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Loving v. Virginia

Supreme Court of the United States · 1967 · Constitutional Law

equal protectiondue processracemarriagefundamental rightsConstitutional LawFourteenth AmendmentEqual Protection Clause

Facts

Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were Virginia residents who married in the District of Columbia in 1958 pursuant to its laws and then returned to Virginia to live. A Virginia grand jury indicted them under statutes prohibiting interracial marriage, and they pleaded guilty. The trial court sentenced them to one year in jail, suspended for 25 years on the condition that they leave Virginia and not return together for 25 years. They later challenged the constitutionality of the Virginia antimiscegenation statutes under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Issue

Whether Virginia's statutory scheme prohibiting and punishing marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. More specifically, the question was whether equal punishment of both participants in an interracial marriage was enough to save the statutes from constitutional invalidity.

Rule

The Equal Protection Clause forbids state statutes resting solely on racial classifications unless those classifications are shown to be necessary to accomplish some permissible state objective independent of the invidious racial discrimination the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to eliminate; equal application to both races does not suffice. The Due Process Clause protects the freedom to marry as a fundamental liberty, and that freedom may not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Alabama, a statute makes it a felony for any "white person" to marry any "nonwhite person." The law imposes the same prison term on both spouses, and state prosecutors argue that the statute is constitutional because it punishes each participant equally.

If a convicted couple challenges the statute under the Fourteenth Amendment, what is the strongest response?

Explanation. The majority rejected the state's equal-application argument. A criminal statute built on racial classifications is not saved merely because both races receive the same punishment. Such classifications trigger the most rigid scrutiny and must be necessary to achieve a permissible state objective independent of invidious racial discrimination. A ban on marriage based solely on race fails that test.