Also known as: fundamental constitutional rights · fundamental right
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A right protected under the Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment that triggers strict scrutiny when state action burdens its exercise.
Freya Freeman, a white resident, seeks to marry her Black partner in a state that prohibits interracial unions. State officials refuse to issue the license under the statute. The couple sues, and the court applies strict scrutiny because the classification burdens a fundamental constitutional right, striking the law down for lacking any legitimate non-invidious purpose.
Frederick Ferguson wants to send his children to a private religious academy rather than the local public school. State law requires all students to attend public institutions. The court recognizes the parents' fundamental constitutional right to direct their children's education and invalidates the compulsory public-school mandate.
Francisco Frost, convicted of a minor offense, faces a state statute mandating sterilization for certain offenders. He challenges the law as applied to him. The court holds that the right to procreate is fundamental and that the scheme violates equal protection and substantive due process.
Fumiko Fujimoto, an Amish parent, refuses to send her fourteen-year-old to high school as required by state compulsory-attendance law. The state seeks enforcement. The court finds that the fundamental right of parents to direct upbringing, combined with free-exercise interests, entitles the family to an exemption because their practices satisfy state goals.
Forrest Falconer owes unpaid child support and seeks a marriage license. State law requires court permission for anyone in arrears. The court treats the right to marry as fundamental and invalidates the statute because the permission requirement is not narrowly tailored to the state's interests.
Faye Fuller faces murder charges and seeks to introduce evidence of voluntary intoxication to negate mens rea. State law categorically excludes the evidence. The court upholds the exclusion, finding no fundamental constitutional right to present that particular defense when the rule serves legitimate evidentiary purposes.
On July 12, 1992, respondent James Egelhoff was camping in the Yaak region of northwestern Montana with Roberta Pavola and John Christenson to pick mushrooms. The three sold the mushrooms they had collected and spent the rest of the day and evening drinking in bars and at a private party in Troy, Montana. After leaving the party after 9 p.m. in Christenson's 1974 Ford Galaxy station wagon, the drinking continued, as Egelhoff was seen buying beer at 9:20 p.m. and recalled passing a bottle of Black Velvet with Christenson. Around midnight, officers of the Lincoln County sheriff's department discovered the station wagon stuck in a ditch along U.S. Highway 2. Pavola and Christenson were in the front seat, each dead from a single gunshot to the head. Egelhoff lay in the rear of the car, alive and yelling obscenities, with a blood-alcohol content of .36 percent measured over an hour later. His .38-caliber handgun lay on the floor near the brake pedal with four loaded rounds and two empty casings, and he had gunshot residue on his hands. Egelhoff was charged with two counts of deliberate homicide under Montana law requiring that he purposely or knowingly caused the deaths of another human being. At trial he claimed an unidentified fourth person must have committed the murders, that his extreme intoxication rendered him physically incapable of committing them, and that it accounted for his inability to recall the events. The trial court instructed the jury pursuant to Mont. Code Ann. § 45-2-203 that it could not consider respondent's intoxicated condition in determining the existence of a mental state which is an element of the offense. The jury found Egelhoff guilty on both counts and the court sentenced him to 84 years' imprisonment. The Supreme Court of Montana reversed the convictions. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseStrict scrutiny applies. The state must show that the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.
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Yes. State laws that significantly interfere with the decision to marry are subject to strict scrutiny and must be supported by sufficiently important interests that are closely tailored.
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No. Parents possess a fundamental constitutional right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, including the choice of private schooling, provided reasonable state standards are met.
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Yes. Compulsory sterilization statutes violate both equal protection and substantive due process because they burden the fundamental right to procreate without adequate justification.
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…to the requests for a declaratory judgment, abstention was not warranted. On the merits, the District Court held that the "fundamental right of single women and married persons to choose whether to have children is protected by the Ninth Amendment, through the Fourteenth Amendment," and that the Texas criminal abortion statutes…