Brief Fact Summary. Under Oklahoma law, a person convicted a third time of certain specified crimes involving “moral turpitude” received the punishment of sterilization. Persons convicted a third time of other similar crimes were not. The constitutionality of this distinction was brought into question.
Synopsis of Rule of Law. When the law concerning those who have committed intrinsically the same type of offense punishes one, but not the other by depriving the one of a fundamental right, an invidious discrimination has been made.
The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, farreaching and devastating effects.
View Full Point of LawIssue. Was the Act, calling for the sterilization of certain multiple offenders but not others, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (Constitution)?
Held. Yes. The judgment affirmed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma that the vasectomy be performed is reversed.
Justice William Douglas stated sterilization of repeat offenders of grand larceny, with immunity for repeat offenders of embezzlement, is an unmistakable discrimination. Oklahoma has put forward no proof, nor do we have any basis to conclude, that traits for crimes resulting in sterilization are any more inheritable than are traits for crimes exempt from sterilization. The right to procreate is one of the most basic civil rights.
Concurrence. Chief Justice Harlan Stone (J. Stone) concurred in the result. J. Stone I thought the real question, however, is whether the wholesale condemnation of a class to an invasion of personal liberty without the opportunity to prove he is not of the type the law presumes him to be, is a violation of due process.
Discussion. The Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court) declares that the right implicated by the distinction here is a fundamental one, thereby subjecting the law to the strict scrutiny standard of review. Arguably, the Supreme Court could have invalidated the Oklahoma law, providing starkly differing treatment as between embezzlers and larceners, on the grounds of the rational basis standard of review.