Catherine Roraback

Last updated • 12 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Catherine Gertrude Roraback (September 17, 1920 – October 17, 2007) was a civil rights attorney in Connecticut, best known for representing Estelle Griswold and Dr. C. Lee Buxton in the famous 1965 Supreme Court case, Griswold v. Connecticut , which legalized the use of birth control in Connecticut and created the precedent of the right to privacy. She is also known for such cases as the New Haven Black Panther trials of 1971, in which she defended Black Panther member Ericka Huggins after she was accused of murder. Roraback dealt with issues such as women's rights and racial discrimination, and lived her life to defend the rights of the "dissenters and the dispossessed". [1]

Contents

Early life

Roraback, commonly known as "Katie", was born in Brooklyn, New York to Reverend Albert Edward Roraback and Gertrude Remsen Ditmars on September 17, 1920. [1] Her parents were married in Brooklyn on June 24, 1914. Her father, Albert Roraback was a Congregational Minister of the Church of the Evangel in Brooklyn. Albert Roraback graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1905 and became a pastor at the Church of Evangel in 1910. Reverend Roraback was initially from Canaan, Connecticut, where his father, Alberto T. Roraback, was the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut.[ citation needed ]

Among Catherine's well-known relatives was her great-uncle, political boss J. Henry Roraback, who controlled the Connecticut Republican Party from 1912 to 1937, serving as the party's chairman. The Republican Party successfully unified and controlled most affairs throughout the state in the 1920s under Roraback's leadership. At the time, he was considered the most influential man in Connecticut. He was a strong influence in the creation of Connecticut's Candlewood Lake, which is used today to generate electricity. Ironically, amidst the struggle for suffrage at the beginning of the 20th century, J. Henry Roraback opposed the bill that would grant women's suffrage in the United States. [2] This stance contrasted significantly with Catherine's deep involvement in women's rights and her promotion of feminism that came to be her legacy.[ citation needed ]

Catherine Roraback was also a cousin Andrew Roraback, a state politician and judge from Connecticut. [1] Her family ties to political leaders in Connecticut are extensive and were a powerful influence on her career, as was the influence of her parents, both of whom were social activists.[ citation needed ]

Roraback attended Mount Holyoke College, from which she graduated in 1941, and Yale Law School, in where she graduated in 1948. She was the only woman in her graduating class at Yale. [3] In 1955, Roraback took over her family's solo practice in Canaan, Connecticut. She inherited the practice from her uncle, J. Clinton Roraback, who was a trial lawyer. The practice was founded in 1873 by her grandfather, Alberto Roraback. She continued the solo practice in Canaan until her death in 2007.

Career

Early career

Throughout her early career, Catherine Roraback participated in many controversial cases, such as a Smith Act trial in Connecticut in the 1950s, in which she defended members of the Communist party such as Ladislaus "Laddie" Michalowski, a Progressive organizer whom Roraback represented in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. [4]

In 1954, Roraback represented a defendant in Connecticut who was charged with violating the Smith Act in a case centered around a charge that the defendant had advocated the overthrow of the government of the United States because the defendant had read the writings of Karl Marx. [5]

Griswold v. Connecticut

Catherine Roraback's participation in the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut began with the case's predecessor, Poe v. Ullman . In the late 1950s, the 1879 law banning contraceptives in Connecticut became a prominent issue for many women. Planned Parenthood executive director Estelle Griswold realized that the law was out of date and posed medical problems. She and Yale University chief of obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Lee Buxton, along with Yale Law School professor Fowler Harper, took the issue to the Supreme Court, with Roraback leading the litigation. Roraback argued that the banning of contraceptives was a medical concern for women and a problem for married couples, and should be overturned. However, the Supreme Court ruled that because the law had never been enforced, it was not a serious issue and voted 5–4 to keep the law in place. [6]

As a result, Griswold and Buxton decided to test whether or not the law would be enforced, and opened a birth control clinic in New Haven. The clinic was shut down almost immediately and Griswold and Buxton were arrested and found guilty of violating the law by providing birth control. The case was taken to court, with Catherine Roraback representing Griswold and Buxton. She took a different approach to this case and argued that the law violated the right to privacy for married couples. During the trial, Roraback continued to argue the right to privacy for married couples. However, after a brief time, it was understood that the Connecticut courts were not going to change their stance on birth control and Roraback would lose the case. The courts valued the moral issues of the law too greatly to effect a change. While defending Griswold and Buxton in what was then known to be the Buxton case in the Connecticut Superior Court, Roraback had already begun to file the appeals so that the case would be taken to the United States Supreme Court. Much to Roraback's relief, the jury ruled against Griswold and Buxton, considering the law necessary for the "preservation of mankind", a ruling that Roraback found ridiculous. She brought the case to the Supreme Court, where it came to be known as Griswold v. Connecticut [ citation needed ]

