Griswold V. Court Case Analysis

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 which were acting in privacy. The case attracted much of the public

John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham have been recognized as the founders of Utilitarianism. Contrary to Kant’s moral theories, Utilitarian’s would disagree with most of Kant’s theory. While Kant believed that it is the intention of the action that should be recognized as moral or unmoral, J.S Mill and Bentham would say that it is in fact the outcome of said action that determines morality.

"The Court today is correct in holding that the right asserted by Jane Roe is embraced within the personal liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is evident that the Texas abortion statute infringes that right directly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more complete abridgment of a constitutional freedom than that worked by the inflexible criminal statute now in force in Texas. The question then becomes whether the state interests advanced to justify this abridgment can survive the 'particularly careful scrutiny' that the Fourteenth Amendment here requires. The asserted state interests are protection of the health and safety of the pregnant woman, and protection of the potential

The Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell displays some clues to the values of early twentieth century American society. The interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution is the lynchpin of the decision, and the values of the court can be derived from it. In this essay I will demonstrate that the ambiguity of the Amendment in question has significant consequences, the ethics of the interpretation of the Amendment is derived form the paternalistic nature of the Constitution, and that equality of the law is subservient to the desire for a homogeneous and comfortable cultural environment.

In his book The Hollow Hope, Gerald Rosenberg’s thesis concerning law and social change is that the courts are ineffective in creating significant social reforms. His main claim is that the courts are too weak to overcome their lack of constitutional rights, their apprehension to make unpopular rulings, and their lack of judicial enforcement powers (Rosenberg). In his view, Rosenberg assesses that under the right legal and social conditions these constraints can be overcome, but ultimately he concludes that the courts can only bring about the illusion of change, stating that, “U.S. courts can almost never be effective producers of significant social reform. At best, they can second the social reform acts of the other branches of government” (Rosenberg 422). Regarding same sex marriage, Rosenberg’s assessment is that while proponents of same sex marriage had the necessary elements to produce social reform, they turned to the courts too early and as a result, the litigation campaign resulted in “one step forward, two steps back” (Rosenberg 368).

Lawrence v Texas was the inspiration of changing the gay rights, and if wasn’t for this case gay rights wouldn’t be where it is today . In the case Lawrence v. Texas, which was the United States Supreme Court case the criminal prohibition of the homosexual consent was invalidated in Texas. John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested for having an illegal type of sex. However this law was only enforced in the state of Texas. Lawrence and Garner's appeal was that what they had been doing was protected the Fourteenth Amendment, which, “prohibits state and local government officials from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without legislative authorization.” The court's final decision was 6-3 in favor of Lawrence.

In Griswold v. Connecticut: Birth Control and the Constitutional Right of Privacy, Johnson outlines the struggle to overturn an 1897 Connecticut anticontraception law while arguing for the right of privacy. In the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, attorney Thomas Emerson argued that the “anticontraception statutes denied Griswold and Buxton their right to liberty and property without due process of law, as guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Furthermore, in constructing the constitutional right of privacy, Emerson cited the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Then, in the Supreme Court’s 1965 majority opinion, Justice William Douglas stated that “The First Amendment… has a penumbra where privacy is protected from government intrusion.” He went on to elaborate that the 1897 Connecticut anticontraception law was unconstitutional because “a law such as Section 53-32 that attempts to punish the mere use of contraceptives ‘sweep[s] unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade[s] the area of protected freedoms.’” Therefore, Griswold was finally able to achieve a fight that had begun fifty years prior.

The case chosen for this research paper is the case of Lawrence V. Texas. In Houston, Texas police officers were dispatched to a private home, responding to a report of weapon disturbance. Inside the home they found John Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaging in a private, consensual sexual act. The two men were arrested and held overnight and charged with violating Texas law, specifically Texas law made the act of two people of the same sex engaging in certain intimate sexual conduct illegal. The two men were then convicted before a Justice of Peace. Lawrence V. Texas asks the question of whether the criminal convictions of Lawrence and Garner under the “Homosexual Conduct” law of Texas was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was argued

Jeremy Bentham is widely regarded as the father of utilitarianism. He was born in 1748 into a family of lawyers and was himself, training to join the profession. During this process however, he became disillusioned by the state British law was in and set out to reform the system into a perfect one based on the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle,’ ‘the idea that pleasurable consequences are what qualify an action as being morally good’. Bentham observed that we are all governed by pain and pleasure; we all

The first Supreme Court case that I listened to was one brought forth in front of the Warren Court in 1965. The case of Griswold v. Connecticut is a very significant case regarding contraceptive use, counsel and advice with married couples. The case later played a great reference in the Constitutional rights for abortion. The Griswold v. Connecticut case went in front of the Supreme Court in March and was passed a few months later in June by a vote of 7-2 in favor of Griswold.

Imagine you can’t have sexual intimacy with your partner. Or, not in the way you’d prefer. Before 2003, Texas had sodomy laws. These laws, in Texas, prevented specifically same-sex couples from engaging in sexual intercourse. In 2003, based on a call about a weapons disturbance, police officers entered John Lawrence’s apartment, where they found him and Tyron Garner engaged in sexual intercourse. This went against the Sodomy Laws. They were brought to court, and eventually the case was brought to Supreme Court; where Paul M. Smith argued that this law, this denial of privacy in a way, was unconstitutional. It went against both the eighth and the fourteenth amendment. In the case of Lawrence v Texas, the Supreme Court made the right decision

In Bowers v Hardwick, the Court upheld the Georgia law that prohibited the act of sodomy, the Court concluded that the consensual sexual act was not protected under the privacy rights as it was articulated in Griswold and Roe as it showed no similarity to Bowers. Conversely, in Lawrence v. Texas, the Court overruled Bowers and declared the Texas law that prohibited “private consensual sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex” (Chemerinsky 881)

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution is considered by many to be the catchall amendment within the reconstruction amendments that passed not long after the Civil War. Its due process and especially the equal protection clause have single handily changed the course of American History for all eternity. I believe that there are several key issues that plague the way our highest court approaches matters of sexual orientation and other issues as well. In this document I intend to explore what events of the past led to the constitutional interpretation of today regarding the fourteenth. In doing so we will travel over the course of a century or more in time and see the social landscape of a nation evolve based upon new societal interpretations and little more.

Jeremy Bentham was one of the first philosophers to present a fully developed system of utilitarianism. He thought that we, as humans, should evaluate the consequences of our actions, determine whether each action is morally right or wrong, and tally the pleasure and pain that comes as a result of our actions. Is it right for me to donate to charity? Is it right for me to cheat on my government test? These questions we ask ourselves fall under Bentham’s theory known as act-utilitarianism because it focuses on the consequences of every action we perform. Bentham argues that the “greatest happiness of the greatest number of people” (Bentham) is how we should determine right from wrong. He also believed “mankind is under the

Jeremy Bentham was a man of many hats. He was a British philosopher, a jurist, and a social reformer. He fought for women’s rights, animal rights, the end of slavery, the separation between church and state, and many other things. Many of these beliefs were very radical for his time and very forward thinking. Bentham was the founder of utilitarianism, the belief that human beings by nature strive for pleasure and the avoidance of pain and evaluating a human being based on their consequences and their net pleasure and pain.