316 U.S. 535 (1942)
In 1926 Jack T. Skinner was convicted of stealing chickens and sentenced to the Oklahoma State Reformatory. In 1929 he was convicted of robbery with firearms and sentenced to the reformatory. In 1934 he was convicted again of robbery with firearms and sentenced to the penitentiary.1
In 1935 the Oklahoma legislature passed the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act. The statute defined an habitual criminal as a person who had been convicted two or more times for crimes amounting to felonies involving moral turpitude. This conviction could occur in an Oklahoma court or in a court of any other State. The person must thereafter be convicted of such a felony in Oklahoma and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in an Oklahoma penal institution. The Act excluded offenses arising out of the violation of the prohibitory laws, revenue acts, embezzlement, or political offenses from its terms. It provided for proceedings by the Attorney General in Oklahoma courts for a judgment that the person be rendered sexually sterile by vasectomy in the case of a male or salpingectomy in the case of a female. This judgment would follow if the court or jury found the person was an habitual criminal and the operation could be performed without detriment to general health.2
In 1936, while Skinner was confined in the penitentiary, the Attorney General instituted proceedings against him under the Act. A jury trial was held in which the court instructed the jury that the crimes of which Skinner had been convicted were felonies involving moral turpitude. The only question was whether the operation of vasectomy could be performed without detriment to his general health. The jury found that it could be. The trial court entered judgment directing that the operation be performed on Skinner. The Supreme Court of Oklahoma affirmed the judgment by a five to four decision.3
The United States Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari because the decision raised grave and substantial constitutional questions.4
Whether the Oklahoma Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding embezzlement from its coverage while including larceny?5
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires strict scrutiny of classifications in sterilization laws affecting fundamental rights of marriage and procreation. A state may not draw artificial lines between offenses of intrinsically the same quality without eugenic significance.6
Yes. Skinner was convicted in 1926 of stealing chickens, a larceny offense, and twice of robbery with firearms, making him subject to sterilization under the Act after the 1936 proceedings. By contrast, a person convicted three times of embezzlement exceeding twenty dollars would remain exempt even though the offenses share the same felony status and similar punishment. The distinction turns solely on when fraudulent intent arose rather than on any difference in the intrinsic quality of the acts.7
The Act as applied to Skinner therefore draws a line between larceny by trespass or trick and embezzlement that follows technical common-law concepts having no basis in the inheritability of criminal traits. The jury was instructed only on health detriment, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed without addressing the classification.8 This classification lacks any saving feature like that in Buck v. Bell and perpetuates invidious discrimination by sterilizing one group while granting immunity to another for intrinsically similar conduct.9
The Act violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to Skinner.10
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Jackson joined the Chief Justice in holding that the hearings provided are too limited in the context of the present Act to afford due process of law.11 He also agreed with the opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas that the scheme of classification set forth in the Act denies equal protection of the law. He noted that a broad and loose scheme of classification would be permissible if accompanied by the individual hearings indicated by the Chief Justice. On the other hand, narrow classification with reference to the end to be accomplished by the Act might justify limiting individual hearings to the issue whether the individual belonged to a class so defined. Since this Act does not present these questions, he reserved judgment on them.
Jackson further observed that the present plan to sterilize the individual in pursuit of a eugenic plan to eliminate from the race characteristics that are only vaguely identified and which in our present state of knowledge are uncertain as to transmissibility presents other constitutional questions of gravity. He reserved judgment on the limits to the extent to which a legislatively represented majority may conduct biological experiments at the expense of the dignity and personality and natural powers of a minority even those who have been guilty of what the majority define as crimes.
Whether the Oklahoma Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to provide a hearing on whether the individual's criminal tendencies are inheritable?12
Due process requires that before sterilization an individual receive a hearing and opportunity to show that his criminal tendencies are not of an inheritable type. Limits exist on the presumption of constitutionality where personal liberty is concerned. Ordinary prudence demands such a procedure to prevent arbitrary action.13
Yes. Skinner received a jury trial in 1936. The court limited the jury's inquiry by instruction to whether vasectomy could be performed without detriment to general health. This followed his 1926 chicken-stealing conviction and his 1929 and 1934 robbery convictions. There was no opportunity to challenge whether his tendencies were inheritable despite the Act's application to habitual criminals.14
The absence of any hearing on inheritability means the statute condemns all individuals in the defined class to irreparable injury without inquiry into whether the justifying facts exist in a particular case. The Attorney General's proceeding and the Oklahoma Supreme Court's five-to-four affirmance demonstrate this result.15 Such a procedure dispenses with safeguards required by elementary notions of due process when the state seeks to interfere with personal liberty on the basis of transmissible traits.16
The Act violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by denying an adequate hearing on inheritability.17
Related opinions on this issue
Chief Justice Stone concurred in the result but was not persuaded that equal protection analysis aided in reaching it.18 He doubted that equal protection requires application to all criminals or none if sterilization rests on transmissible propensities. He instead framed the real question as whether wholesale condemnation of a class to invasion of personal liberty without opportunity for any individual to show his is not the type of case justifying it satisfies due process.19
Stone emphasized that science has not given assurance that criminal tendencies of any class of habitual offenders are generally inheritable. Inquiry in the particular case cannot be dispensed with. A law condemning all members of a class without hearing because some merit condemnation lacks the first principles of due process.20 He concluded that the state must afford an opportunity to show absence of inheritable tendencies before imposing sterilization.21
Justice Jackson joined the Chief Justice in holding that the hearings provided are too limited in the context of the present Act to afford due process of law. He agreed that the scheme of classification denies equal protection but disagreed with each opinion insofar as it rejects or minimizes the grounds taken by the other.22 Jackson reserved judgment on whether broad classification would be permissible with individual hearings or narrow classification would justify limiting hearings to class membership.23
He also noted that the eugenic plan presents other constitutional questions of gravity regarding biological experiments at the expense of the dignity and personality of a minority, though the Act falls before reaching that problem.24