# Poe v. Ullman

> Supreme Court of the United States · October 9, 1961 · 367 U.S. 497

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422268

## Case

- **Full name:** POE Et Al. v. ULLMAN, STATE'S ATTORNEY
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** October 9, 1961
- **Citations:** 367 U.S. 497; 81 S. Ct. 1752; 6 L. Ed. 2d 989; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 1953
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** Frankfurter, Brennan, Douglas, Harlan, Stewart, Clark, Whittaker
- **Cited by:** 1,004 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Questioned by Crossen v. Breckenridge, 446 F.2d 833 (1971).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422268

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that "the intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution which the State not only must allow, but which always and in every age it has fostered and protected,” and noting also that the "S…
- finding a case unripe for ______ adjudication of constitutionality of state statutes where the lack of any evidence that, with the exception of one test case, the statutes had ever been enforced, even in the face of actions violating the statutes, demonstrated the state's poli…
- finding a case unripe for adjudication of constitutionality of state statutes where the lack of any evidence that, with the exception of one test case, the statutes had ever been enforced, even in the face of actions violating the statutes, demonstrated the state’s policy of n…
- holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge a Connecticut contraception ban where there were no prosecutions during the statute's eighty-two-year history and the statute was openly violated, despite the state's purported intention to prosecute violations
- explaining that prohibitions “against the deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law” set forth in Fourteenth Amendment are applicable to state government and same prohibitions in Fifth Amendment are applicable to “the Federal Government”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Brennan,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree that this appeal must be dismissed for failure to present a real and substantial controversy which unequivocally calls for adjudication of the rights claimed in advance of any attempt by the State to curtail them by criminal prosecution. I am not convinced, on this skimpy record, that these appellants as individuals are truly caught in an inescapable dilemma. The true controversy in this case is over the opening of birth-control clinics on a large scale; it is that which the State has prevented in the past, not the use of contraceptives by isolated and-individual married couples. It will be time enough to decide the constitutional questions urged upon us when, if ever, that real controversy flares up again. Until it does, or until the State makes a definite and concrete threat to enforce these laws against individual married couples — a threat which it has never made in the past except under the provocation of litigation — this Court may not be compelled to exercise its most delicate power of constitutional adjudication.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422268. Public record. Not legal advice.