Analysis of Skinner v. Oklahoma ex re. Attorney General Case Brief

This case brief analyzes the Supreme Court case Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Attorney General (1942). The case involved Mr. Jack Skinner, a "habitual offender," and the constitutionality of Oklahoma's Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act. The court addressed whether the state could sterilize an in...Read More

1
Couse title
Course Instructor
Student

2
SKINNER V STATE OF OKLAHOMA., ex rel. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF OKLAHOMA
(1942) 316 U.S. 535
FACTS
 This was a supreme court petition. The petitioner was Mr. Jack Skinner, who was suing
the State of Oklahoma in a suit related to human rights.
 The petitioner, Mr. Skinner, was a “repeat offender” who had served convicted three
times.
 The petitioner had been convicted in the years; 1926, 1929, and 1934.
 In 1926, Mr. Skinner was sentenced to the Oklahoma State Reformatory for the offense
of stealing a chicken.
 In 1929, he was charged and convicted for the offense of armed robbery.
 1n 1934, the petitioner was again convicted for the offense of robbery with firearms.
 After the passing of the “Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act” in 1935 (hereinafter this
Act), the Attorney General instituted a suit against the petitioner.
 The petitioner, in his defense, challenged the Act for its inconsistency with the
Fourteenth Amendment.
 The jury, after being directed that the offenses by Mr. Skinner, were felonies revolving
around moral turpitude, they were free to meditate whether the petitioner should undergo
the sterilization.
 The jury was convinced that a vasectomy would be conducted in a manner that would not
affect the health of the petitioner; hence the supreme court in Oklahoma sentenced Mr.
Skinner to involuntary vasectomy.
 The petitioner approached the U.S. Supreme Court seeking the declaration of this Act
(Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act. Okla.Stat.Ann. Tit. 57, §§ 171, et seq.; L.1935, pp.
94 et seq) as unconstitutional.
ISSUE
Can a state sterilize a person against their free will for being a "habitual offender" for offenses
involving moral turpitude while ignoring other offenses for lack of moral turpitude?
HOLDING

3
No, the court held that sterilization of an individual against their will for being "habitual
offenders" in certain categories of offenses while excluding others would amount to
discrimination and the violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; that is, the “Equal Protection
Clause.”
RATIO
The court’s decision was unanimous. The court focused mainly on the issue of the
constitutionality of the Act with regard to the fourteenth Amendment. The bench found that the
exemption of the white-collar crimes such as embezzlement for not involving moral turpitude
whilst a person guilty of larceny would be sentenced discriminatory. Learned judge Douglas, in
his own wisdom, stated that;
“Oklahoma makes no attempt to say that he who commits larceny by trespass or trick or
fraud has biologically inheritable traits which he who commits embezzlement lacks…We have
not the slightest basis for inferring that that line has any significance in eugenics, nor that the
inheritability of criminal traits follows the neat legal distinctions which the law has marked
between those two offenses. In terms of fines and imprisonment, the crimes of larceny and
embezzlement rate the same under the Oklahoma code. Only when it comes to sterilization are
the pains and penalties of the law different. The equal protection clause would indeed be a
formula of empty words if such conspicuously artificial lines could be drawn.”
Further, Judge Douglas remarked that it was necessary for there ought to be a reevaluation of
such laws due to the adverse effects that they pose on individuals;
“the power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching, and devastating
effects. In evil or reckless hands, it can cause races or which are inimical to the dominant group
to wither and disappear.”
The Chief Justice in his concurring departed from the rule in Buck v Bell (Buck v Bell, 1927),
stating that this Act failed to uphold to meet the threshold set under the Due Process code; since
the petitioner was not given an opportunity to prove to the court that he might not bear genes that
are responsible for siring likely offenders.
The court in citing the case of United States v Carolene Product (U.S. v Carolene Products,
1938) acknowledged the importance of having to safeguard the liberty of persons when enacting

4
instruments to protect persons from arbitrary action. It was clear to the court that the state of
Oklahoma gave total disregard to the severability clause.

5
IMPACT OF THE CASE
Although this case did not overturn the rationale in Buck v Bell (Buck v Bell, 1927), however,
since the passing of this judgment there has been a progressive departure from sterilization as a
punitive measure in curbing the commission of crimes; compulsory sterilization has continued to
rock the U.S. Up, until the 1960s, the U.S. continued to exercise the compulsory sterilization
mentally ill, persons. Also, there were reports of continued mandatory sterilization of women
prisoners in the state of California for the period starting 2006 through to 2010 and has continued
(ABC News, 2020).

6
REFERENCES
Skinner V State Of Oklahoma., ex rel. Attorney General Of Oklahoma (1942) 316 U.S. 535
Buck v Bell (1927) 274 U.S. 200
United States v Carolene Products Co. (1938) 304 U.S. 144
U.S. Const. amend. XIV
Oklahoma Habitual Act, S.L. 1935
ABC News, 2020. California Prisons Caught Sterilizing Female Inmates Without Approval.
[online]. Available at: <https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/doctors-california-prisons-
sterilized-female-inmates-authorizations/story?id=19610110> [Accessed 19 April 2020].

7