Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479

Supreme Court of the United States

1965

Chapter

6

Title

Implied Fundamental Rights

Page

952

Topic

Substantive Due Process:  Privacy, Personhood, and Family

Quick Notes

Griswold, the director of Planned Parenthood, was arrested for providing advice to married couples in violation of a non-contraception statute.  Griswold contends that the statute violates the 14th Amendment.

Rule

o         A right of personal privacy emanates [to come from a source] from the penumbras [gray area] of the Bill of Rights, and it cannot be invaded absent a showing that the legislation is necessary to accomplish a compelling state interest.

o         A broad constitutional right of privacy protects intimate aspects of personal life from governmental intrusion.  (i.e., the bedroom of a married couple).

Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras (Creates Zone of Privacy)

o         They guarantees that help give them life and substance.

o         They create zones of privacy.

o         The Third Amendment's prohibition against the quartering of soldiers, the Fourth Amendment's right of people to be secure in their persons, the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination, and the Ninth Amendment's right to retain rights not enumerated in the Constitution

Justice Douglas - In This Case - Married couples relationship lies within the zone of privacy

o         The present case concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.

Justice Douglas - Goal is achieved by maximum destructive impact upon marital relationship

o         Connecticut's law seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon the marital relationship.

Justice Douglas - Overbroad statute

o         The law sweeps unnecessarily broadly and thereby invades an area of protected freedoms.

Book Name

Constitutional Law : Stone, Seidman, Sunstein, Tushnet.  ISBN:  978-0-7355-7719-0

Issue

o         Whether there is a constitutional right of privacy which is protected from government intrusion?  Yes.  Personal privacy is found and protected by penumbras in the Bill of Rights.

Procedure

Trial

o         Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, which convicted Griswold of violating a state law that prohibited the dispensing or use of birth control devices to or by married couples.

Appellant

o         Affirmed

Supreme

o         The Court found a right of privacy implicit in the Third Amendment's prohibition against the quartering of soldiers, the Fourth Amendment's right of people to be secure in their persons, the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination, and the Ninth Amendment's right to retain rights not enumerated in the Constitution. The right of privacy to use birth control measures was found to be a legitimate one. Thus, the Court concluded that Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53-32 (rev. 1958) was unconstitutional.

Facts/Cases

Discussion

Key Phrases

Rules/Laws

Pl -   Griswold

Df -   Connecticut

Description

o         Griswold was the director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut.

o         He provided information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception.

o         The Connecticut statute at issue prohibited the use of contraceptive devices.

o         Another statute made it illegal to abet or counsel another person to commit any offense.

o         Griswold was convicted under this accessory statute for counseling individuals to violate the contraception law.

o         He challenged the conviction on the ground that the accessory statute violated an implied privacy provision in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

o         The state appellate courts affirmed the conviction.

o         Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed

Justice Douglas

Constitution right of privacy is protected from government intrusion

o         We do not sit as a super-legislature to determine the propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions.

Operates on an intimate relation of husband and wife

o         However, this law operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their counselor's role in one aspect of that relation. 

Constitutional protected rights not expressly in the Bill of Rights

o         Several fundamental rights are constitutionally protected even though they are not expressly mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

o    These include the right to educate one's child in the school of the parent's choice;

o    the right to study language in private school; and

o    the freedom to associate.

Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras (Creates Zone of Privacy)

o         They guarantees that help give them life and substance.

o         They create zones of privacy.

First Amendment

o         The right of association.

o         This a freedom not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution

Third Amendment

o          Its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers in any house in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy.

Fourth Amendment

o         Explicitly affirms the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

o         Creates a penumbra that protects privacy interests.

Fifth Amendment

o          Prohibits self-incrimination and enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment.

Ninth Amendment

o         Provides that the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

Court - In This Case - Married couples relationship lies within the zone of privacy

o         The present case concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.

Court - Goal is achieved by maximum destructive impact upon marital relationship

o         Connecticut's law seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon the marital relationship.

Court - Overbroad statute

o         The law sweeps unnecessarily broadly and thereby invades an area of protected freedoms.

