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Edited on Sun Jan-04-04 02:06 AM by JDPhD
First a disclaimer. Please, no one try to tombstone me. Yes, I know this is one of my first posts, but I am not a Freeper plant. I am a life long Democrat who happens to believe that dishonest law should not be used to achieve social ends that cannot be reached through popular politics. That's all. If we want abortion legal, we should make our arguments in the legislatures, not in the courts.
Now, my post: A couple of the subthreads here have become focused on whether Roe v. Wade was a legitimate decision. I must say that I find most of the arguments to be, to put it kindly, ... uninformed. You are not Con Law experts. I am.
What follows is a document that I once supplied to a group of students who I was a TA for. It is derived from an earlier document, but that is explained in the text.
The document explains why Griswold v. Connecticut (the decision that provided the precedent to justify Roe v. Wade) was incorrect. If Griswold was wrong, so is Roe. So, although I do not argue directly against Roe, the logic is still painfully relevant.
If any of you actually read the whole thing to find out the truth behind the fictional "right to privacy", please let me know. But don't try to claim I am wrong unless you have informed counter-arguments to make. I won't wait around now, but I will check back tomorrow.
The document I supplied to the students begins here:
In the Introduction to America Law lecture on Tuesday, November 26th, Professor Friedman referred to the questionable reasoning underlying the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (and, by implication, the reasoning in Roe v. Wade, which is built upon Griswold). But Professor Friedman did not go on to explain what is wrong with the reasoning underlying these cases. The following document may shed some light on the constitutional difficulties found in these two cases – and particularly on the “constitutional right” of “privacy” that they claim exists. Those of you who find the topic interesting (or who simply have questions about why Friedman, a self describe "knee jerk liberal", might question the legal soundness of these decisions) may want to take a few minutes to read this paper – but you certainly are not required to do so. It is my own “dissent” to the Griswold opinion (written as though I had been on the Supreme Court at the time the decision was rendered). I wrote it as part of a class assignment for a law course I once had. It was not intended to be a well-crafted document and no detailed research was required. The assignment essentially asked for a thoughtful gut-reaction, but nothing more. As a result, this dissent needs a great deal more research, documentation, rewriting, and editing, before I would consider it a sufficient response to Griswold. Nonetheless, it is a good indication of what arguments I think are most decisive in the case, and, more importantly, it brings up aspects of the “privacy” debate which were not aired in Professor Friedman’s lectures.
Remember, the Griswold case involved a Connecticut law which prohibited the selling of birth control devices. The law, in its long history, had only resulted in one prosecution. The reason the law existed, though not enforced, was so it could be used in conjunction with another statute which prohibited the advertising of illegal services. Connecticut thus prevented the overt marketing of birth control devices, but not their quiet distribution, sale, and use. The Griswold case grew out of an intentional act of “civil disobedience,” in which Planned Parenthood Corporation opened a very public birth control clinic in an attempt to force enforcement of the birth control law and eventually produce a Supreme Court challenge to Connecticut’s statute. Their strategy worked, two staffers at the clinic (Griswold and Buxton) were arrested, and the Griswold case resulted. The Supreme Court majority in Griswold held that there was a heretofore unrecognized “constitutional right” to “privacy” which was infringed upon by the Connecticut statute. But the Court very carefully, at least in the Griswold case, limited that right to privacy within the “marital bedroom.” This was because of the historical, traditional, “special” position of marriage and family as the fundamental unit of society – and thus the special deference that should be given to parents’ choices to become parents. Those members of the Court who voted to strike down the Connecticut statute explicitly claimed that the zone of privacy which they had created would not be stretched to cover non-marital sexual activities. But, in fact, it was almost immediately thereafter extended to encompass non-marital sexual relations, and eventually to cover even elective abortions.
