Opinion ID: 3047693
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Substantive Due Process, Generally

Text: [11] Although the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause states only that “[n]o person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” see U.S. Const. amend. V, it unquestionably provides substantive protections for certain unenumerated fundamental rights.11 “The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process, and the ‘liberty’ it protects includes more than the absence of physical restraint.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 719 (1997); see also Planned Parenthood of S.E. Penn. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 847 (1992) (“It is tempting, as a means of curbing the discretion of federal judges, to suppose that liberty encompasses no more than those rights already guaranteed to the individual against federal interference by the express provisions of the first eight Amendments to the Constitution. But of course this Court has never accepted that view.” (internal citation omitted)). As Justice Harlan put it over forty years ago: [T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This ‘liberty’ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly 11 Although the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is applicable here, cases finding substantive rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause are equally relevant. See Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000) (“We have long recognized that the Amendment’s Due Process Clause, like its Fifth Amendment counterpart, guarantees more than fair process. The Clause also includes a substantive component that provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests.” (emphasis added) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted)). RAICH v. GONZALES 3045 speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment. Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 543 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (citations omitted); see also Casey, 505 U.S. at 849 (noting that Justice Harlan’s position was adopted by the Court in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)). These contentions find support in the Ninth Amendment, which provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” U.S. Const. amend. IX. In Glucksberg, the Supreme Court set forth the two elements of the substantive due process analysis. First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” such that “neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.” Second, we have required in substantivedue-process cases a “careful description” of the asserted fundamental liberty interest. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 720-21 (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has a long history of recognizing unenumerated fundamental rights as protected by substantive due process, even before the term evolved into its modern usage. See, e.g., Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (to have an abortion); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) (same); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972) (to use contraception); Griswold, 381 U.S. 479 (to use contraception, to marital privacy); Lov3046 RAICH v. GONZALES ing v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (to marry); Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952) (to bodily integrity); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942) (to have children); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925) (to direct the education and upbringing of one’s children); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) (same). But the Court has cautioned against the doctrine’s expansion. See Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 720 (stating that the Court must restrain the expansion of substantive due process “because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this uncharted area are scarce and open-ended” and because judicial extension of constitutional protection for an asserted substantive due process right “place[s] the matter outside the arena of public debate and legislative action” (citations omitted)); Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 302 (1993) (noting that “[t]he doctrine of judicial self-restraint requires us to exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to break new ground in this field” (quoting Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125 (1992))). Bearing that rubric in mind, we consider Raich’s substantive due process claim. In the present case, it is helpful to begin with the second step — the description of the asserted fundamental right — before determining whether the right is deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.