In 1948, in the case Perez v. Sharp, also known as Perez v. Lippold and Perez v. Moroney, the Supreme Court of California recognized that interracial bans on marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.
The lead opinion for the four-to-three decision was authored by Associate Justice Roger J. Traynor who would later serve as the Court's Chief Justice. The dissent was written by Associate Justice John W. Shenk, the second longest-serving member in the Courts' history and an important judicial conservative of his day. The opinion was the first of any state to strike down an anti-miscegenation law in the United States.
Read more about Perez V. Sharp: Background, Court Opinion, Significance
Famous quotes containing the word sharp:
“I would have broke mine eye-strings, cracked them, but
To look upon him, till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
Have turned mine eye and wept.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)