Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 

Supreme Court of the United States

1942

Chapter

6

Title

Implied Fundamental Rights

Page

762

Topic

Fundamental Interests and the Equal Protection Clause

Quick Notes

Skinner was a convicted criminal who appealed a court order mandate for his sterilization.

Rule

o         When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same equality of offense and puts extra punishment on one and not the other, it has made an invidious discrimination.

o         The guaranty of "equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws

Holding

o         When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense and sterilizes one and not the other, it has made as invidious a discrimination as if it had selected a particular race or nationality for oppressive treatment.

Points of Interest

o         Skinner helped to establish the basis for fundamental rights analysis under the Equal Protection Clause.  It was one of the first cases to point out that there exist some fundamental interests that the government cannot take away without meeting a very significant burden.

o         Skinner also holds that procreation, and the right to procreate, is a right deserving of special constitutional significance-a fundamental interest or right.

o         The fundamental right of procreation deserves special judicial protection to the degree of strict scrutiny analysis.

Book Name

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

Issue

o         Whether a law that provides a very different punishment for those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense CAN withstand judicial scrutiny?  No.

Procedure

Oklahoma

o         Defendant was convicted of more than two felonies and, under the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act (act), Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 57, § 171 et seq., was ordered to be rendered sterile. The Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed the order that the operation be performed.

Supreme

o         Reverse

Facts/Cases

Discussion

Key Phrases

Rules/Laws

Pl -   Skinner

Df -   Oklahoma

Description

o         During the 1930's and 40's, Oklahoma had on its books the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act.

o         This Act permitted the Attorney General of the State to initiate proceedings against habitual criminals that would render the criminal person sexually sterile.

o         You were a candidate for sterilization if (1) you were a habitual criminal and (2) it was not detrimental to your health.

o         The Act directed that men were to be rendered sterile by vasectomy and females by salpingectomy.

o         The Act also provided that "offenses arising out of the violation of the prohibitory laws, revenue acts, embezzlement, or political offenses, shall not come or be considered within the terms of this Act."

o         In 1926, Skinner  was  convicted of stealing chickens, and in 1929 and 1934 he was convicted of robbery with a firearm.

o         In 1936 the Attorney General instituted sterilization proceedings against him.

o         The Supreme Court of Oklahoma affirmed a lower court judgment against Skinner directing the performance of a vasectomy.

Justice Douglass

Skinner - No Opportunity to be heard

o         It is argued that due process is lacking because, under this Act, unlike the Act upheld in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, the defendant is given no opportunity to be heard on the issue as to whether he is the probable potential parent of socially undesirable offspring.

Skinner - Cruel and unusual punishment

o         The Act is penal in character and that the sterilization provided for is cruel and unusual punishment and violative of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Court - Fails Equal protection requirements

o         [It] fail[s] to meet the requirements of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Court - Example of Inequities (Chicken [Larceny] vs. Embezzlement)

o         The law does apply to larceny but not to embezzlement.

o    Both involve taking money from another, and both are felonies, yet only one will subject a person to sterilization

o         A person who enters a chicken coop and steals chickens commits a felony and he may be sterilized if he is thrice convicted.

o         If, however, he is a bailee of the property and fraudulently appropriates it, he is an embezzler.

o         Hence, no matter how habitual his proclivities for embezzlement are and no matter how often his conviction, he may not be sterilized. Thus, the nature of the two crimes is intrinsically the same and they are punishable in the same manner.

Court - This legislation deals with one of the basic civil rights of man

o         We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man.

o    Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.

o         The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching and devastating effects.

o    In evil or reckless hands it can cause races or types which are inimical to the dominant group to wither and disappear.

o    He is forever deprived of a basic liberty.

Court - Strict Scrutiny of sterilization show the law to be invidious, in violation of EP

o         Strict scrutiny of the classification which a State makes in a sterilization law is essential, lest unwittingly, or otherwise, invidious discriminations are made against groups or types of individuals in violation of the constitutional guaranty of just and equal laws.

o         The guaranty of "equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws." Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369.

o         When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense and sterilizes one and not the other, it has made as invidious a discrimination as if it had selected a particular race or nationality for oppressive treatment.

Court - No attempt to show biological inheritable traits

o         Oklahoma makes no attempt to say that he who commits larceny by trespass has biologically inheritable traits which he who commits embezzlement lacks.

o         We have not the slightest basis for inferring that the line has any significance in eugenics [selective breeding to improve human genetics], nor that the inheritability of criminal traits follows the neat legal distinctions which the law has marked between those two offenses.

Court - Differs on sterilization

o         In terms of fines and imprisonment, the penalties for each are the same.

o         Only when it comes to sterilization are the pains and penalties different.

o         The equal protection clause would be a formula of empty words if such conspicuously artificial lines could be drawn.

Reversed

Concurring - Chief Justice Stone

o         Does not think the equal protection clause needed to be used.

Due Process instead of Equal Protection

o         The real question should be considered is not one of equal protection, but whether the wholesale condemnation of a class to such an invasion of personal liberty, without opportunity to any individual to show that his is not the type of case which would justify resort to it, satisfies the demands of due process.

o         A law which condemns, without hearing, all the individuals of a class to so harsh a measure as the present because some or even many merit condemnation, is lacking in the first principles of due process.

o         The state is called on to sacrifice no permissible end when it is required to reach its objective by a reasonable and just procedure adequate to safeguard rights of the individual which concededly the Constitution protects.

Rules

Rule

o         When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same equality of offense and puts extra punishment on one and not the other, it has made an invidious discrimination.

o         The guaranty of "equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws

Class Notes