US Constitutional Cases

DUE PROCESS

Substantive Due Process

Lochner v. New York*

o The Bakeshop Act was a New York state labor law which prohibited bakery employees
from working for more than sixty hours per week or ten hours per day. Lochner permitted
an employee to work in his bakery for more than sixty hours in one week and was
convicted of his second offense and fined
o Held: Not a valid labor law (cannot readjust bargaining power unless bakers were not as
intelligent as other workers or needed unusual protection); not a valid safety or health
measure since bakers are not an especially endangered group and longer working hours
did not affect quality of goods
o there was no reasonable ground for interfering with the right of free contract by
determining a baker’s hours of labor. Under such circumstances, the freedom of master
and employee to contract with each other in relation to their employment cannot be
prohibited or interfered with without violating the Constitution.
Meyer v. Nebraska
o Facts: Plaintiff was convicted for teaching a child German under a Nebraska statute that
outlawed the teaching of foreign languages to students that had not yet completed the
eighth grade.
o Held: The statute as applied is unconstitutional because it infringes on the liberty
interests of the plaintiff and fails to reasonably relate to any end within the competency
of the state.
o Education is a fundamental liberty interest that must be protected, and mere
knowledge of the German language cannot be reasonably regarded as harmful.
Pierce v. Society of Sisters
o Oregon’s Compulsory Education Act: the Act required all parents and guardians to send
children between 8 and 16 years to a public school.
o Held: The Act violates the 14th Amendment because it interferes with protected liberty
interests and has no reasonable relationship to any purpose within the competency of
the state.
o The state has the power to regulate all schools, but parents and guardians have the right
and duty to choose the appropriate preparation for their children.
Buck v. Bell
o Carrie Buck is deemed an imbecile by the courts
o An Act of Virginia, approved March 20, 1924, recites that the health of the patient and
the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental
defectives, under careful safeguard, that the sterilization may be effected in males by
vasectomy and in females by salpingectomy, without serious pain or substantial danger to
life
o Held: The procedure can be no doubt had the due process of law. Carrie Buck is the
probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, the she may
be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health, and that her welfare and
that of society will be promoted by her sterilization.
Grisworld v. Connecticut
o 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.
o 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.
Stanley v. Georgia
o The Petitioner, Stanley’s (Petitioner) home was being searched for evidence of
bookmaking when officers found obscene films.
o Law: prohibits the possession of obscene materials
o Held: The government is not allowed to dictate to people what they will and will not
read, watch or enjoy. The Constitution strictly protects an individual from such
unwarranted intrusion and control.
Roe v. Wade
o Jane Roe, a pregnant mother who wished to obtain an abortion, sued on behalf of all
woman similarly situated in an effort to prevent the enforcement of Texas statutes
criminalizing all abortions except those performed to save the life of the mother.
o Law: Texas statutes made it a crime to procure or attempt an abortion except when
medically advised for the purpose of saving the life of the mother
o Held: The Court finds that an abortion statute that forbids all abortions except in the
case of a life saving procedure on behalf of the mother is unconstitutional based upon
the right to privacy.
o A woman has a right to abortion but needs to be subjected to State regulation—to
uphold a compelling state interest, such as the health of the mother or the viable fetus.
o Regulation (criticized for judicial legislation):
o For the stage prior to the approximate end of the first trimester, the abortion
decision must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s
attending physician, and may not be criminalized by statute.
o For the stage subsequent to the approximate end of the first trimester, the
State may regulate abortion in ways reasonably related to maternal health
based upon the State’s interest in promoting the health of the mother.
o For the stage subsequent to viability, the State may regulate and even
proscribe abortion, except where necessary for the preservation of the
mother’s life, based upon the State’s interest in the potential of the potential
life of the unborn child.

Case v. State of Pennsylvania

o Facts: The Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act (the “Act”) imposed several obligations
on women seeking abortions and medical practitioners. he Act exempted compliance
with the obligations in the event of a medical emergency. The constitutionality of the
Act was brought into question.
o Issues and Held:
1. Was the requirement of the Act that a woman give her informed consent prior
to obtaining an abortion procedure constitutional under the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution?
  Because the informed consent requirement facilitates the wise exercise
of a woman’s right to an abortion it cannot be said to impose an undue
burden on the right Roe protects.

2. Was the requirement that a woman be provided with certain information at

least 24 hours before an abortion procedure is performed constitutional under
the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution?
 The idea that important decisions will be more informed if they follow
some period of reflection (24-hours) does not strike us as unreasonable

3. Was the requirement that a minor get a parent’s consent to have an abortion,
but providing for a judicial bypass where necessary, constitutional under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution?
 Because petitioners’ argument regarding parental consent is essentially
a reprise of their argument against informed consent, we reject
petitioners’ argument here as before and find parental consent proper
4. Was the requirement that a married woman sign a statement indicating that she
has notified her husband of her intended abortion, unless an exception applies,
constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution?
 Because there are very good reasons, e.g., fear of abuse, for a woman’s
not wishing to inform her husband of her decision to obtain an abortion,
the spousal notification requirement is an undue burden, and therefore
invalid.

5. Was the requirement imposing certain reporting requirements on facilities that

provide abortions constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution?
 Because the recordkeeping and reporting requirements do relate to
health, it cannot be said that they serve no purpose other than to make
abortions more difficult. Therefore, we find such requirements proper.

o Held: The Supreme Court does decide to change the methodological structure Roe
announced for evaluating whether particular laws burdening a woman’s right to an
abortion amount to constitutional violations. Rejecting the trimester framework of
Roe, the Supreme Court here announces the undue burden analysis, whereby a law is
held unconstitutional it is poses an undue burden on a woman at a stage of her
pregnancy before the fetus has become viable. Justice O’Connor, for the majority,
writes that the trimester framework was never intended to be the essence of the
holding in Roe. The essence of Roe, writes Justice O’Connor, was that a woman’s
right to have an abortion is fundamental.