Roraback continued the argument of the right to privacy for married couples during the Supreme Court trial mainly because privacy had become an important issue throughout the country in the last decade. The McCarthy hearings and fear of Soviet spying throughout the 1950s had left Americans paranoid about their privacy. It was logical for Roraback to use this as a defense, as she understood that this would be supported by a great deal of people. The argument was only in defense of married couples. The idea to extend the argument for unmarried couples was not considered because many considered the idea too vulgar and outlandish; in the 1950s, most Americans took a conservative attitude toward extramarital sex. The Supreme Court agreed with the argument, and voted 7–2 for the elimination of the law in 1965. As a result, contraceptives for married couples were legalized in Connecticut. Roraback achieved fame after the case and soon after defended many other women in cases regarding birth control and abortion, including Abele v. Markle, which legalized abortion in Connecticut in 1972, one year before the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Griswold v. Connecticut then paved the way for Eisenstadt v. Baird , which legalized contraception for unmarried couples. The right to privacy became a Supreme Court of the United States precedent and is still in use throughout the United States.[ citation needed ]

New Haven Black Panther trials

In 1971, Catherine Roraback represented Black Panther leader Ericka Huggins in the New Haven Black Panther trials. Huggins and Bobby Seale, who was the national party chairman, were accused of ordering the murder of Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old member of the party who was believed to have been infiltrating the organization for the police. Seale was in New Haven making a speech at Yale University and was seen entering the Black Panther headquarters after finishing his speech, where Rackley was being held hostage and tortured. After the murder had taken place a few days later, the accused, Warren Kimbro, Lonnie McLucas, and George W. Sams Jr., admitted that Seale had ordered them to murder Rackley. Bobby Seale was put on trial with Huggins, who was said to have been assisting in Rackley's torture and had supported the plan for his execution. Roraback was Huggins's lawyer for the case.[ citation needed ]

Roraback used gender discrimination as a way to help Huggins' defense and persuade the jury of her innocence. Upon first entering the courtroom, Huggins commented on the lack of women assisting in the case, noting the male judge, jury, and attorneys. [7] From that moment, Roraback realized that she may be able to convince the jury that Huggins was not as much of a leader in the party as she actually was and provoke sympathy for her. She manipulated the jury's sense of feminism by allowing Huggins to remark on her mistreatment due to discrimination. Roraback devised a plan to help Huggins win the case by providing a line for her to say if the cross examiner condescended or spoke over her. After being criticized while on the witness stand, Huggins said very clearly, "Well, you see, it's very hard, first of all, for a woman to be heard by men." [7] The line worked as Roraback had intended it to. The jury began to side with Huggins and the majority eventually believed her to be innocent. The jury, however, could not reach unanimity and voted 10–2 vote Huggins's acquittal. The case was declared a mistrial for both her and Bobby Seale and both went free. Roraback representation was successful and influenced her role in defending women's rights.[ citation needed ]

Peter Reilly murder case

In 1973, Roraback faced yet another controversial case that impacted the Connecticut courts profoundly. Peter Reilly, an 18-year-old from Litchfield County, Connecticut, was accused of sexually assaulting and brutally murdering his mother, Barbara Gibbons, on September 28, 1973, after returning from a youth meeting at his church. Reilly arrived home and called the police after discovering his mother's mutilated body. When the police arrived they questioned Reilly about what happened and believed him to be acting suspiciously. They subjected him to over 25 hours of interrogation before he finally confessed to the crime. The police made him sign a formal confession before going on trial. Peter Reilly asked Roraback to represent him, as he was sure that he would be sentenced to years in prison without strong legal assistance. Roraback agreed to defend Reilly because she truly believed in his innocence and believed that the police had forced him to confess after hours of mental and emotional torture. Her determination to prove his innocence and expose the corruption that Reilly was subjected to was so strong that she agreed to take on the case for an infinitesimal amount of money. Despite lacking other evidence against Reilly and the doubts that most people had regarding the validity of the confession, Roraback was unable to persuade the court that he was innocent, the argument being that he had signed a formal confession. Peter Reilly was found guilty by the jury and sentenced to 6 to 16 years in prison. [8]

Roraback appealed the verdict immediately, refusing to allow the court to get away with the conviction based on a forced confession. Soon after hearing the conviction, many friends and neighbors of Reilly's began to assist him in his campaign to be proven innocent. Among them was playwright Arthur Miller, who made the case a public issue and alerted The New York Times of the case and asked them to investigate. The outcome of the second case did not look promising for Reilly, as the prosecutor continued to stress the point that Reilly had confessed to the murder. However, as the case continued, the prosecutor, John Bianchi, died suddenly and was replaced. The new prosecutor quickly found details and extensive evidence that showed that Reilly was miles away from his house when the murder happened. Upon discovering this evidence, the judge dropped all charges against Reilly. The case was very significant in Connecticut because the public began to feel that the police were not to be trusted, as they forced a man to sign a confession of murder when he was clearly innocent.[ citation needed ]

The story was the subject of the books Guilty Until Proven Innocent and A Death In Canaan, the latter made into a TV movie (1978). [9]

