Case Brief Of Loving V. Virginia

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

Facts of the case: In 1924, the state of Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 which banned the marriage between a white person and a person of color. The law only targeted interracial marriages that consisted of a white person and a non-white person. The act had additional provisions that penalized the travel out of state for purposes of marriage between a white person and person of color; upon return to Virginia, the marriage would be subject to Virginian law. The punishment for the marriage was one to five years incarceration, and the marriage would be void “without any judicial proceeding.” Aware of the Racial Integrity Act, Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, traveled

The Lovings plead guilty and were sentenced to one year in jail on January 1959. However, the judge suspended the disposition on the condition that the Lovings leave the state of Virginia. Now living in Washington D.C., the Lovings appeal their conviction in the same trial court on the basis that the Virginia law violated their 14th amendment right. The trial court upheld the conviction, so the Lovings appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. The Virginia Supreme Court upheld the positionality of the law and affirmed the Loving’s conviction. The basis of the decision was based on the decision of Naim v. Naim, an earlier Virginia Supreme Court case, in which the court ruled that interracial marriages would create half breed children and the corruption of racial purity. The Lovings then appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and the court granted certiorari on December 1966.

Issue of the case: Do the anti-miscegenation solely based on the race of interracial couples violate the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the