In reckless hands : Skinner v. Oklahoma and the near triumph of American eugenics /

In this excellent work, Nourse (law, Univ. of Wisconsin) provides a legal history of the Supreme Court case that served to increase the recognition of individual rights, although it fell short of ending the practice and debate of eugenics in the US. This book is illustrative of the myriad ways in which law and society are tied together, from the academic and scientific foundations of the popularity of eugenics through the middle of the 20th century, to the impact on the understanding of law that concurrent and future events have on the interpretations of law. Nourse successfully ties the evolution of the eugenics debate--by following the progress of Skinner (a case that emanated from a prison in Oklahoma) through the judicial process--to the rise of Hitler. Furthermore, she discusses its eventual impact on constitutional law as cases such as Roe v. Wade. This book deserves attention from those interested in the history and politics of the legal system. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. T. T. Gibson Monmouth College

*Starred Review* Nourse blows the dust off one of the most momentous forgotten decisions in Supreme Court history, whose import for society is easily appreciated but whose rationale must be not just dusted off but salvaged and restored. Under the influence of the eugenics movement's promises of an improved humanity, Oklahoma, like many other states, passed laws in the 1920s and 1930s authorizing the sexual sterilization of people of low intelligence, mental patients, and criminals. The first Oklahoma convict targeted for compulsory vasectomy, Jack Skinner became the plaintiff in a case that would effectually overturn legal sterilization in the U.S. From filing to Supreme Court decision took six years (1936-42) and, as Nourse demonstrates, involved state politics, classic underdog advocacy, riots and breakouts by frightened convicts, and FDR's attempt to pack the high court, but not any rights talk, even of the human right to reproduce. Back then, community interests and duly enacted laws generally trumped appeals to personal rights. Skinner v. Oklahoma was decided by arguments about the evenhandedness of Oklahoma's convict-sterilization law. The justices concluded that the statute was discriminatory, not inhumane. Americans would do well to recall Skinner's egalitarianism, Nourse says, as the persuasiveness of rights talk wanes. Completely engrossing, this may be the legal-history book of the year.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2008 Booklist

The shocking story of the American eugenics movement has been told before, but Nourse's first book focuses on the Supreme Court case that dealt the movement its death blow: the 1942 decision in Skinner v. Oklahoma. Nourse conveys the popular acceptance of the idea of "race betterment" in the 1920s and '30s: in the permanent Eugenics Pavilion at the Kansas Free Fair, for instance, flashing lights toted up the cost to society of the criminal and the "feebleminded." Against this background, Nourse, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, conveys the magnitude of the constitutional challenge facing Jack Skinner, an Oklahoma convict ordered sterilized pursuant to a eugenic statute aimed at "habitual criminals." Nourse is equally effective depicting the legal strategies and the impact of the Depression and the growing awareness of Nazi atrocities on the High Court. A bit more challenging is Nourse's analysis of Skinner's theoretical underpinnings. She argues convincingly that today, when genes are viewed as the "cause for everything from criminality to spirituality," America's flirtation with eugenics is a cautionary tale worth remembering. 11 photos. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.