Griswold v. Connecticut

¶ … features and facts of a lawsuit, which establishes the right to privacy as declared in the American constitution. It highlights a conflict between a statute of the State of Connecticut and various Amendments in the American constitution. Facts of the case Griswold, executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut and Buxton, a licensed physician and a professor at the Yale Medical School, advised couples on the use of contraceptives for voluntary birth control. Ways and means to prevent birth control by the wife were prescribed.

Fees were charged and sometimes the service was rendered for free.

Griswold and Buxton were arrested and found guilty for violating a Connecticut decree which was as follows: [1] Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned." [1] And Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender." [1] Both were found guilty of going against the law and paid a fine of $100 each.

Panel Justice Arthur Goldberg, Justices Earl Warren and William Brennan were on the panel and gave majority support to the judgment given by Justice William O. Douglas, when the case was appealed in the U.S. Supreme Court. [2] Case History Both plaintiffs filed appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court against the decision. Thomas I. Emerson was the counsel for the plaintiffs. The defendants' counsel was Joseph B. Clark. The plaintiffs claimed that the Connecticut statute was in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court confirmed their claim. Later the case was contested March 29-30, 1965 in the U.S. Supreme Court of Errors. In the Supreme Court judgment on June 7, 1965 delivered by Justice William O. Douglas, the convictions of the plaintiffs were reversed and the U.S. Supreme Court deemed the Connecticut law to be against the U.S. Constitution.

[2] Legal issue before the Court The Connecticut statute, which forbade the use of counsel or any material or equipment for voluntary birth control was in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The point specifically contested was whether a couple's right to marital privacy was protected by the U.S. Constitution if a state's law prohibits a couple from using any advise or material for preventing conception.

The Constitution did not explicitly spell out the right to married people on whether they could or could not exercise birth control using contraceptives. The underlying issue contested could be stated as this: if the Constitution did not protect a particular right, could the state government curtail that right of the citizens? [2] Facts of the case Indeed, the federal constitution did not specify a universal right to privacy. The right to voluntary birth control is not the only right not mentioned in the Constitution.

Other rights, which have not been mentioned, include the parents' right to educate a child in a school of their choice whether private or public, the right to choose educational subjects or foreign languages to study in school [1]. This did not mean that citizens don't have these rights. During the court argument numerous past cases were cited in which citizens had been granted such rights by the law. One such case was Meyer v. Nebraska [3] in which the plaintiff was granted the right to study German in a private school.

This was because citizens have the right to freedom of speech which "not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read" [3]. Other similar past cases strengthened the case of Griswold against Connecticut. Peoples' right to mingle or seek advice from whomever they desire is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights [3].

However, a married couple's right to ask for counsel in personal matters was proven to be protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which gave people the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," [1]. The Connecticut statute conflicted with the First Amendment when it denied married couples the right to seek advise on medical matters pertaining to birth control. The rationale behind the Supreme Court's decision Justice William O.

Douglas's rendered a decision corroborated by a majority on the panel in which the Bill of Rights and the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution established penumbras or degrees or zones of privacy which absorbed a couple's right to plan their family size, although this right was not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, in the Bill of Right or in any amendment to the Constitution. The Fourth and Fifth Amendment gave the citizens the right to lead their life at home the way they wished to and.