Estelle T. Griswold and Dr. Charles Lee Buxton vs. Connecticut 381 U.S.

479 June 7, 1965

FACTS: Appellant Estelle T. Griswold was executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, an organization that educates the public about birth control. Dr. Charles Lee Buxton was chairman of Yale University's obstetrics department. On November 1, 1961, Griswold and Buxton opened a birth control clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. Nine days later, Griswold and Buxton were arrested and their clinic was closed due to the violation of a Connecticut law when they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined a wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Appellants claimed that the accessory statute as applied violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In addition, they argued that Connecticut's law violated the freedom of speech by preventing doctors from counseling patients about birth control. The trial judge rejected this argument. Griswold and Buxton were found guilty and fined $100 each. Both the Appellate Division and the State Supreme Court of Errors affirmed the convictions, saying the law was valid under Connecticut's police power to protect public health and safety. Griswold and Buxton appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

ISSUES: 1. Whether or not Griswold and Buxton have legal standing to question the constitutionality of the Connecticut law?

2. Whether or not the Connecticut law involving the prohibition of the use of contraceptives is constitutional?

HELD:

1. Yes, by reason of a criminal conviction for serving married couples in violation of an aiding-and-abetting statute. Certainly the accessory should have standing to assert that the offense which he is charged with assisting is not, or cannot constitutionally be, a crime.

2. No. Based on the Constitution, there are no provisions pertaining to the right to privacy. However, the Judges ruled in majority that the Bill of Rights has penumbras and that 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments imply the zones of privacy. They also added that the due process clause in the 14th Amendment impliedly included such right to privacy. As previously held by the Supreme Court in other cases like Meyer vs. Nebraska, although there were no specific provisions with respect with the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language, still the court ruled in favor of the petitioner for it adds knowledge to the person and does not, in anyway, impair its mental functions. The law should be construed as to give effect its purpose and intent. The due process law is wherein the State shall protect the right to be safe from unfair arrests and shall not deprive the right to liberty, meaning freedom, without following fair procedures. The U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a state law that prohibited the use and distribution of contraceptives because enforcement of the law would violate the Constitution by allowing police entry into the bedrooms of married couples and intruding its sensitive area of privacy. The intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution that the State not only must allow, but which always and in every age it has fostered and protected. It is the couples personal right that is protected by the Constitution and no one but except themselves can decide as to how they are going to establish their family life.