Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/316-u-s-535-606446366
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:03:22+00:00

Document:
1. A statute of Oklahoma provides for the sterilization, by vasectomy or salpingectomy, of "habitual criminals" -- an habitual criminal being defined therein as any person who, having been convicted two or more times, in Oklahoma or in any other State, of "felonies involving moral turpitude," is thereafter convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in Oklahoma for such a crime. Expressly excepted from the terms of the statute are certain offenses, including embezzlement. As applied to one who was convicted once of stealing chickens and twice of robbery, held that the statute violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 537.
2. The State Supreme Court having sustained the Act, as applied to the petitioner here, without reference to a severability clause, the question whether that clause would be so applied as to remove the particular constitutional objection is one which may appropriately be left for adjudication by the state court. P. 542.
offenses arising out of the violation of the prohibitory laws, revenue acts, embezzlement, or political offenses, shall not come or be considered within the terms of this Act.
of the state of scientific authorities respecting inheritability of criminal traits.1 It is argued that due process is lacking [62 S.Ct. 1112] because, under this Act, unlike the Act2 upheld in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, the defendant is given no opportunity to be heard on the issue as to whether he is the probable potential parent of socially undesirable offspring. See Davis v. Berry, 216 F. 413; Williams v. Smith, 190 Ind. 526, 131 N.E. 2. It is also suggested that the Act is penal in character, and that the sterilization provided for is cruel and unusual punishment and violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Davis v. Berry, supra. Cf. State v. Felen, 70 Wash. 65, 126 P. 75; Mickle v. Henrichs, 262 F. 687. We pass those points without intimating an opinion on them, for there is a feature of the Act which clearly condemns it. That is its failure to meet the requirements of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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