GRISWOLD ET AL. V. CONNECTICUT No. 496 SUPREME COURT OF
GRISWOLD ET AL. v. CONNECTICUT No. 496 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 381 U.S. 479; 85 S. Ct. 1678; 14 L. Ed. 2d 510; 1965 U.S. LEXIS 2282 March 29, 1965, Argued June 7, 1965, Decided PRIOR HISTORY: APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF ERRORS OF CONNECTICUT. DISPOSITION: 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479, reversed. SUMMARY: A Connecticut statute made the use of contraceptives a criminal offense. The executive and medical directors of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut were convicted in the Circuit Court for the Sixth Circuit in New Haven, Connecticut, on a charge of having violated the statute as accessories by giving information, instruction, and advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed and its judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut. (151 Conn 544, 200 A2d 479.) On appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed. In an opinion by Douglas, J., expressing the views of five members of the Court, it was held that (1) the defendants had standing to attack the statute, and (2) the statute was invalid as an unconstitutional invasion of the right of privacy of married persons. Goldberg, J., with whom Warren, Ch.J., and Brennan, J., concurred, joined the opinion of the Court, elaborating in a separate opinion the view that the Fourteenth Amendment concept of liberty protects those personal rights that are fundamental, and is not confined to the specific terms of the Bill of Rights. Harlan, J., concurred in the result, expressing the view that the statute violated basic values implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.
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