Buck v. Bell

• Citation: 143 Va. 310
• Parties: CARRIE BUCK, BY R. G. SHELTON, HER GUARDIAN AND NEXT FRIEND, v. DR. J. H. BELL, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE COLONY FOR EPILEPTICS AND FEEBLE-MINDED.
• Decision Date: 12 November 1925
• Court: Supreme Court of Virginia

Page 310

143 Va. 310

CARRIE BUCK, BY R. G. SHELTON, HER GUARDIAN AND NEXT FRIEND, v. DR. J. H. BELL, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE COLONY FOR EPILEPTICS AND FEEBLE-MINDED.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Staunton.

November 12, 1925.

1. DUE PROCESS OF LAW — What Constitutes Due Process of Law. — An adjudication by an impartial tribunal vested with lawful jurisdiction to hear and determine the questions involved, after reasonable notice to the parties interested and an opportunity for them to be heard, fulfills all the requirements of due process of law.

2. VIRGINIA STERILIZATION ACT — Insane, Idiotic, Imbecile, or Epileptic — Due Process of Law — Case at Bar. — The Virginia sterilization act (Acts. 1924, ch. 394, p. 569) clearly vests the special board of directors of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, after notice according to law, with jurisdiction to hear and determine the prayer of any petition filed by the Superintendent of the Colony, for the sexual sterilization of an inmate thereof. In the instant case the proceeding was strictly in conformity with the statute, and from the final order of the board the inmate appealed to the circuit court and subsequently to the Supreme Court of Appeals, alleging that the Virginia sterilization act was repugnant to the provisions of the State and Federal Constitutions, in that it did not provide due process of law.

Held: That the act complies with the requirements of due process of law.

3. VIRGINIA STERILIZATION ACT — Nota Penal Statute — Purpose of the Act. — The act is not a penal statute. The purpose of the legislature was not to punish but to protect the class of socially inadequate citizens named therein from themselves, and to promote the welfare of society by mitigating race degeneracy and raising the average standard of intelligence of the people of the State.

4. VIRGINIA STERILIZATION ACT — Insane, Idiotic, Imbecile, or Epileptic — Cruel and Unusual Punishment. — The constitutional provision against cruel and unusual punishment, Virginia Bill of Rights, section 9, has reference to such bodily punishments as involve torture and are inhumane and barbarous, and has no application to the Virginia sterilization act.

5. VIRGINIA STERILIZATION ACT — Insane, Idiotic, Imbecile, or Epileptic — Equal Protection of the Law — Police Power. — The Virginia sterilization act (Acts 1924, ch. 394, p. 569) is not unconstitutional as denying the equal protection of the law. The right to enact such a law rests in the police power.

6. POLICE POWER — Surrender of Police Power. — The States did not surrender the police power when they enacted the Federal Union, and the exercise of that power the Virginia Constitution provides shall never be abridged.

7. POLICE POWER — Conflict with the Constitution. — Where the police power conflicts with the Constitution, the latter is supreme, but the courts will not restrain the exercise of such power, except where the conflict is clear and plain.

8. POLICE POWER — Fourteenth Amendment. — Neither the fourteenth amendment, broad and comprehensive as it is, nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of the State, sometimes termed its police power, to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources and add to its wealth and prosperity.

9. FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT — Police Power — Statutes — Reasonable Classification. — The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not forbid the passage by the legislature of a law which applies to a class only, provided the classification is reasonable and not arbitrary, and applies alike to all persons similarly situated. Whether the classification is reasonable is a question primarily for the legislature. It is presumed to be necessary and reasonable, and the courts will not substitute their judgment for that of the legislature, unless it is clear that the legislature has not made the classification in good faith.

10. VIRGINIA STERILIZATION ACT — Equal Protection of the Law. — The Virginia sterilization act does not discriminate against the inmates or the Colony for Epileptics in favor of the feeble-minded outside the Colony, since those outside, if in fact feeble-minded, can, by the process of commitment and afterwards of a sterilization hearing, be sterilized under the act.

