Griswold v. Connecticut: Right to Privacy

Justice Douglas's Majority Opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

• Focuses on the right to privacy in the context of contraception

Case Background of Griswold v. Connecticut

• Connecticut's Comstock Law (1879) criminalized the use of any drug, medicinal article, or instrument to prevent conception
• The law imposed fines and imprisonment for violations
• Another section of the Comstock Law made it illegal to assist or counsel others in using contraception
• Estelle Griswold and Dr. C. Lee Buxton opened a birth control clinic in New Haven to challenge the law's constitutionality
• Following their arrest, conviction, and $100 fines, they appealed through the state court system to the Supreme Court

Constitutional Analysis: Textualism

• Douglas recognized the challenge of finding explicit textual support for a right to privacy
• Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations that give them life and substance
• Multiple constitutional amendments create "zones of privacy"

Constitutional Amendments and Privacy Zones

• First Amendment covers freedom of association
• Third Amendment prohibits quartering soldiers
• Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures
• Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination clause enables a zone of privacy
• Ninth Amendment states that the enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage others retained by the people

Original Intent and the Right to Privacy

• The right to privacy is older than the Bill of Rights and the political system
• Marriage is historically privileged, representing a coming together for better or worse, intimate to the degree of being sacred
• Marriage promotes a way of life, harmony, bilateral loyalty, distinct from political or commercial projects

Precedents (Stare Decisis)

• Prior cases establish related rights
• Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) recognized the right to marry, establish a home, and bring up children as part of liberty
• Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) affirmed the right to direct the education and upbringing of children
• NAACP v. Alabama (1958) related to freedom to associate and privacy in associations
• Mapp v. Ohio (1961) extended Fourth Amendment protections to "the right to be let alone"
• The right of privacy presses for recognition and is a legitimate one

Living Constitution Approach

• Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause is implicated
• Rejected allowing police to search marital bedrooms for signs of contraceptive use as repulsive to notions of marital privacy
• The right of privacy is older than the Bill of Rights, fundamental and basic to society

Legislative Will

• Economic legislation is different from laws impacting personal liberties, which have a maximum destructive impact on relationships
• Criticism of the law's "overbreadth," stating it sweeps too broadly and invades protected freedoms
• The statute seeks its goals by maximizing destructive impact on marital relationships

Broader Constitutional Impact

• The case created a foundation for subsequent privacy rights cases
• Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) extended contraception rights to unmarried individuals
• Roe v. Wade (1973) applied privacy rights to abortion decisions
• Lawrence v. Texas (2003) struck down anti-sodomy laws
• Constitutional protection established for "penumbral rights"
• Significant reinterpretation of 14th Amendment substantive due process occurred
• It created conflict between textualist and living constitutionalist approaches
• It exemplifies the Warren Court's expansion of constitutional protections

Justice Frankfurter's Dissent in Baker v. Carr (1962)

• Centers on legislative apportionment and judicial intervention

Case Background of Baker v. Carr

• Tennessee's 1901 Apportionment Act allocated legislative seats by county, ignoring population
• By 1960, urban areas were underrepresented due to demographic shifts
• Charles Baker, alongside other Tennessee voters, sued Secretary of State Joe Carr, claiming malapportionment debased their votes
• The District Court dismissed the case as non-justiciable under the "political question" doctrine

Constitutional Analysis: Textualism in Dissent

• Absence of textual support is emphasized
• The Court is asked to choose among competing theories of political philosophy to establish a frame of government
• Nowhere in the Constitution is a specific provision for how the legislature should be constituted
• Finding a political conception legally enforceable in the guarantee of equal protection would rewrite the Constitution

Original Intent Arguments

• The Framers deliberately chose to leave the resolution of internal conflicts generated by competing claims of political theory to the States
• The Framers rejected including a requirement for periodical reapportionment of direct taxes according to the census in the Constitution
• Having such a proposal would guide the Court in dealing with geography and apportionment
• Madison's views in The Federalist Papers on republican government and representation are cited

Precedents (Stare Decisis)

• Today's ruling reverses a uniform course of decision established by a dozen cases
• Colegrove v. Green (1946): Courts should not enter this political thicket
• Wood v. Broom (1932): Courts should avoid redistricting cases
• MacDougall v. Green (1948): It would transfer control over legislative subjects to the federal judiciary
• Restraint is of the essence to the Court's right functioning

Rejection of Living Constitution Approach

• Today's decision empowers the courts to devise the composition of state legislatures
• Federal judges should not effect redistribution under the Fourteenth Amendment
• The Court should regard settled decisions in apportionment cases as controlling
• Regarding this decision as merely sustaining jurisdiction misconceives what the Court holds

Judicial Restraint/Legislative Will

• Courts should not enter this political thicket, as it is hostile to a democratic system
• Relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives
• The Court's authority rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction
• A hypothetical claim is made the basis for illusory relief by the Court, which has traditionally confined itself to its limited function

Broader Constitutional Impact

• Baker v. Carr led to the "one person, one vote" standard in Reynolds v. Sims (1964)
• American democracy was reshaped by requiring equally populated legislative districts
• Judicial power significantly expanded into areas previously considered "political questions"
• Contributed to development of justiciability and political question doctrines
• Rare instance of the Warren Court rejecting Frankfurter's restraint philosophy
• The Equal Protection Clause was positioned as a tool for democratic reform, not just racial equality
• Frankfurter's dissent remains a classic argument for judicial restraint and separation of powers concerns

Comparative Analysis for Test Preparation

• Consider comparing opinions along several dimensions when answering test questions
• Examine judicial philosophy, considering Douglas's view on unenumerated rights versus Frankfurter's historical constraints
• Compare constitutional interpretation methods used or rejected by each justice
• Analyze views on the judicial role, contrasting Douglas's protection of rights with Frankfurter's deference to political processes
• Compare how each selectively employed or distinguished prior cases
• Note how opinions reflected the Warren Court's rights revolution and social changes
• Determine how opinions influenced constitutional development in privacy and voting rights