Washington et al. v. Harold Glucksberg et al.

Notable Items:

Petitioner: The State of Washington et al.
Respondent: Harold Glucksberg et al.
Venue: Supreme Court of the United States
Opinion of the Court: Need entry for

Issue(s) Before the Court:

whether the State of Washington's prohibition against "causing" or "aiding" a suicide offends the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution?

Petitioner's Claim(s):

Respondent's Claim(s):

"The existence of a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment which extends to a personal choice by a mentally competent, terminally ill adult to commit physician assisted suicide."

Holding(s) and Disposition:

Held: No. The State of Washington's prohibition against "causing" or "aiding" a suicide does not offend the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Disposition:

Material Facts:

A crime to assist a suicide in the State of Washington since 1854.
In January 1994, respondants and three gravely ill plaintiffs sued in United State District Court seeking a declaration that Washington's law is on its face unconstitutional.

Procedural History:

In January 1994, respondants and three gravely ill plaintiffs sued in United State District Court seeking a declaration that Washington's law is on its face unconstitutional.
District Court held for the respondants: "places an undue burden on the exercise of [that] constitutionally protected liberty interest."
The court held that the statute violated the Equal Protection Clause's requirement that "all persons similiarly situated ... be treated alike"....
A panel for the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed: "in two hundred and five years of our existence no constitutional right to aid in killing oneself had ever been asserted and upheld by a court of final jurisdiction."
The Ninth Circuit, en banc, reserved the panel's decision: "the Constitution encompasses a due process liberty interest in controlling the time and manner of one's death ...."
The court did not reach the District Court's equal protection holding.
We granted certiorari
and now reverse

Rationale

Rehnquist Majority Opinion (O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas)

The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process, and the "liberty" it protects includes more than an absence of physical restraint....
Our established method of substantive due process analysis has two primary features:
First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specifically protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition,"....
such that "neither liberty or justice would exist if they were sacrificed."
Second, we have required in substantive due process cases a "careful description" of the asserted fundamental liberty interest....
Our Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices thus provide the crucial "guideposts for responsible decision making".... that direct and restrain our exposition of the Due Process Clause.
The Fourteenth Amendment "forbids the government to infringe ... 'fundamental' liberty interests at all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest."
... is there a liberty interest in determining the time and manner of one's death"...
... consistent and almost universal tradition that has long rejected the asserted right, and continues explicitly to reject it today, ....
We hold therefore that that [the statute] does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, either on its face or "as applied to competent, terminally ill adults who wish to hasten their deaths by obtaining medication prescribed by their doctors."
A full description of the rationale is available below

O'Connor Concur (Ginsberg, Breyer in part)

I join the Court's opinions because I agree that there is no generalized right to "commit suicide." (736)
But respondents urge us to address the narrower question whether a mentally competent person who is experiencing great suffering has a constitutionally cognizable interest in controlling the circumstances of his or her imminent death.
I see no need to reach that question in the context of the facial challenges to the New York and Washington laws at issue here.
In this light, even assuming that we would recognize such an interest, I agree that the State's interests in protecting those who are not truly competent or facing imminent death, or those whose decisions to hasten death would not truly be voluntary, are sufficiently weighty to justify a prohibition against physician-assisted suicide. (737)
There is no reason to think the democratic process will not strike the proper balance between the interests of terminally ill, mentally competent individuals who would seek to end their suffering and the State's interests in protecting those who might seek to end life mistakenly or under pressure.
In sum, there is no need to address the question whether suffering patients have a constitutionally cognizable interest in obtaining relief from the suffering that they may experience in the last days of their lives.
The difficulty in defining terminal illness and the risk that a dying patient's request for assistance in ending his or her life might not be truly voluntary justifies the prohibitions on assisted suicide we uphold here. (738)

Stevens Concur in Judgement

Today, the Court decides that Washington's statute prohibiting assisted suicide is not invalid "on its face," that is to say, in all or most cases in which it might be applied. (739)
That holding, however, does not foreclose the possibility that some applications of the statute might well be invalid.
History and tradition provide ample support for refusing to recognize an open-ended constitutional right to commit suicide.

Souter Concur in Judgement

... [they are claiming] that the State has no substantively adequate justification for barring the assistance sought by the patient and offered by the physician.
... Constitutional recognition of the right to bodily integrity underlies the assumed right, good against the State, to require physicians to terminate artificial life support, ....
I take it that the basic concept of judicial review ... bars any finding that a legislature has acted arbitrarily when the following conditions are met:
there is a serious factual controversy over the feasibility of recognizing the claimed right without at the same time making it impossible for the State to engage in an undoubtedly legitimate exercis of power;
facts necessary to resolve the controversy are not readily ascertainable through the judicial process;
but they are more readily subject to discovery through legislative fact finding and experimentation.
We therefore have a clear question about which institution, the legislature or the court, is relatively more competent to deal with an emerging issue as to which facts currently unknown could be dispositive.
The answer has to be, ..., that the legislative process is to be preferred.
The Court should accordingly stay its hand to allow reasonable legislative consideration.

Ginsberg Concur in Judgement

Breyer Concur in Judgement

Majority Full Argument

[Part I: Historical Overview]
We begin, as we do in all due process cases, by examining our Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices....
The States' assisted suicide bans ... are not innovations. Rather, they are long-standing expressions of the States' commitment to the protection and presevation of all human life...
In 1991, Washington voters rejected a ballot initiative which, ..., would have permitted a form of physican assisted suicide.
[Part II: Due Process]
The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process, and the "liberty" it protects includes more than an absence of physical restraint....
In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the "liberty" specifically protected by the Due Process Clause include the rights to marry; to have children, to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, to marital privacy, to use contraception, to bodily integrity, and to abortion.
Our established method of substantive due process analysis has two primary features:
First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specifically protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition,"....
such that "neither liberty or justice would exist if they were sacrificed."
Second, we have required in substantive due process cases a "careful description" of the asserted fundamental liberty interest....
Our Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices thus provide the crucial "guideposts for responsible decision making".... that direct and restrain our exposition of the Due Process Clause.
The Fourteenth Amendment "forbids the government to infringe ... 'fundamental' liberty interests at all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest."
... is there a liberty interest in determining the time and manner of one's death"...
... thus the question before is whether the "liberty" specifically protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right to commit suicide which itself includes a right to assistance in doing so.
... consistent and almost universal tradition that has long rejected the asserted right, and continues explicitly to reject it today, ....
The right assumed in Cruzan, however, was not simply deduced from abstract concepts or personal autonomy. Given the common law rule that forced medication was battery, ... our assumption was entirely consistent with this Nation's history and consitutional traditions.
That many of the rights and liberties protected by the Due Process Clause sound in personal autonomy does not warrant the sweeping conclusion that any and all important, intimate, and personal decisions are so protected ... and Casey did not suggest otherwise.
First, Washington has an "unqualified interest in the [passive] preservation of human life." [except in death-penalty cases]
The State also has an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession. [generalized non-specific concern.]
Next, the State has an interest in protecting vulnerable groups--including the poor, the elderly, and disabled persons--from abuse, neglect, and mistakes. [not cogent, patient initiated action.]
Finally, the State may fear that permitting assisted suicide will start it down the path to voluntary and perhaps even involuntary euthanasia. [generalized non-specific concern.]
If suicide is protected as a matter of constitutional right, ..., "every man and woman in the United States must enjoy it [the right]."
We hold therefore that that [the statute] does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, either on its face or "as applied to competent, terminally ill adults who wish to hasten their deaths by obtaining medication prescribed by their doctors."
The core of the rationale is available above