| McLaughlin v. Florida | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued October 13–14, 1964 Decided December 7, 1964 | |
| Full case name | McLaughlin, et al. v. Florida |
| Citations | 379 U.S. 184 (more) 85 S. Ct. 283; 13 L. Ed. 2d 222; 1964 U.S. LEXIS 63 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Defendants convicted, Fl Sup Ct affirmed. Appeal from the Supreme Court of Florida |
| Subsequent | Convictions set aside |
| Holding | |
| Florida statute prohibits an unmarried interracial couple from habitually living in and occupying the same room in the nighttime. The same conduct when engaged in by members of the same race, is not prohibited. This is in violation of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | White, joined by Warren, Black, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, Goldberg |
| Concurrence | Harlan |
| Concurrence | Stewart (in judgment), joined by Douglas |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Fla. Stat. § 798.05 | |
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings | |
| Pace v. Alabama (1883) (in part) | |
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a cohabitation law of Florida, part of the state's anti-miscegenation laws, was unconstitutional.[1] The law prohibited habitual cohabitation by two unmarried people of opposite sex, if one was black and the other was white. The decision overturned Pace v. Alabama (1883),[2] which had declared such statutes constitutional. It did not overturn the related Florida statute that prohibited interracial marriage between whites and blacks. Such laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia.[3]
- ^ McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964).
This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
- ^ Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883).
- ^ Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