Justice XXXXXXXX, dissenting:
Though I am tempted to reverse the conviction in question in this case, I am convinced that it is not appropriate to do so. Even if I were willing to reverse the conviction, I would not do so for the reasons stated by this Court, nor would I strike down Connecticut’s law in the process. I shall outline my reasons:
1. My colleagues on this Court are too easily taken by the constitutional charade presented in this case. It is one of our most deeply established precepts that we do not render advisory opinions, but only settle cases that present actual controversies. Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346 (1911). As Justice Brandeis pointed out: “The Court will not pass upon the constitutionality of legislation in a friendly, non-adversary, proceeding, declining because to decide such questions ‘is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity in the determination of real, earnest and vital controversy between individuals. It never was the thought that, by means of a friendly suit, a party beaten in the legislature could transfer to the courts an inquiry as to the constitutionality of the legislative act.’” Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 346, quoting Chicago & Grand Trunk Ry. v. Wellman, 143 U.S. 339, 345 (emphasis added). Under this standard, we have no real controversy to decide in this case.
Just four years ago, the same conspiracy of social reformers that now pushes this case before us – led by a group of Yale law professors and the Planned Parenthood corporation – attempted to have the same Connecticut statute struck down. But in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961), we ruled that no real controversy existed, because the complaining parties had not actually been prosecuted, but merely “feared” prosecution under an act that had not been enforced in over 20 years. At the time we wrote: “During the more than three-quarters of a century since its enactment, a prosecution for its violation seems never to have been initiated, save in State v. Nelson, … 11 A. 2d 856 (1940).... Neither counsel nor our own researches have discovered any other attempt to enforce the prohibition of distribution or use of contraceptive devices by criminal process.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 501-02 (1961). The conspirators then set about manufacturing an actual arrest and prosecution, with the aid of compliant governmental officials. The resultant fabricated-case is now before us. In such a contrived situation, the supposedly injured parties cannot be said to have suffered any real injury – their $100 fine was even paid for them by the Planned Parenthood company. Any inconveniences that the supposedly offended parties have sustained have been of their own creation, and are but the price of admission that they gladly paid for their “day in court.”
It is beneath the dignity of this Court to now allow ourselves to be manipulated by such a cabal of deceivers. Certiorari was improvidently granted in this case, and the issues it raises should be left to the wisdom of the legislature and courts of the state of Connecticut. The faculty of Yale Law School and the staff of Planned Parenthood should look to the Connecticut state legislature as the proper forum for their pursuit of social reform, rather than continuing their effort to make a judicial end-run around the people’s branch.
2. But, even if I assume, for the sake of argument, that a real controversy exists in this case, I must still decline to rule for the prosecuted parties. Though the Court in this case bases its opinion on the violation of a newly discovered “right to privacy” – which had somehow remained hidden, lurking in the shadows of the Constitution, for nearly two-hundred years – I do not believe that any such “right” exists.
During America’s revolutionary period, the states adopted new charters of rights and constitutions. These documents were designed to invest the state governments with sovereign authority derived directly from the people, to replace authority that was lost with severance from the English Crown. These grants of power were generally considered to be comprehensive, except as limited by the “inalienable rights of man,” often listed in accompanying bills of rights. This view of state power was so commonly assumed at the time of the Founding, that during the New York ratifying convention, Alexander Hamilton – no friend of the states – made this simple allusion to the pervasive reach of the police power, and its relationship to federally delegated powers: There is an "obvious and important principle in confederated governments, that whatever is not expressly given to the federal head is reserved to the members. The truth of this principle must strike every intelligent mind. In the first formation of government, by the association of individuals, every power of the community is delegated, because the government is to extend to every possible object; nothing is reserved but the unalienable rights of mankind, but, when a number of these societies unite for certain purposes, the rule is different, and from the plainest reason – they have already delegated their sovereignty and their powers to their several governments; and these cannot be recalled, and given to another, without an express act” (Jonathan Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several Conventions, on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, 2d ed., vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Jonathan Elliot, 1836), 362-63 (emphasis added)).
