410 US 113 ( 1973 )
FACTS:
This is an appeal of the decision of a US District Court in Texas, which granted the declaratory relief prayed for by the plaintiff who challenged the constitutionality of the Texas Criminal abortion laws; but denied issuing an injunction against enforcement of such statutes.
In 1970, Norma L McCorvey ( “Jane Roe” ), a pregnant single woman (allegedly a result of rape), filed a suit against the defendant, District Attorney Henry Wade questioning Texas State Laws which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother’s life. She argues that said laws are unconstitutionally vague and that they abridge her right of personal privacy as guaranteed and protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Later, she amended her complaint as to represent or sue “ on behalf of herself and all other women similarly situated;” thereby becoming a class suit.
ISSUE:
Whether or not a woman’s right to privacy as protected by the constitution includes the right to abort her child.
HELD:
Yes. The “right of privacy x x x is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. We therefore conclude that the right of personal privacy includes abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.”
“A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type that exempts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the interests involved (such as liberty interests), is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
1 comment:
After his term and death, he was criticised for his corruption, ranging from wrongful convictions, to altitudes and certain comments on race, in addition to some decisions such as execution of innocent men.
In a January 1964 Dallas Times Herald, Wade's wife was quoted: "I’d be afraid to drink a glass of light wine and then drive to the drugstore...If the police stopped me, I know what Henry would do."[6] Several articles later noted that a 1963 internal memo in Wade's office advised against "Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race" from serving on a jury.[7] In 1969, Jon Sparling, one of Wade's top assistants, wrote a training manual warning against picking, among others, "free-thinkers" and "extremely overweight people," and said, "You are not looking for a fair juror but rather a strong, biased and sometimes hypocritical individual who believes that defendants are different from them."[8]
As of July 2008, 15 persons convicted during Wade's term as Dallas County district attorney have been exonerated of the crimes of which they were convicted in light of new DNA evidence. Because of the culture of the department to "convict at all costs," more innocent people are suspected to have been falsely imprisoned.[9] Project Innocence Texas has more than 250 cases under examination.
Craig Watkins, the first black American DA for Dallas Country, described Wade's tenure as having "a cowboy kind of mentality and the reality is that kind of approach is archaic, racist, elitist and arrogant."[10] In Wade’s final year in office, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a black man, Thomas Miller-El, ruling that blacks were excluded from the jury. Cited in Miller-El’s appeal was a manual for prosecutors that Wade wrote in 1969 and was used for more than a decade. It gave instructions on how to keep minorities off juries. Before Wade's death, DNA evidence was used for the first time to reverse a Dallas County conviction; David Shawn Pope, found guilty of rape in 1986, who had spent 15 years in prison.[11] Watkins said in a 2010 interview in The Guardian that officers from his own jurisdiction "were taken aback because we were calling in to question the work they had done for all these years. It was the same among some folks in this office. They were afraid of the consequences of this Pandora's box being opened."[12] Lenell Geter, a black engineer, was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison. After Geter had spent more than a year behind bars, Wade agreed to a new trial, then dropped the charges in 1983 amid reports of shoddy evidence and allegations Geter was singled out because of his race.[13] According to a 2016, article, Wade was responsible for the conviction and execution of a black man called Tommy Lee Walker. Former Dallas assistant district attorney Edward Gray wrote the 2010 book Henry Wade's Tough Justice which discussed the miscarriages of justice during Wade's tenure, noting that Wade's office conviction rate of innocent defendants was ten times the national average. Gray stated that "Henry Wade wouldn't intentionally try to convict someone he knew to be innocent...but even in cases where evidence was weak, he would go all out, go for broke, be super-competitive."
Post a Comment