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How Does Griswold v. Connecticut 1965 Protect Bedroom Privacy

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Bedroom privacy is often questioned as a right that may exist. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that explains anything about gender and sex. The descriptions have to be looked up in literature or dictionaries from each time period. Many people keep old dictionaries for this purpose.

This can make things difficult to understand as language changes. The U.S. Supreme Court can be helpful in this regard. They often hear cases regarding determinations that affect how law is interpreted throughout the United States. Interpretation in court vocabular is not translating.

Even though the law is written in English, the parties may add or remove meaning from the law that was not the intent or desire of the law. The judge is not allowed to act as an attorney.

Wikipedia summarizes the decision very succinctly in the first paragraph. It states "The right to privacy with respect to intimate practices is established in the basis of marital privacy". Approximately. The language in Judicial decisions is very formal, even if the Justice may speak informally outside the courtroom.

Language

The basis of law in the United States is formed from a language that is most often Renaissance English, Archaic Spanish (Latin), and Midievil French (Gothic), approximately. About 1400 to 1600 English and French, and 1500/1600 Spanish. This is an approximation of law origin.

The first paragraph on Wikipedia describes various concepts that were part of the court procedure.

  • Use of Contraceptives
  • Medical services and devices
  • Denial to disadvantaged citizens
  • updated information with respect to [...medical services]
  • Marital Privacy
  • right to privacy
  • intimate practices
  • protections from government intrusion

That is a lot of concepts in one short paragraph and a reason why being a lawyer is seen as a difficult profession. Court procedure may resemble superimposed math problems with legislative text instead of math. For example, this case has a context of marital rights in examining the accusations.

The concepts on how all this works is very important. Especially for U.S. Citizens or those living in the U.S. who rely on constitutional protections as a basis of their own rights.

What the important thing to remember is that the Supreme Court does not legislate from the bench. It is conservative in the language of its own role and uses the words opinions or decisions most often. Recently, the word determination has replaced the common use of both of these words in court procedures. Decisions being applied to procedural rules allowing court discretion. Opinions are most often used for legislative proposals in a governance board or judicial council.

Judges can still make opinions regarding different aspects of court procedures. They can opine that they won't get in trouble for certain decisions and will remain on good behavior. Most often, Congress defers to the Justices for matters involving court procedure. They are most often unbiased by default.

The Determination Process

In Griswold v. Connecticut 1965 the US Supreme Court made a determination that U.S. Citizens do have the right to both marital privacy and bedroom privacy. See the introductory paragraph on Wikipedia and conceptualize the language usage. Visualize a paragraph explaining each of these concepts.

What they determined is that marital privacy for instance is an unenumerated right. That means it was not documented at the time of the U.S. Constitution, and likely has not been proposed and voted on for codification. However, it is a right retained by the people in their common affairs.

The Justices are conservative in their language because technically Congress can issue a grievance regarding legislative powers. They can also escalate this to accusations on good behavior and submit requests for impeachment. They call it a decision and if there is no objection from Congress, then the Determination becomes permanent. It is a discovery through court procedure rather than legislation through a voting process. U.S. Const. Art. 1 sec. 1 gives this power exclusively to Congress.

In cases where a determination includes an unenumerated right, the decision, opinion, or determination, can be filed in a legal archive with copies of the 9th and 14th amendments.

Many lawyers keep these legal opinions in files pertaining to their practice or service offerings. This allows them to look through their own opinion binders when they have a new inquiry on legal services that may be available with them. Being organized helps being prepared for helping others.

Conducting Legal Research

Searching through a legislative database or listing can sometimes be difficult but it often includes an index or table of contents. Today they often have keyword searches. Less is more when it comes to searches. Think of 1-2 words that describe the data you are looking for, then narrow it down.

Legal opinions for courts and Justices can currently be found in three places that are safe to browse. They don't have any additional cost besides internet access. They do not require a legal license to browse.

  • Justia
  • Wikipedia
  • Cornell Lii

Griswold v Connecticut 1965

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut - Wikipedia
  • https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/ - Justia
  • https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/381/479 - Cornell

Searching

Finding information is most often going to be browsing and typing in minimal keywords. Justia allows browsing Supreme Court Opinions by topic. Wikipedia can then be used to get a more simplified answer. Try typing just the name of one party. The one that is more noticeable. For example Griswold is more Noticeable than Connecticut which may yield too many results. Each of these are parties in a court case. You can also try typing the name of both parties with a v in between. e.g. Party1 v. Party 2, YYYY.

The results on Wikipedia will appear under "Other uses" or "See Also". Look for the court case with the two parties. That is, scroll through the list of results slowly to find the case brief.

Lii contains large volumes of text. It stands for Legal information institute. This was the only free resource many years ago and is still around, useful, and valued in the legal community.

  • Justia Listings - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/
  • Cornell Lii - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/name.htm

Additional Resources from Harvard

  • Case Comments https://harvardlawreview.org/category/case-comment/
  • Statistics https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-138/the-statistics-17/

The U.S. Supreme Court

Several journals have been made available on the Courts official website. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/scannedjournals.aspx

Note: On the Supreme Court Cases, the first number is the Volume and second number is the case number for that volume. This should be consistent on several legal websites.


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