Skinner v. Oklahoma

Skinner v. Oklahoma
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued May 6, 1942 Decided June 1, 1942
Full case name	Skinner v. Oklahoma ex. rel. Williamson, Attorney General
Citations	316 U.S. 535 (more) 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655
Case history
Prior	Skinner v. State, 139 Okla. 235 (Okla., 1941), 115 P.2d 123
Subsequent	Skinner v. State, 195 Okla. 106 (Okla., 195), 155 P.2d 715
Holding
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. Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone Associate Justices Owen Roberts · Hugo Black Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy James F. Byrnes · Robert H. Jackson
Case opinions
Majority	Douglas, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Stone
Concurrence	Jackson
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amendment XIV
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Buck v. Bell (1927) (in part)

Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), is a unanimous United States Supreme Court ruling^[1] that held that laws permitting the compulsory sterilization of criminals are unconstitutional as it violates a person's rights given under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause.^[2][3][4] The relevant Oklahoma law applied to "habitual criminals" but excluded white-collar crimes from carrying sterilization penalties.