Reversed

Concur - Justice Goldberg

o         Personal rights are not confined to specific terms of the Bill of Rights

Marital privacy is protected, but not explicitly listed in the Constitution

o         Liberty embraces the right of marital privacy, although that right is not explicitly listed in the Constitution.

Ninth Amendment additional fundamental rights not in Bill of Rights

o         My position is supported by the Ninth Amendment, which reveals that the Framers believed there are additional fundamental rights, protected from government infringement, which are not listed in the Bill of Rights.

This law would ignore the Ninth Amendment

o         Allowing the fundamental right of marital privacy to be infringed by the State would ignore and give no effect to the Ninth Amendment.

Strict Scrutiny Approach

o         Rather, the State may prevail only upon showing a compelling interest, and the law must be necessary to accomplish that interest.

Does not meet strict scrutiny, could tailor it.

o         Connecticut has not, and cannot, meet this strict test.

o         Connecticut's purported purpose for the law, in preventing extra-marital relations, can be served by a more discriminately tailored statute, which does not sweep unnecessarily broadly.

Concur - Justice Harlan

Does the statute infringe on the Due Process Clause

o         The proper inquiry is whether the statute infringes the Due Process Clause because it violates basic values implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.

Statute is intolerable and unjustifiable invasion

o         Connecticut's contraception statute is an intolerable and unjustifiable invasion of privacy in the conduct of the most intimate concerns of an individual's life.

Must pass strict scrutiny

o         In order to be constitutional, the statute must pass a strict scrutiny analysis.

o         Connecticut does not even suggest a justification for the intrusive means it has chosen to effectuate its policy.

Concur - Justice White

Deprives married couples of liberty without due process

o         The Connecticut statute deprives married couples of liberty without due process.

o         The statute bears a substantial burden of justification when attacked under the 14th Amendment.   

Invades a protected area of privacy

o         An examination of the justification cannot be avoided, however, by saying that the statute invades a protected area of privacy.

If reasonably necessary, then not invalid

o         Such statutes, if reasonably necessary for the effectuation of a legitimate and substantial state interest, and not arbitrary and capricious in application, are not invalid.

Connecticuts claim

o         Connecticut contends the statute serves the State's policy against all forms of promiscuous or illicit sexual relationships.

Punishes married couples

o         But I fail to see how the ban on contraceptives by married couples reinforces the State's ban on illicit sexual relationships.

o         At most, the broad ban is of marginal utility to the declared objective. 

o         I find nothing in the record justifying the sweeping scope of the statute.

Dissent - Justice Black

o         The law is every bit as offensive to me as it is to my Brethren.

o         Government has to invade privacy, UNLESS prohibited by some specific constitutional provision.

o         The concurrences that rely on the Ninth Amendment and due process merely use different words to claim the power to invalidate any legislative act which the judges find irrational, unreasonable, or offensive.

Legislature should make such decisions, which they did in this case

o         The power to make such decisions is legislative.

o         The Ninth Amendment was passed to assure the people that the Constitution was intended to limit the Federal Government to the powers expressly or implicitly granted.

o         I reject the philosophy that this Court has a duty to keep the Constitution in tune with the times.

o         Subjective considerations of "natural justice" are dangerous, whether used to enforce the Court's view about personal or economic rights.

o         So far as I am concerned, Connecticut's law is not forbidden by the Constitution as it was written.

Dissent - Justice Stewart

• This is a silly law
• However, we are not asked to say whether we think the law is unwise, or even asinine.
• We are asked to hold that it violates the Constitution, and this I cannot do.
• I find nothing in the Bill of Rights to invalidate the Connecticut law, and to say the Ninth Amendment

Rules

Rule

o         A right of personal privacy emanates [to come from a source] from the penumbras [gray area] of the Bill of Rights, and it cannot be invaded absent a showing that the legislation is necessary to accomplish a compelling state interest.

o         A broad constitutional right of privacy protects intimate aspects of personal life from governmental intrusion.  (i.e., the bedroom of a married couple).

Class Notes