Griswold v Connecticut

Brief Fact Summary. Appellants were charged with violating a statute preventing the distribution of
advice to married couples regarding the prevention of conception. Appellants claimed that the statute
violated the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Synopsis of Rule of Law. The right of a married couple to privacy is protected by the Constitution.

Facts. Appellant Griswold, Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut and
Appellant Buxton, a licensed physician who served as Medical Director for the League at its Center in
New Haven, were arrested and charged with giving information, instruction, and medical advice to
married persons on means of preventing conception. Appellants were found guilty as accessories and
fined $100 each. Appellants appealed on the theory that the accessory statute as applied violated the
14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Appellants claimed standing based on their
professional relationship with the married people they advised.

Issue. Does the Constitution provide for a privacy right for married couples?

Held. The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion,
which although not expressly included in the Amendment, is necessary to make the express guarantees
meaningful. The association of marriage is a privacy right older than the Bill of Rights, and the State’s
effort to control marital activities in this case is unnecessarily broad and therefore impinges on
protected Constitutional freedoms.

Dissent. Justice Stewart and Justice Black. Although the law is silly, it is not unconstitutional. The citizens
of Connecticut should use their rights under the 9th and 10th Amendment to convince their elected
representatives to repeal it if the law does not conform to their community standards.

Concurrence. Justice Goldberg, the Chief Justice, and Justice Brennan. The right to privacy in marriage is
so basic and fundamental that to allow it to be infringed because it is not specifically addressed in the
first eight amendments is to give the 9th Amendment no effect.
Justice Harlan. The relevant statute violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment because if
violates the basic values implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.

Discussion. The right to privacy in marriage is not specifically protected in either the Bill of Rights or the
Constitution. Nonetheless, it is a right so firmly rooted in tradition that its protection is mandated by
various Constitutional Amendments, including the 1st, 9th and 14th Amendments.

In Griswold, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a state law that prohibited the use and
distribution of contraceptives because enforcement of the law would allow the police entry into the
bedrooms of married couples. Declared the U.S. Supreme Court: "Would we allow the police to search
the sacred precincts of the marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very
idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship."