McGowan v. Maryland
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| McGowan v. Maryland | |||||||||||
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| Argued December 8, 1960 Decided May 29, 1961 |
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| Holding | |||||||||||
| Laws proscribing or limiting sunday trading are not necessarily unconstitutional. | |||||||||||
| Court membership | |||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Earl Warren Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Charles Evans Whittaker, Potter Stewart |
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| Case opinions | |||||||||||
| Majority by: Warren Concurrence by: Frankfurter, Harlan Dissent by: Douglas |
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| Laws applied | |||||||||||
| Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, § 521; 1st and 14th Amendments | |||||||||||
McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that laws with religious origins are not unconstitutional if they have secular purpose.
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[edit] Background
At the time of the case, the State of Maryland maintained laws which only permitted certain items, such as drugs, tobacco, newspapers and some foodstuffs, to be sold on Sundays. Seven employees of a department store in Anne Arundel County, Maryland were indicted for selling items in violation of Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, § 521, the afore-mentioned law.
The Supeme Court was asked to consider whether the presence of such a law would be in violation of the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
[edit] Constitutional text
The relevant clauses of the 1st and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution:
[edit] The 1st Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
[edit] Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
[edit] The Court's decision
The Court held that Maryland's laws did not violate the First Amendment. The plaintiffs claimed only economic injury, not that they had been prevented from the free exercise of their religion. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Warren concluded:
"[The] appellants allege only economic injury to themselves; they do not allege any infringement of their own religious freedoms due to Sunday closing. In fact, the record is silent as to what appellants' religious beliefs are. Since the general rule is that "a litigant may only assert his own constitutional rights or immunities," (United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 22) we hold that appellants have no standing to raise this contention."
The Court also held that the law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Warren again:
"...the Court has [previously] held that the Fourteenth Amendment permits the States a wide scope of discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than others. The constitutional safeguard is offended only if the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective. State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power [even when], in practice, their laws result in some inequality."
In reaching their conclusion, the Court also examined the wider question of whether laws proscribing or limiting sunday trading (so-called "blue laws") were constitutional. They held that such laws did not violate the division between church and state, because - no matter the historical roots of such laws - the laws existed as constituted in order to fulfill a secular objective. In other words, even if Sunday trading laws were originally intended to facilitate and encourage church attendance in colonial America, the laws as presently constituted were intended to improve the "health, safety, recreation, and general well-being" of citizens. The present purpose of the laws is to provide a uniform day of rest for all; the fact that this day is of particular significance for one or more religions does not bar the State from achieving its secular goals in this manner.
