Due Process Flashcards
Lochner v. New York (1905)
1) height of judicial activism
2) Bakcground: new york passes Bakeshop act, regulating work hours of bakers
3) Q: Does NY have authority to regulate work hours?
4) Majority (Peckham)
a) grant police power of state - safety, health, morals
b) Danger: Meddlesome interference to right to contract, right to work
c) No rational basis for regulation
5) Dissent (Holmes)
a) SCOTUS imposing its own economic view
b) const is neutral on economics
c) leave to the people
6) dissent (Harlan)
- rational basis
- plausible legislative motive?
Meyer v. Nebraska (1923)
1) Background: law forbidding teaching of german un elementary schools
2) Preventing teachers from teaching languages other than english violates due process clause, intefering with calling in life– orderly pursuit of happiness— state interest of promoting common cultur not enough, bigger issue with child being subordinate to state
3) overturn
Palko v. Connecticut (1937)
1) background - A man had been charged with first-degree murder. He was convicted instead of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The state appealed and won a new trial; this time the court found the man guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death.
2) Does a man’s second conviction violate the protection against double jeopardy guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment because this protection applies to the states by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause?
3) Majority - selective incorporation
14th guarentees rights implicit in the concept of ordered liberty
- rooted in traditions and concsience
- fair justice impossible without
- necessary for liberty or justice
Double Jeaporady?
simply trial without error
sate not attempting to wear out the accused
Total vs. Selective incorporation
1) Total incorporation
- apply all of the bill of rights against the states
2) selective incorporation
- appply only the “fundamental” rights from the Bill of Rights
- PALKO
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
1) Background - state passes law bannig use of contraception
2) Q: Does constitution protect a right to marital privacy against the prohibition of contraception
3) targeted right: contraception/ privacy
4) majority yes, law overturned, right to privacy comes from a penumbral emanations o fenumerated rights (1st, 2rd, 4th, 5th)
5) concurrence - harlan - substantive due process
5) dissent - if penumbral why not enumerated? standing tradition against contraception - leave to leg.
Roe v. Wade (1972)
1) Facts: Texas passed a law making it illegal to perform an abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother (no exceptions for rape or incest)
2) Majority - right to privacy in 14th amendments concept of personal liberty encompasses right to have an abortion
harm: mental + physical, financial, opportunities
Societal interest: protect potential life: viability
results in trimester framework
3) dissents abortion not fundamental, not rooted in tradition defer to leg with rational basis
Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992)
1) Facts
Pennsylvania law regulatign abortion providers
- informed consent, 24 hour waiting period
- parental/judicial consent for minors
- spousal notification
- detailed records kept
2) redifining liberty (Kennedy)
- personal decisions, dignity and autonomy central to liberty under 14th
- heart of liberty passage - define ones existence
3) majority (o’connor) Undue burden standard
may not hinder choice of women
informed consent ok. beneficial health regulation, records, consent ok, spousal notification not ok, too large of burden
4) Dissent (Scalia)
- leave to legislative (state may prohibit or permit)
- imposing judicial values
- debatable standards: leave to debating branch
6) Takeaways
- abortion as fundamental right - heart of liberty = dingity and autonomy
- state interest of important life, has room for regulation
but no undue burden
Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt
1) background - Texas regulation of abortion providers
- admitting privileges requirement
- surgical center requirement
2) majority - both requirements place undue burden on women, no evidence of health benefits
3) dissents alito - more evidence, thomas invented right overturn roe and casey
Undue Burden test
1) introduced by o connor in Casey, applied in hellerstedt
2) sate regulation places substantial obstacel in the path of women seeking to abort a non viable fetus
- regulation expressing respect for unborn permitted, so long as no undue burden
- informed choice, state may persuade not hinder
- informed consent = wise exercise of a right
- health regulations okay even if incidental closure of clinics results (not cause) see gonzales
Moore v East Cleveland (1977)
1) facts
housing ordinance imited occupancy of dwellling unit to members of a single fam, grandmother lived with childeren adn grandchilderen in violation
2) Plurality
- intrusive regulation of family, with no imp oor narroely tailored state interest
- right to familial life, common home, fundamental, rooted in tradition
3) brennan: criticize def of tradition, culture
Michael v. Gerald (1989)
1) facts: biological father being denied visitation, adulter, legal father as one in marriage
2) Plurality: Scalia
- need for restraint, cannot grat all rights
- focus on historical rights
– no historical adulterers right
– historical respect for family unit
3) Brennan v. Scalia
- crtique focus on tradition, malleable, irrelevent?
- not most spec level of right
- rights to guard against prejeduices - antagonism to non-traditional relationship
scalia
- why priveledge non conformity, no reason = defer, must limit expansive rights with narrow def, judiciary needs clear standards
Washington v. Glucksberg (1997)
1) background - Washington ban on doctor assisted suicide
2) Q: deny competent terminally ill adults right to die?
3) A: not a fundamental right
- state interest: protect life, vulnerable
- uphold medical ethics, integrity
4) limit on substantive due process!
- narrow description of right
- legal/tradition history
Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
1) background: anti-sodomy law, police entered residence, witnessed sodomy, arrested lawrence
2) Q: do criminal convictions for sexual activity between two consulting adults violate equal protection
3) Majority (Kennedy)
- reject narrow interpretaion in right (sexual conduct see Bowers)
- right to personal intimacy, sexuality as expression
- expansive reading of 14th, meant to evolve
- fundamental right resticted, moral dissaproval insufficient not compelling (romer)
Overturn Bowers - always wrong, harmful, noharm in overturn
4) Concurrence (o’Connor)
Equal protection - one group for unequal treatment, moral dissaproval not rational (rational basis with bite) i.e. romer
5) Scalia (dissent)
1) court intruding on cultural debate
2) no limmits to new standard
3) other laws based on moral judgement
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
1) facts: groups of same sex couples sued relevant states with bans on same sex marriage
- violate equal protection and due process
2) Q: does 14thy amendment require that homosexual couples be allowed to marry?
3) majority (Kennedy - overturn bans
a) cannot limit rights to history - guide inquiry but not set boundaries, framers meant const to evolve
b) marriage is a fundamental right
- denial = discrimination
c) Fundamental rights not left to vote
3) Dissents
- Roberts - no const basis, asserting policy preference
- Scalia - undermine democracy, using philsophu
Thomas - marriage is a positive right
Alito - court asserting moral preference over dissenters
Shaw v. Reno (1993)
1) Facts: North Carolina draws up voting districts such that only one has black majority, rejected by AG. Plan challenged as drawn up on racial basis
2) Is a racially jerrymandered district a judicial issue under the 14th amendment?
3) majority: (o connor) yes
- harm; stereotyping - uniform racial view?
- socially divisive
- can be unconst since arranging voters on race
4) dissent
- poses no harm to insular and discrete minority
- inc national rep.