This Court has repeatedly recognized the great potential reach of state authority in the exercise of the police power. As examples: In one case we acknowledged, while upholding a local ordinance regulating certain business practices, the existence of “the power of the State, sometimes termed the police power, to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources, and add to its wealth an prosperity.” Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, 31 (1885). In another we admitted, even while striking down a state law for being incompatible with the federal constitution, that “There are, however, certain powers, existing in the sovereignty of each State in the Union, somewhat vaguely termed police powers.... Those powers, broadly stated and without, at present, any attempt at a more specific limitation, relate to the safety, health, morals and general welfare of the public. Both property and liberty are held on such reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the governing power of the State in the exercise of those powers....” Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 53 (1905). And in a third case, while upholding the practice of forced immunizations, we declared that “The authority of the state to enact this statute is to be referred to what is commonly called the police power, – a power which the state did not surrender when becoming a member of the Union under the Constitution.... This court has ... recognized the authority of a state to enact ... all laws that relate to matters completely within its territory and which do not by their necessary operation affect the people of other states.” Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 24-25 (1905).
The virtually unlimited scope of the police power has allowed states to historically outlaw a multitude of private “sexually-related” practices, including adultery, fornication, sodomy, homosexuality, sadism, bestiality, contraception, and abortion. At this time, laws in at least 29 states bar the dissemination of contraceptives or contraceptive information. If the private right of contraception is among the “unalienable rights of mankind” that Hamilton mentioned, then it was surely reserved outside the bounds of state power at the time that the state governments were chartered – and every state legislature and court in American history that has either created or enforced laws regulating sexual conduct have been in grave error. But, I find it hard to believe that the American people did not long ago notice such a gross infringement on their retained rights. It is far more likely that such a right is not unalienable, and was not retained by the people, and in fact was given over to the keeping of the state legislatures. In fact, a common recognition that the states had in fact been granted authority to regulate sexual relations is the best explanation of why the efforts of the states to do so have not been brought into question until recent years. If the people of Connecticut want this right given back to them – so they can regulate their own sexual conduct – they are welcome to initiate appropriate constitutional change in their state, but we should not (and legitimately cannot) do it for them. It is not the place of this Court to redo the delegation of powers in Connecticut by judicial fiat – that is a job for the People of Connecticut.
3. But, even if I assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a legal controversy in this case, and that an inalienable right to privacy – particularly with regard to the distribution of contraceptives – does exist, I still cannot rule for the appellants. For, even if such a right exists, it was not infringed in this case in any way for which a remedy lies in the federal courts.
In this case the Court has ruled that Connecticut is barred by the Due Process Clause of Fourteenth Amendment from infringing on the supposed right of privacy. The logic of the argument is this: The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from depriving "any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” (U.S. Const., amend. XIV, sec. 1); the right to privacy is a liberty protected by this clause; and thus, even if the right to sexual privacy was once rightly regulated by Connecticut through its exercise of its police power (as I have argued above), the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment removed this ability from the state. The enforcement of the Connecticut statute thus is an unconstitutional exercise of a power that the Fourteenth Amendment removed from state control. Such a constitutional claim must then be enforced by this Court, by striking down the offending law.
Though on the surface this may seem a compelling argument, it has a fatal flaw: It is quite doubtful that privacy is a liberty that the Fourteenth Amendment removed from state control.
We have previously claimed that the Constitution’s guarantee of due process protects liberties that are “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental” (Snyder v. Com. Of Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934)), or that are “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” (Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937)). If the right to sexual privacy (even within marriage) fits these definitions, then every government in America – which means all state governments and the national government (if we consider its regulation of military personnel) – which has historically regulated sexual activities (even within the bonds of marriage) has shown itself to be completely ignorant of what the traditions of its people hold as fundamental, and to be devoid of “ordered liberty.” This is a patently absurd claim. Not only is it absurd to think that an item so essential to ordered liberty could have been systematically overlooked for so long by the people and their representatives in government, but it is also internally contradictory to claim that a type of regulation that has been leveled throughout American history by all levels of government is somehow out of step with the “traditions ... of our people.” Clearly, the “right” being claimed here has not been historically recognized and is not implicit in the concept of liberty. Thus, by this Court’s own binding reasoning, it was not protected from state regulation by the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. We cannot now graft a protection of “privacy” into that amendment by our judicial WILL (simply to satisfy our own biased perceptions of what sort of laws the states should be allowed to enact). This Court should not presume to rewrite constitutional passages to service its own whims of what is right or wrong. The awesome power of amending the Constitution is reserved by Article V of that document to a combination of two-thirds of the members of Congress and three-fourths of the states (who truly represent the overwhelming will of the people), NOT to five elitist intellectuals in black robes who represent only their own ideological prejudices (which were forged in realms far removed from the experiences of common citizens).
