Skinner+v.+Oklahoma

=Skinner v. Oklahoma= 316 U.S. 535 (1942)

This case considered the Oklahoma Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, which authorized courts to order any person who had been convicted at least twice of crimes involving "moral turpitude" to be sterilized.

The petitioner had been convicted once of stealing chickens, and a second time of armed robbery. He challenged the Sterilization Act on grounds of due process, cruel and unusual punishment, and equal protection. The Court's analysis focused only on equal protection.

The Court noted how uneven the Act's application was. For example, grand larceny was a felony not subject to the Act, yet embezzlement was subject to the Act. In an extreme example, this means that a thief who stole $20 from a store two times might have been sentenced to sterilization, yet a cashier at that same store who stole the entire contents of the cash drawer from his employer could not be sterilized, no matter how many times he did it. This was so despite the fact that "the nature of the two crimes [was] intrinsically the same and they [were otherwise] punishable in the same manner."

The primary holding of the Court recognized a fundamental right to procreation:

"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. . . . He is forever deprived of a basic liberty." (emphasis added)

It has been suggested that the Court may have been especially sensitive to infringement of human rights of this type because of Nazi practices against Jews and other minorities during the ongoing World War II.