Opinion ID: 1477292
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Cases from Other States Analyzed by Judge Eldridge in Burning Tree I

Text: In Burning Tree I, Judge Eldridge also examined cases from other jurisdictions interpreting state constitutional amendments similar to Maryland's ERA, Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 96-98, 501 A.2d at 839-40, and recognized that courts in Massachusetts, Washington and Illinois interpreted ERA provisions in their own constitutions to require strict scrutiny of sex classifications. [20] Id. That body of case law helped shape our own interpretation of the ERA, and supports the idea that strict scrutiny should apply here. [21] See, e.g., Rand, 280 Md. at 512, 374 A.2d at 903 (Cases from other state jurisdictions interpreting the breadth and meaning of their equal rights amendments are instructive in ascertaining the reach of Maryland's E.R.A.). For example, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts interpreted the Massachusetts ERA [22] to require application of the strict scrutiny-compelling State interest test to assess  any governmental classification based solely on sex. Opinion of the Justices to the House of Representatives, 374 Mass. 836, 371 N.E.2d 426, 428 (1977) (emphasis added). The court considered whether a proposed statute, House No. 6723, barring girls from participation with boys in football and wrestling, was permitted by the ERA. [23] The court compared decisions from a number of states that had adopted equal rights amendments, and held that the purpose of the ERA was to require, when evaluating sex-based equal protection claims, strict scrutiny rather than intermediate scrutiny, [24] the standard applied by federal and state courts to sex-based equal protection claims under the Fourteenth Amendment. Opinion of the Justices, 371 N.E.2d at 428 (To use a standard in applying the Commonwealth's equal rights amendment which requires any less than the strict scrutiny test would negate the purpose of the equal rights amendment and the intention of the people in adopting it.). Application of strict scrutiny led the court to conclude that the proposed legislation would be unconstitutional: The enactment of House No. 6723 would violate [the Massachusetts ERA]. The absolute prohibition in the proposed legislation cannot survive the close scrutiny to which a statutory classification based solely on sex must be subjected. A prohibition of all females from voluntary participation in a particular sport under every possible circumstance serves no compelling State interest. Id. at 429-30. Judge Eldridge also relied upon Darrin v. Gould, 85 Wash.2d 859, 540 P.2d 882, 893 (1975), in which the Supreme Court of Washington invalidated a ban on girls' participation on high school football teams. A school district in Washington had prohibited two sisters from playing on a football team because their participation was barred by a rule of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), a statewide association of high schools. Id. at 883-84. As a preliminary matter, the court addressed the applicable standard of review under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and its State counterpart, Article I, Section 12 of the Washington Constitution. [25] Having held less than two years previously, in a case where the ERA [26] was inapplicable, [27] that under Washington law, sex would be regarded as an inherently suspect classification triggering strict scrutiny, Hanson v. Hutt, 83 Wash.2d 195, 517 P.2d 599, 603 (1973), [28] the court held that adoption of the ERA required an even more stringent standard than strict scrutiny. Darrin v. Gould, 85 Wash.2d 859, 540 P.2d 882, 889 (1975) (Presumably the people in adopting Const. art. 31 intended to do more than repeat what was already contained in the otherwise governing constitutional provisions, federal and state, by which discrimination based on sex was permissible under the rational relationship and strict scrutiny tests.). Henceforth, in Washington, [t]he overriding compelling state interest as adopted by the people of this state in 1972 is that: Equality of rights and responsibility under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Id. at 893. Because the involvement of public high schools in the WIAA implicated the state action doctrine, id. at 891, the court applied the overriding compelling state interest embodied in the ERA to invalidate the statewide ban on girls' participation in high school interscholastic football. Id. at 893. A third case relied upon by Judge Eldridge in Burning Tree I was People v. Ellis, 57 Ill.2d 127, 311 N.E.2d 98, 101 (1974), in which the Supreme Court of Illinois interpreted the ERA [29] to require that classifications based on sex be regarded as suspect, and therefore, require `strict judicial scrutiny.' From the plain language of the ERA and its legislative history, the court found inescapable the conclusion that the purpose of the ERA was to supplement and expand the guaranties of the equal protection provision of the Bill of Rights of the Federal Constitution. Id. Under a strict scrutiny analysis, the court held that a statute permitting 17-year-old boys to be charged as adults for certain crimes, but requiring 17-year-old girls to be tried as juveniles, violated the Illinois ERA. [30] Id. at 99, 101.