LOVING VS VIRGINIA : CASE SUMMARY
The Supreme Court in Loving Vs Virginia (1967) declared law prohibiting interracial marriage in State of Virginia violative of 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
FACTS OF THE CASE
Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman and Richard Loving, a white man married is District of Columbia. After the marriage Loving set up matrimonial home in Caroline County in Virginia.
Virginia Code prohibited marriage between white and colored persons and any intermarriage was punishable with not less than one year of imprisonment and not more than five year of imprisonment. Further, the Code provided for making all marriage between white persons and colored person void automatically without any judicial proceedings.
Loving was charged with violation of ban on interracial marriage and was sentenced for one year jail but sentence was suspended on the ground that Loving will have to leave Virginia for 25 years.
Loving challenged law prohibiting interracial marriage which ultimately reached to the Supreme court.
OPINION OF THE COURT
The Court noted that Virginia was one of the 16 States which prohibited and punished marriages on the basis of racial classifications. The present scheme dates from the Racial Integrity Act, 1924 passed during period of extreme nativism which followed the end of First World War.
The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia validated the law on the ground that State’s legitimate purposes were to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens and to prevent the corruption of blood. The Court also reasoned that marriage is subject of State regulation without federal intervention.
It was argued by State that the code does not violate 14th Amendment as it applied equally on white as well as colored persons in the sense that members of both races are punished to the same degree. It was also argued by the State that there was rational basis for classifying interracial marriage from other marriages.
The Supreme Court rejected the argument that equal application of laws will remove these laws from rigor of 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court observed that Virginia laws rested solely on distinction based on race. Equal protection clause demands that most rigid scrutiny. If they were to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of racial discrimination which it was object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate.
The Supreme Court observed that there is no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.
The Supreme Court observed that these laws also deprive Loving of due process clause of 14th Amendment. Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subservice of the principle of equality at the heart of 14th Amendment is surely to deprive all the state citizens of liberty without due process of law. The 14th amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry or not cannot be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under the constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of other race resides with the individual and can not be infringed by State.
The Supreme Court reversed the convictions meted out to Loving and Mildred Jeter.
IMPACT OF THE CASE
Loving Vs Virginia was a great civil right victory and caused increase in interracial marriages in USA. The Supreme Court relied on this case while determining validity of same sex marriage in Obergefell Vs Hodges. 12th June, the date on which this judgment was delivered, is celebrated as Loving Day.
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Mukesh Kumar Suman is an advocate and legal author based at Delhi. He regularly appears before various Judicial Forums including NCLT, NCLAT, High Courts and the Supreme Court. He can be approached at mukesh_suman@outlook.com or +91 9717864570.