In Federal Communications Commission v Beach , the Court went so far as to say that economic regulations satisfy the equal protection requirement if "there is any conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.
Classifications involving suspect classifications such as race, however, are subject to closer scrutiny. A rationale for this closer scrutiny was suggested by the Court in a famous footnote in the case of Carolene Products v.
United States see box at left. Usually, strict scrutiny will result in invalidation of the challenged classification--but not always, as illustrated by Korematsu v.
Loving v Virginia produces a more typical result when racial classifications are involved: a unanimous Supreme Court strikes down Virginia's miscegenation law. The Court also applies strict scrutiny to classifications burdening certain fundamental rights. Skinner v Oklahoma considers an Oklahoma law requiring the sterilization of persons convicted of three or more felonies involving moral turpitude "three strikes and you're snipped". In Justice Douglas's opinion invalidating the law we see the origins of the higher-tier analysis that the Court applies to rights of a "fundamental nature" such as marriage and procreation.
Skinner thus casts doubt on the continuing validity of the oft-quoted dictum of Justice Holmes in a case Buck v Bell considering the forced sterilization of certain mental incompetents: "Three generations of imbeciles is enough. The Court applies a middle-tier scrutiny a standard that tends to produce less predictable results than strict scrutiny or rational basis scrutiny to gender and illegitimacy classifications.
Separate pages on this website deal with these issues. Cases Railway Express v. New York Kotch v. Oklahoma Korematsu v. United States Loving v. Virginia Fred Korematsu " H ere is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign.
The U. Supreme Court has applied this standard to laws or policies that impinge on a right explicitly protected by the U. Constitution, such as the right to vote. The Court has also identified certain rights that it deems to be fundamental rights, even though they are not enumerated in the Constitution. The strict scrutiny standard is one of three employed by the courts in reviewing laws and government policies.
The rational basis test is the lowest form of judicial scrutiny. The heightened scrutiny test is used in cases involving matters of discrimination based on sex. Suspect classifications include race, national origin , religion, and alienage. The application of strict scrutiny, however, extends beyond issues of equal protection.
Restrictions on content-based speech, for instance, are to be reviewed under the strict scrutiny standard as well. Notably, the Supreme Court has refused to endorse the application of strict scrutiny to gun regulations, leaving open the question of which precise standard of review is to be employed when addressing the Second Amendment. Please help us improve our site!
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