Title: Imbeciles
Description: "One of America's great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court's infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of "undesirable" citizens the law of the land. New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen tells the story in Imbeciles of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court's decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an "imbecile." It is a story with many villains, from the superintendent of the Dickensian Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded who chose Carrie for sterilization to the former Missouri agriculture professor and Nazi sympathizer who was the nation's leading advocate for eugenic sterilization. But the most troubling actors of all were the eight Supreme Court justices who were in the majority--including William Howard Taft, the former president; Louis Brandeis, the legendary progressive; and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., America's most esteemed justice, who wrote the decision urging the nation to embark on a program of mass eugenic sterilization"--
Subjects: Involuntary sterilization, Trials, litigation, Law and legislation, Eugenics, Medical laws and legislation, united states, United states, supreme court, LAW / Civil Rights, LAW / Legal History, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, nyt:crime-and-punishment=2016-04-10, New York Times bestseller, Trials, History, Involuntary Sterilization, Legislation & jurisprudence, History, 20th Century, HISTORY, 20th Century, LAW, Legal History, Civil Rights, Zwangssterilisation, Eugenik, Sterilization (Birth control), State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded (Va.), Umschulungswerkstätten für Siedler und Auswanderer
Places: United States, Virginia
People: Carrie Buck (1906-1983)