Court Limits Sterilization of Offenders: “Skinner v. Oklahoma”
The Supreme Court on this day declared unconstitutional an Oklahoma law that permitted the sterilization of criminal offenders after they had two or more convictions of crimes of “moral turpitude”
The case of Skinner v. Oklahoma involved the Oklahoma Habitual Criminal Offender Sterilization Act. White collar crimes, such as embezzlement, were not covered by the law, however. The purpose of the law was essentially eugenic, to prevent people with alleged criminogenic genes from reproducing. With William O. Douglas writing the majority opinion, the Supreme Court declared the law an unconstitutional violation of the equal protection clause. Douglas asked rhetorically whether the person who uses trickery to commit a burglary has genetic characteristics that an embezzler lacks.
The most memorable aspect of the decision was Justice Douglas’ opening reference to the “one of the basic human rights” of marriage and reproduction. Justice Douglas later wrote the majority opinion in Griswold v. Connnecticut on June 7, 1965, establishing a constitutional right to privacy in a case involving access to birth control devices.
And in an important development, Justice Douglas’ opinion in Skinner introduced the concept of “strict scrutiny,” which eventually became the guiding principle in adjudicating equal protection cases.
The Skinner decision departed from the notorious Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, decided on May 2, 1927, in which it upheld the involuntary sterilization of the allegedly “feebleminded” Carrie Buck. Importantly, however, the Skinner decision did not specifically overrule Buck v. Bell, nor did it declare sterilizations inherently unconstitutional. Thus, state sterilization of criminals and people believed to be mentally defective continued into the 1970s. (see In Reckless Hands, below).
Justice William O. Douglas: “We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race. The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching and devastating effects. In evil or reckless hands, it can cause races or types which are inimical to the dominant group to wither and disappear. There is no redemption for the individual whom the law touches. Any experiment which the State conducts is to his irreparable injury. He is forever deprived of a basic liberty.”
Read: Victoria Nourse, In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahomah and the Near Triumph of American Eugenics (2008)
Read the acclaimed new book on Buck v. Bell: Adam Cohen, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck (2016)
Learn more about the history of sterilization: Harry Bruinius, Better for all the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity (2006)
Learn about forced sterilization at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/learn/students/learning-materials-and-resources/mentally-and-physically-handicapped-victims-of-the-nazi-era/forced-sterilization
And more: Randall Hansen and Desmond S. King, Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth-century North America (2013)