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In Reckless Hands - Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics (Hardcover)
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In Reckless Hands - Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics (Hardcover)
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Memorable account of a landmark case that stymied the practice of
forced sterilization.The original 1934 plaintiffs were three men
jailed in Oklahoma's McAlester prison; each had at least three
felony convictions, which made them eligible for sterilization
under the state's broad 1933 law. Similar laws around the country
drew their rationale from the pseudo-science of eugenics, which
claimed that insanity, feeble-mindedness, promiscuity and
criminality were inherited traits. Pseudonymous, frequently flawed
family studies in the late 19th- and early-20th century had made
names like Jukes and Kallikak synonyms for generations of imbeciles
and criminals. Two crusading Oklahoma lawyers took the McAlester
inmates' case and managed to delay implementation of the law as
they lost appeal after appeal to higher courts - losses that
occasioned prison riots and breakouts. At the 11th hour, two
additional lawyers filed for consideration of Skinner v. Oklahoma
by the U.S. Supreme Court. By that time, in late 1941, the court
was headed by Harlan Stone and included Roosevelt appointees Felix
Frankfurter, Hugo Black and William O. Douglas. The world was at
war, and even the self-righteous who saw eugenics as the path to
society's betterment were having second thoughts in light of Nazi
atrocities. Douglas wrote in the deciding opinion on June 1, 1942,
that "in reckless hands," entire "races or types" might "wither and
disappear." Moreover, the law violated equal protection because it
did not mandate sterilization for embezzlers or tax cheats
(non-felons). Perhaps the most visionary language, however, came in
the justice's reference to procreation as "an area of human
rights." In a nuanced discourse, Nourse (Criminal and
Constitutional Law/Univ. of Wisconsin) recounts how legal thinking
concerning race, liberty, constitutionality, equal protection and
civil rights has changed dramatically since Skinner. However, she
warns, society may once again be looking for "the 'natural' secret
to criminal tendencies," this time in the form of bad genes.A legal
tale that reads like a cliffhanger. (Kirkus Reviews)
In the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of men and women were sterilized
at asylums and prisons across America. Believing that criminality
and mental illness were inherited, state legislatures passed laws
calling for the sterilization of "habitual criminals" and the
"feebleminded." But in 1936, inmates at Oklahoma's McAlester prison
refused to cooperate; a man named Jack Skinner was the first to
come to trial. A colorful and heroic cast of characters-from the
inmates themselves to their devoted, self-taught lawyer-would fight
the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only after
Americans learned the extent of another large-scale eugenics
project-in Nazi Germany-would the inmates triumph. Combining
engrossing narrative with sharp legal analysis, Victoria F. Nourse
explains the consequences of this landmark decision, still vital
today-and reveals the stories of these forgotten men and women who
fought for human dignity and the basic right to have a family.
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