4. But, even if I assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a legal controversy in this case, that a right to privacy does exist, and that it is protected against state infringement by adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, this does not mean that the prosecution being challenged in this case did in fact violate the Due Process Clause.
Too often do we forget, when reflecting on the Due Process Clause, that it contains more than a guarantee of “life, liberty, or property.” It also spells out the conditions under which a state MAY deprive a person of those things. The state may impose such a deprivation if it does so through “due process of law”! In other words, if fair, consistent PROCEDURES are used, a state MAY deprive a person of liberty – even of the liberty to distribute contraceptives. Did Connecticut observe the standard procedures of due process – such as making a proper arrest, staging an appropriate arraignment, conducting a fair trial, etc. – in prosecuting this case? Apparently Connecticut DID fulfill what is required by due process, since Griswold and Buxton, the two members of the birth control clinic staff who were arrested and fined, do not claim that there were any procedural violations.
What then can possibly be the foundation for the claim that the Appellants were not given “due process?” It is in fact the discredited child of Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905) – the bizarre doctrine of “substantive due process” – upon which their claim (and this Court’s decision) must rely. This is true despite Justice Douglas’s (who wrote the majority opinion in Griswold) disingenuous claim, in the Court’s opinion, that the “vertones of some arguments suggest that Lochner ... should be our guide. But we decline that invitation....” In fact, despite claiming that there was a violation of due process, Justice Douglas does nothing to show that any procedural requirement was not correctly fulfilled in the prosecution here in question. Far from declining the invitation, Justice Douglas, like a gentleman visiting a whorehouse, has shamefully embraced “substantive due process,” while vainly hoping that his penumbral cloak will prevent him from being recognized. I am sorry, but I can see through the disguise. It was in Justice Douglas’s opinion that we find the infamous reasoning that a “right to privacy” can be found in the “emanations” and “penumbras” of the Bill of Rights.
Substantive due process is a self contradictory concept. Though the simple meaning of “due process” obviously refers to process or procedure, substantive due process is not concerned about such things. Instead it is concerned with substantive outcomes, regardless of process. When courts invoke substantive due process, they do so to strike down a law not because there was anything wrong with the process of creating it or enforcing it, but because the substance of the law is considered inherently unreasonable. In effect, the court says to the other branches of government or to the offending state, “We don't care whether you followed due process or not – we don't like the substance of this law, so we strike it down!” Such an approach does not in any way enforce due PROCESS, and thus it is not an exercise in judgment or interpretation, but is simply a flexing of political will. The flexing of such power is rightly the providence of the legislatures, not of the courts – not even this Court.
The first use of substantive due process came in the dreadful case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). This case implicated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment – which restricts the federal government in the same way that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment restricts the states. Dred Scott was a slave who was transported by his owner into the free territory of Minnesota. (Since Minnesota was just a territory and not a state, it was administered by the national government, and thus the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause was applicable.) Dred Scott believed that since he had been in a territory where slavery was illegal, that he should then be considered free, and he sued for his freedom. The case eventually came before this Court, with Dred Scott's owner arguing that his property could not be taken from him, despite Congress’s determination that slavery would not exist in Minnesota.
