 367 U.S. 497, 516-522

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The Court struck down the Connecticut law on the grounds that it violated the newly-discovered "right of privacy." The Court's analysis was limited to married couples; only in 2003 did the Court in Lawrence v. Texas declare there was also a right of unmarried consenting adult couples to engage in non-procreative sexual intercourse.

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Goldberg's concurrence

A concurring opinion by Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. argued that the existence of the "right of privacy" was bolstered by the Ninth Amendment's protection of unenumerated rights. Justice Goldberg wrote:

Related Topics:
Arthur J. Goldberg - Earl Warren - William J. Brennan, Jr. - Ninth Amendment

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:Since 1791 has been a basic part of the Constitution which we are sworn to uphold. To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment and to give it no effect whatsoever.

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Justices John Marshall Harlan II and Byron White concurred in the judgment invalidating the Connecticut law, but based their opinions relying on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Harlan, in particular, urged that the Due Process Clause protected liberties unenumerated in the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights. White's opinion argued that the Connecticut law served no coherent purpose.

Related Topics:
John Marshall Harlan II - Byron White

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Black and Stewart's dissents

Justices Potter Stewart and Hugo Black dissented, denying the existence of a general "right of privacy," and fearing the consequences of a departure from the Constitution's text. Both justices noted that the "right of privacy" had generally been held to inhere in the Fourth Amendment (and was thus limited textually to the language of that amendment), not the Bill of Rights generally. Stewart wrote:

Related Topics:
Potter Stewart - Hugo Black

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:In the course of its opinion, the Court refers to no less than six amendments to the constitution: the first, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the ninth and the fourteenth. But the court does not say which of these Amendments, if any, it thinks are infringed by this law.

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And:

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:The Ninth Amendment ... to make clear that the adoption of the Bill of Rights did not alter the plan that the Federal Government was to be a government of express and limited powers, and that all rights and powers not delegated to it were retained by the people and the individual States. Until today no member of this Court has ever suggested that the Ninth Amendment meant anything else.

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Stewart also stated that, though he believed the Connecticut law was an "uncommonly silly one" (language later quoted by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting in Lawrence v. Texas), he did not believe it in his power under the Constitution to invalidate it, noting that:

Related Topics:
Clarence Thomas - Lawrence v. Texas

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:We are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that, I cannot do.

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Black wrote:

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:The Court talks about a constitutional "right of privacy" as though there is some constitutional provision or provisions forbidding any law ever to be passed which might abridge the "privacy" of individuals. But there is not.

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And:

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:or a period of a century and a half, no serious suggestion was ever made that the Ninth Amendment, enacted to protect state powers against Federal invasion, could be used as a weapon of Federal power to prevent state legislatures from passing laws they consider appropriate to govern local affairs.

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As mentioned earlier, the Griswold holding was limited to the privacy rights of married couples. A later case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), established the right of unmarried people to use contraception on the same basis as married couples. The reasoning and language of Griswold and Eisenstadt were cited in support of the Court's result in the much more controversial Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) case, which declared a fundamental right of women to an abortion in most circumstances. In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Court once and for all severed the linkage between the marriage contract and the right to privacy, holding that the right recognized in Griswold extended to nonprocreative sexual intercourse between unmarried people.

Related Topics:
Eisenstadt v. Baird - 405 U.S. 438 - 1972 - Roe v. Wade - 1973 - Right to privacy

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