17 Poe Vs Ullman PDF
17 Poe Vs Ullman PDF
Syllabus.
II.
The right of the doctor to advise his patients according
to his best lights seems so obviously within First Amend-
inent rights as to need no extended discussion. The lead-
ing cases on freedom of expression are generally framed
OCTOBER TERM, 1960.
DOUGLAS, J., dissenting. 367 U. S.
the law, obnoxious as the law may be. The State has no
power to put any sanctions of any kind on him for any
views or beliefs that he has or for any advice he renders.
These are his professional domains into which the State
may not intrude. The chronicles are filled with sad at-
tempts of government to stomp out ideas, to ban thoughts
because they are heretical or obnoxious. As Mill stated,
"Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no
opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain
from any active effort for their diffusion." 6 When that
happens society suffers. Freedom working underground,
freedom bootlegged around the law is freedom crippled.
A society that tells its doctors under pain of criminal pen-
alty what they may not tell their patients is not a free
society. Only free exchange of views and information is
consistent with "a civilization of the dialogue," to borrow
a phrase from Dr. Robert M. Hutchins. See Wieman v.
Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 197 (concurring opinion).
III.
I am also clear that this Connecticut law as applied
to this married couple deprives them of "liberty" without
due process of law, as that concept is used in the
Fourteenth Amendment.
The first eight Amendments to the Constitution have
been made applicable to the States only in part. My
view has been that when the Fourteenth Amendment was
adopted, its Due Process Clause incorporated all of those
Amendments. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S.
46, 68 (dissenting opinion). Although the history of the
Fourteenth Amendment may not be conclusive, the words
"due process" acquired specific meaning from Anglo-
American experience.7 As MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN re-
6 Ibid.
See Konvitz, Fundamental Liberties of a Free People (1957),
pp. 37-39; Green, The Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth Amendment
OCTOBER TERM, 1960.
DOUGLAS, J., dissenting. 367 U. S.
and the Supreme Court, 46 Mich. L. Rev. 869, 904 et seq. (1948);
Holmes, The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights, 7 S. C.
L. Q. Rev. 596 (1955).
And see Mr. Justice Rutledge (concurring) in In re Oliver, 333
U. S. 257, 280-281.
1I start with Justices Bradley, Swayne, Field, Clifford and Harlan.
To this number, Mr. Justice Brewer can probably be joined on the
basis of his agreement "in the main" with Mr. Justice Harlan in
O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U. S. 323, 371. See the Appendix to MR.
JUSTICE BLACK'S dissent in Adamson v. California, supra, 120-123.
To these I add MR. JUSTICE BLACK, Mr. Justice Murphy, Mr. Justice
Rutledge and myself (Adamson v. California, supra, 68, 123).
POE v. ULLMAN.
497 DOUGLAS, J., dissenting.
PART ONE.
Justiciability.
There can be no quarrel with the plurality opinion's
statement that "Justiciability is of course not a legal con-
cept with a fixed content or susceptible of scientific verifi-
cation," but, with deference, the fact that justiciability is
not precisely definable does not make it ineffable. Al-
though a large number of cases are brought to bear on the
conclusion that is reached, I think it is fairly demonstrable
that the authorities fall far short of compelling dismissal
of these appeals.2 Even so, it is suggested that the cases
2Only two cases are squarely relied on, C. 1. 0. v. McAdory,
325 U. S. 472, a companion case to Alabama State Federation of
Labor v. McAdory, supra, discussed at pp. 526-527, infra, and
tendering the same issues; and Ex parte La Prade, 289 U. S. 444.
The appeal in the principal McAdory case was dismissed because the
state statute there challenged had not yet been construed by the
state courts, and it was thought that state construction might remove
some Constitutional doubts. In the companion McAdory case, the
appeal was likewise dismissed, the State having "agreed not to enforce
§ 7 of the Act [there challenged] until the final decision as to the
section's validity by this Court in Alabama State Federationof Labor
v. McAdory . . . ." Id., at 475. In the present appeals there is
POE v. ULLMAN.