It appeared, in this case, that the requirements of due process had been fully enforced. At each stage through which the case proceeded, first in the state courts of Missouri, and then in the federal courts, correct procedures had been followed. But this was not good enough for Chief Justice Taney, who wrote the opinion of the Court. He did not like the substantive possibility that the Missouri Compromise (which created the free territory of Minnesota) might be used to free slaves, regardless of how fair the procedures. So he wrote an opinion striking down the Compromise, on the premise that “an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States ... could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 450 (1857). The result was that Minnesota was not really a free territory after all, and Dred Scott could not possibly be a free man. This was the first case of a Due PROCESS clause being oxymoronically interpreted as a restriction on substance rather than on process. The Dred Scott decision was eventually rendered inconsequential by passage of the Thirteenth Amendment which ended slavery in America.
The next occasion on which the idea of substantive due process raised its ugly head in these hallowed chambers was when this Court decided Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905). The Lochner case involved New York legislation which regulated maximum working hours for bakery workers. One employer sued, claiming that he had a right to contract with his employees to work as many hours as they saw fit. He argued, in striking similarity to what the Court argues in the case now before us, that his right to contract (like the supposed right to privacy) was inherent in the concept of “liberty” found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Again, as in Dred Scott, it nonetheless appeared that even if a right to contract did exist, all procedures demanded by “due process” had been properly observed in depriving Lochner of it. But, again, the satisfaction of “procedural due process” (an admittedly redundant term) was not good enough for this Court, and New York’s regulation was struck down on substantive grounds. For a second time, a Due Process Clause of the Constitution was bizarrely interpreted as a restriction on substance rather than on process.
Eventually the Lochner decision was overturned by this Court and its reasoning discredited. Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 (1934). To “Lochnerize” has since even become a pejorative term meaning that a court has acted lawlessly to enforce its preferences without concern for what the Constitution actually demands. Both Dred Scott and Lochner are among the most disreputable decisions ever handed down by this Court. It is this obscene history that this Court now chooses to emulate. I will not be a party to such lawless, results-oriented decision-making. It is not the place of this or any court to dictate what is “good” public policy. To do so is not to judge but is to legislate. It amazes me, that in the “opinion of the Court” that Justice Douglas has the gall to claim that “We do not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch ... social conditions.” That is exactly what the Court has presumed to do in its majority opinion in this case.
5. But, even if I assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a legal controversy in this case, that a right to privacy does exist, that the right to privacy is protected against state infringement by adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the doctrine of substantive due process is a legitimate way of protecting it, I still cannot rule for the Appellants.
The supposed right that is being protected in this case is a right to privacy – in particular a right to sexual privacy within marriage. But the behavior for which the Appellants were prosecuted did not involve sex within a marriage relationship. Instead, it involved a commercial relationship between strangers. Griswold and Buxton are birth-control counselors and suppliers who were prosecuted for supplying information and birth control devices for a fee – they were not a married couple who were making use of such devices when arrested. How the public sale of products and services can be seriously considered by this Court to be a private act is beyond my ability to understand. It is the very fact that Griswold’s and Buxton’s distribution of birth control devices was so brazenly public that led to their arrests. The marketing of products out of a store front is obviously a public act, but even if it were not, it certainly is not a part of the intimate marriage relationship that the Court claims to be protecting in its decision today. If a right to privacy within the “marital bedroom” does exist, these Appellants certainly cannot find shelter within it. Perhaps the law professors at Yale, the officials of Planned Parenthood, and the other members of their radical reformist gang, should try to arrange for a copulating couple to be arrested in their bedroom (rather than merchants being arrested at their very public place of business) – then I might be tempted to believe that “privacy” is actually at issue.
6. But, even if I assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a legal controversy in this case, that a right to privacy does exist, that it is protected against state infringement by adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, that the doctrine of substantive due process is a legitimate way to protect privacy, and that the act in question in this case is a private one (which, taken all together, would require a truly amazing abandonment of logic and common sense), I still would not be willing to rule for Appellants.
If this Court chooses to now sit as a super-legislature to decide what is wise public policy for the state of Connecticut – which is what it does in this case – then it should at least decide with wisdom. To do so, it must consider the ultimate consequences of its ruling. Under such consideration, ruling for Griswold and Buxton is clearly unacceptable.
