The Judiciary

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"In 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. The Lovings returned to Virginia shortly thereafter. The couple was then charged with violating the state's anti miscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. The Lovings were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail"..."the Court held that distinctions drawn according to race were generally "odious to a free people" and were subject to "the most rigid scrutiny" under the Equal Protection Clause. The Virginia law, the Court found, had no legitimate purpose "independent of invidious racial discrimination." The Court rejected the state's argument that the statute was legitimate because it applied equally to both blacks and whites and found that racial classifications were not subject to a "rational purpose" test under the Fourteenth Amendment." 

 The case was state court case until it went to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that Virginia had no real reason for the law. In an unanimous decision, the court ruled that under the Equal protection clause the Virginia law was discriminatory. The court also ruled that the law violated the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth amendment. 

 I chose this case because it shows how some state laws were still discriminating against blacks. Even after years of ending slavery and segregation some laws till segregate blacks. I think this case is important because "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.".

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