11. VIRGINIA STERILIZATION ACT — Constitutionality of the Act. — The Virginia sterilization act is based upon a reasonable classification and is a valid enactment under the State and Federal Constitutions.

Error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Amherst county in a proceeding under the Virginia sterilization act. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff assigns error.

The opinion states the case.

I. P. Whitehead, for the plaintiff in error.

Strode & Edmunds, for the defendant in error.

WEST, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

Carrie Buck, by R. G. Shelton, her guardian and next friend, complains of a judgment of the Circuit Court of Amherst county by which Dr. J. H. Bell, Superintendent of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, was ordered to perform on her the operation of salpingectomy, for the purpose of rendering her sexually sterile. See part of the Virginia sterilization act copied in the margin.^*

After requiring the service of a copy of the petition and notice of the time and place when the special board of directors will hear and act on the petition upon the inmate and her guardian, and, if the inmate be an infant, upon the living parents, and giving the inmate the right to be represented by counsel, the act further provides:

"The said special board may deny the prayer of the said petition, or if the said special board shall find that the said inmate is insane, idiotic, imbecile, feeble-minded, or epileptic, and by the laws of heredity is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted, that the said inmate may be sexually sterilized without detriment to his or her general health, and that the welfare of the inmate and of society will be promoted by such sterilization, the said special board may order the said superintendent to perform or to have performed by some competent physician to be named in such order upon the said inmate, after not less than thirty days from the date of such order, the operation of vasectomy if a male or of salpingectomy if a female; provided that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize the operation of castration nor the removal of sound organs from the body."

The statute then provides that the special board, the superintendent, the inmate or his committee guardian or next friend, may appeal from the order of the board to the circuit court, and that any party to such appeal in the circuit court may apply to the Supreme Court of Appeals for an appeal from the final order therein.

On the 23rd day of January, 1924, Carrie Buck was adjudged to be feeble-minded within the meaning of the Virginia statute, and committed to the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded. On September 10, 1924, A. S. Priddy, then Superintendent of the Colony, presented to the special board of directors his petition praying for an order that Carrie Buck be sexually sterilized by the surgical operation known as salpingectomy. The hearing was conducted strictly in accordance with the provisions of the statute, and, upon the evidence introduced before them, the board entered the order prayed for. From this order an appeal was taken by Carrie Buck and R. G. Shelton, her guardian and next friend, to the Circuit Court of Amherst county. Upon the record and evidence introduced at the trial in the circuit court, the judgment complained of was entered, from which this appeal was allowed.

These facts, among others, appear from the evidence:

The operation of salpingectomy is the cutting of the fallopian tubes between the ovaries and the womb, and the tying of the ends next to the womb. The ovaries are left intact and continue to function. The operation of vasectomy consists of the cutting down of a small tube which runs from the testicle, without interference with the testicle. These operations do not impair the general health, or affect the mental or moral status of the patient, or interfere with his, or her, sexual desires or enjoyment. They simply prevent reproduction. In the hands of a skilled surgeon, they are 100 per cent successful in results.

At the time Carrie Buck was committed to the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, she was seventeen years old and the mother of an illegitimate child of defective mentality. She had the mind of a child nine years old, and her mother had theretofore been committed to the same Colony as a feeble-minded person. Carrie Buck, by the laws of heredity, is the probable potential parent is socially inadequate offspring, likewise affected as she is. Unless sterilized by surgical operation, she must be kept in the custodial care of the Colony for thirty years, until she is sterilized by nature, during which time she will be a charge upon the State. If sterilized under the law, she could be given her liberty and secure a good home, under supervision, without injury to society. Her welfare and that of society would be promoted by such sterilization.

The appellant contends that the judgment is void because the Virginia sterilization act is repugnant to the provisions of the State and Federal Constitution (Const. Va., Art. 1, secs. 9, 11; Const. U.S. Amends. 8, 14) in that —

(a) It does not provide due process of law;

(b) It imposes a cruel and unusual punishment; and

(c) It denies the appellant and other inmates of the State Colony the equal protection of the law.

1. An adjudication by an impartial tribunal vested with lawful jurisdiction to hear and determine the questions involved, after reasonable notice to the parties...