The most fundamental unit of American society is the family – consisting of a mother, father, and children, responsibly bound to each other by commitment and law. It is within such a family that societal values of accountability, responsibility, and commitment are best taught. It is good public policy to encourage such families. But the opportunities to devalue and even destroy such families, which are created by this Court’s ruling in this case, are legion. The principles being espoused in this case will not and cannot be limited to private sexual relations within the bounds of marriage. In the future, I predict, this case will be used as a precedent to justify the “right” to everything from elective abortions to homosexual orgies to pedophilia. I have little doubt that as subsequent judicial decrees force society to embrace such behaviors, that society will become increasingly consumed by its own hedonism – with each rising generation feeling more entitled to indulge their every lust, and less concerned about personal accountability, responsibility, and commitment. If the judicial power – expressed through substantive due process – is to be used for the good of society, then it surely must be used to uphold Connecticut’s law, rather than to strike it down. To do otherwise is to rule unwisely.
Now, in making this argument, I may be labeled an unenlightened, fascist bigot. But then I must ask why the Court’s use of its power to liberate the oppressed birth control pushers of Connecticut is acceptable, while my proposed use of that power to protect the traditional family is not? An honest answer would reveal that both of these positions are dependent on subjective morality. If this is the case, then why should the nine black-robed “philosopher kings” of the United States Supreme Court decide what is morally acceptable in Connecticut, rather than the legislature of Connecticut or the People of Connecticut? Is it because we judges are smarter and wiser than the people and their representatives? Or is it simply because we are more sympathetic to the political agenda being pushed by radical interest groups that increasingly seek to use us as a tool to reach their desired social ends?
I am personally not wise enough to make policy choices in the place of the congresses that the people choose – and I know my esteemed colleagues are not wise enough either. But even if I was wise enough, I would refuse to pervert my solemn duty to uphold the Constitution into a license to remake America into my moral utopia. I am, after all, a judge, not a king.
7. Finally, as I wrote at the opening, I was tempted to rule for Griswold and Buxton. But my temptation did not come from any of the arguments expressed above. Rather I would look to a different clause of the Fourteenth Amendment – the Equal Protection Clause. This clause requires that states not “deny any person ... the equal protection of the laws” (U.S. Const., amend. XIV, sec. 1). It seems to me that an argument could be made that any law that is not enforced uniformly does not afford “equal” protection. Since the Connecticut statute in question in this case has been applied only twice in more than seventy-five years, it would seem susceptible to such an equal protection challenge. But, since such a challenge was not raised by counsel for the Appellants, nor were all the arguments for and against it fleshed-out before this Court, I cannot yet reach a conclusion on this point.
But, even if I became convinced that the prosecution challenged in this case did in fact violate the Equal Protection Clause, I would not strike down the statute involved. Instead, I would simply throw out the convictions of Griswold and Buxton and give Connecticut a choice: Either enforce the law as comprehensively as the practicalities of administration will allow, or do not enforce it at all.
Conclusion:
I cannot rule for Griswold and Buxton because there is no legitimate controversy at stake, but only a cynically staged fiction. I will not be a pawn in their pursuit of political change. Even if there is a legal controversy, it is within the bounds of Connecticut’s police power to create and enforce the law in question. Also, there is no constitutionally protected right to privacy that is being infringed by Connecticut’s actions – such a right simply is not a part of those historically recognized fundamental rights that were reserved from the powers of the states.
It is an illegitimate use of this Court’s power to evade these truths through the use of the discredited doctrine of substantive due process. But even if one accepts the idea of substantively protecting privacy through this Court, the action in question in this case was not a private one. And, if this Court is going into the business of social engineering, the policy choice it is making in this case is a fundamentally bad one.
Finally, this Court has no business substituting its moral designs for those of the people of Connecticut and their legislators. If the law in question is to be struck down, it should be done through the electoral and legislative processes of the state of Connecticut. It is fundamentally improper for interest groups to make use of ideologically sympathetic judges to gain what they are unable to achieve through democratic means.
For any and all of these reasons, I must respectfully dissent.
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