Richard and Mildred Loving were prosecuted on charges of violating the Virginia state’s ban on interracial marriages, the 1924 Racial Integrity Act. The Loving’s violated Virginia law when the couple got married in Washington D.C., June 1958. The couple returns to their home in Central Point, Virginia. In the early morning hours of July 11, 1958, the Loving’s were awakened by local county sheriff and deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, burst into their bedroom. “Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?” Mrs. Loving answered “I’m his wife.” Richard Loving pointed to the marriage certificate on the wall. The sheriff responded, “That’s no good here.” In the initial proceedings presiding Judge Leon M. Bazile, is credit with saying “[a]lmighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents,” the judge attests, “[t]he fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix”(Sheppard 1). Upon the initial trail the Loving’s were sentence to one-year each, Bazile agreed to suspend their prison sentences if they would leave the state for 25 years. So the Loving’s opted to live in Washington D.C. only 90 miles from their rural hometown. After five years of sneaking back to Central Pointe, Mildred wrote to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy asking for help. Kennedy referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which assigned Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop to the case. The Loving’s sought review of a judgment from the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia which held that Virginia Code sections 20-58 and 20-59, which were adopted by to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classification, did not violate t... ... middle of paper ... ...f the DNA of every person on the planet is identical. As Professor Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum says, “We are all African under the skin” (Aidi 1). The Loving’s had no idea that this case would change so many lives in America. They weren’t out trying to set legal precedence or become civil rights advocates. As Mildred Loving explains that they just wanted to get back home. http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/africana.htmJanuary 29, 2001Race and the Human GenomeBy Hisham Aidi 388 U.S. 1; 87 S. Ct. 1817; 18 L. Ed. 2d 1010; 1967 U.S. LEXIS 1082. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2014/05/20. Works Cited http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/africana.htmJanuary 29, 2001Race and the Human GenomeBy Hisham Aidi 388 U.S. 1; 87 S. Ct. 1817; 18 L. Ed. 2d 1010; 1967 U.S. LEXIS 1082. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2014/05/20.
202 U.S. 101; 26 S. Ct. 588; 50 L. Ed. 949; 1906 U.S. LEXIS 1522. Date Accessed: 2013/12/04. www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic.
Roper v. Simmons is a perfect example of the evolving role of the Supreme Court, the sources the Supreme Court used to reach the ruling in this case is quite questionable. While I agree with the Supreme Court about protecting the younger citizens of America the Supreme Court must have the law to back up their ruling. Though in this case they do not the Supreme Court used a combination of foreign policy, moral decency, and state laws as the legal foundation for this decision. None of these things are appropriate sources for deciding what is constitutional and what is not. The sources used for deciding the constitutionality of a case are the constitution and federal statues. While the case can be loosely tied in with the eighth amendment clause of “cruel and unusual punishment” there is no backing for the decision made. The Supreme Court with this case decided that it did not overturn the previous case of Stanford v. Kentucky, which ruled on this same issue fifteen years earlier. Yet the court stated that the prevailing moral code had altered therefore they changed their opinion. The truly shocking issue with this is that the neither law nor constitution had changed regarding this issue in the interceding fifteen years. The grave problem with this case is that the Supreme Court used the case of Roper V. Simmons to create law based of invalid sources.
... Book 2002. 2002 edition. Volume 11. Chicago, IL: World book inc., 2002. Page344. Print.
Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durkham, N. C: Duke UP, 1995, 150.
519 U.s 33; 1175 Ct. 417; 136 L.Ed.2d 347; 1996 U.S LEXIS 6971; 65 U.SL.W. 4013; 148 A.L.R. Fed 739; 96 Cal Daily Op. Service 8278; 96 Daily Journal DAR 137361; 10 Fla L. Weekly Fed. S200
...g. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. New York: Pearson, 2013. 549-51. Print.
Lawrence v. Texas In the case Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558, 2003) which was the United States Supreme Court case the criminal prohibition of the homosexual pederasty was invalidated in Texas. The same issue has been already addressed in 1989 in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, however, the constitutional protection of sexual privacy was not found at that time. Lawrence overruled Bowers and held that sexual conduct was the right protected by the due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The effects of the ruling were quite widespread and led to invalidation of the similar laws throughout the United States that tried to criminalize the homosexual activity of adults who were acting in privacy.
33.3 (2008): 268-83. Taylor and Francis. University of New South Wales, 19 Aug. 2008. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.
William Cullen Bryant, II. The New England Quarterly. Vol 21. No 2. (Jun., 1948): 163-184.
Ed. Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2011. 494-507. Print.
...ACLA Report On The Americas 35.2 (2001): 8. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Muller, Gilbert H., and John A. Williams. United States of America: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1985. 61-70.
Grube, G. M. A., and C. D. C. Reeve. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1992. Print.