McLaughlin v. Florida

McLaughlin v. Florida
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 13–14, 1964 Decided December 7, 1964
Full case name	McLaughlin, et al. v. Florida
Citations	379 U.S. 184 (more) 85 S. Ct. 283; 13 L. Ed. 2d 222; 1964 U.S. LEXIS 63
Prior history	Trial judge convicted, Fl Sup Ct affirmed. Appeal from the Supreme Court of Florida
Subsequent history	Convictions set aside
Holding
Florida statute prohibits an unmarried interracial couple from habitually living in and occupying the same room in the nighttime. The same conduct when engaged in by members of the same race, is not prohibited. This is in violation of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan, Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Arthur Goldberg
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by Warren, Black, Clark, Brennan, Goldberg
Concurrence	Harlan
Concurrence	Stewart, joined by Douglas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

McLaughlin v. Florida 379 U.S. 184 (1964)^[1], was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a cohabitation law of Florida, part of the state's anti-miscegenation laws, was unconstitutional. The law prohibited habitual cohabitation by two unmarried people of opposite sex, if one is black, and the other, white. The court thereby overturned Pace v. Alabama (1883), which had declared such statutes constitutional. It did not however, overturn the related Florida statute which prohibited interracial marriage between whites and blacks. These laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia.

Facts

Section 798.05 of Florida statutes read: Any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars.

This law was a part of the Adultery and Fornication laws of Florida, which were penalized by Chapter 798. While all the other sections of this chapter required proof that sexual intercourse took place, sec 798.05 required only cohabitation. Moreover, the law specifically prohibits a couple in which one is white and the other is black. It did not apply where one was black, and the other, say, of Native American descent. As such it was part of Florida's anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited marriage, cohabitation and extramarital sex between whites and blacks. Like all such state laws, it only concerned itself with relationships between whites and non-whites. Similar anti-miscegenation laws were enforced in many states into the 1960s, and by all Southern states until 1967, when all remaining state bans on interracial marriage between whites and non-whites were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia.

Result

The Supreme Court held that the law, because it made a special case for couples of these two specific races, bore "heavier burden of justification." Florida had not demonstrated any reason that made such race-specific prohibition necessary. So, the law was held unconstitutional.

That a general evil will be partially corrected may at times, and without more, serve to justify the limited application of a criminal law; but legislative discretion to employ the piecemeal approach stops short of permitting a State to narrow statutory coverage to focus on a racial group.

The Court, however, decided not to look at the statute prohibiting marriage between whites and blacks that was also part of Florida's anti-miscegenation laws (Fl. St. Ann. 741.11), even though the state had claimed that Sec 798.05 was ancillary to it. Such state laws prohibiting marriage between whites and non-whites were later declared unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia.

Justice Harlan, in his concurrence, emphasized the "heavier burden" requirement of Justice White, by stating that the law should pass a "necessity test," which is very stringent, and is applied to free speech cases.

Justices Stewart and Douglas refused to accept that there could be any such "overriding statutory purpose," which would require such discrimination based on skin color. Stewart wrote "We deal here with a criminal law which imposes criminal punishment. And I think it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor. Discrimination of that kind is invidious per se."

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 379
• Pace v. Alabama
• Perez v. Sharp
• Loving v. Virginia
• anti-miscegenation laws

External links

1. ^ Full text of the decision courtesy of FindLaw