The case reopened in 2004 when Peter Reilly demanded to see the files from the case. Though he was found not guilty, he still felt it necessary to uncover who had murdered and sexually assaulted his mother. However, State police were reluctant to release the files to the public, a notion that angered many who felt that the murder should be solved. The Freedom of Information Commission eventually ruled that the police were obligated to release the files but were not required to release those mentioning Peter Reilly.[ citation needed ]

Awards and honors

Catherine Roraback Awards (NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut)

Since 1980, NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut has given out the Catherine Roraback Award, an award given to individuals and organizations that have demonstrated leadership, courage and activism in the struggle to protect privacy rights, the legal right to obtain an abortion, and access to reproductive health for all women. [10] The award has been given to numerous politicians, activists, healthcare workers, and others involved in the struggle for reproductive freedom. [11]

Other honors and awards

Throughout her career, Catherine Roraback participated in many historically significant groups. She co-founded the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, an organization that works to secure the rights of citizens as listed in the Bill of Rights. Roraback also served as president of the National Lawyers Guild from 1973 to 1985, an association of lawyers that describes itself as "defending human rights". She served on the Connecticut Women's Education and Legal Fund and was a board member emeritus of the American Civil Liberties Union. [12]

Roraback received numerous awards for her legal and humanitarian actions throughout her life. Among these are induction into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, an esteem also received by Katharine Hepburn and Helen Keller. She is also the namesake of the Catherine Roraback Law Scholarship Fund of the Litchfield County Bar Association.

Later life

After trying many cases throughout the civil rights movement, Catherine Roraback continued her practice in Canaan, Connecticut, continuing to defend civil rights. Her practice also served to help in smaller affairs including criminal defenses and divorces. She participated in Planned Parenthood as a legal counsel long after Griswold, and continued to defend, as she called them, the "dissenters and the dispossessed". Roraback died at Noble Horizons living facility in Salisbury, Connecticut, of undisclosed causes on October 17, 2007. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobby Seale</span> Co-founder of the Black Panther Party (born 1936)

Robert George Seale is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", the Party's main practice was monitoring police activities and challenging police brutality in Black communities, first in Oakland, California, and later in cities throughout the United States.

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to use contraceptives without government restriction. The case involved a Connecticut "Little Comstock Act" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception". The court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and that its effect was "to deny disadvantaged citizens ... access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control." By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as "protected from governmental intrusion".

<i>Powell v. State</i>

Powell v. State of Georgia, S98A0755, 270 Ga. 327, 510 S.E. 2d 18 (1998), was a decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia in the U.S. state of Georgia that overturned its law against sodomy within the state. The Court ruled that the Georgia Constitution granted a right to privacy, and that outlawing oral or anal sex between consenting adults was a violation of the state constitution, thus deeming it "unconstitutional".

Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961), was a United States Supreme Court case, seeking pre-enforcement review, that held in the majority that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge a Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives and banned doctors from advising their use. Therefore, any challenge to the law was deemed unripe because there was no actual threat of injury to anyone who disobeyed the law. The same statute would be challenged again just five years later in Griswold v. Connecticut.

Alex Rackley was an American activist who was a member of the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the late-1960s. In May 1969, Rackley was suspected by other Panthers of being a police informant. He was brought to Panther headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, held captive and tortured there for several days, condemned to death, taken to the wetlands of Middlefield, Connecticut, and murdered there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George W. Sams Jr.</span> Member of the Black Panther Party

George W. Sams Jr. was a member of the Black Panther Party convicted in the 1969 murder of New York Panther Alex Rackley, which resulted in the New Haven Black Panther trials of 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Haven Black Panther trials</span> 1969-71 criminal prosecutions

In 1969-1971 there was a series of criminal prosecutions in New Haven, Connecticut, against various members and associates of the Black Panther Party. The charges ranged from criminal conspiracy to first-degree murder. All charges stemmed from the murder of 19-year-old Alex Rackley in the early hours of May 21, 1969. The trials became a rallying-point for the American Left, and marked a decline in public support, even among the black community, for the Black Panther Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren Kimbro</span> American murderer (1934–2009)

Warren Aloysious Kimbro was a Black Panther Party member in New Haven, Connecticut who was found guilty of the May 21, 1969, murder of New York City Panther Alex Rackley, in the first of the New Haven Black Panther trials in 1970.

Lonnie McLucas was a Black Panther Party member in Bridgeport, Connecticut who was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for his involvement in the May 21, 1969 murder of New York City Panther Alex Rackley, in the first of the New Haven Black Panther trials in 1970.

Earl Caldwell is an American journalist. He documented the Black Panthers from the inside in 1969, and became embroiled in a landmark 1972 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court clarifying reporters' rights. The case started when the FBI pressured Caldwell unsuccessfully to be an informant against the Black Panther Party. He worked for The New York Times, the New York Daily News, The New York Amsterdam News and is on the radio in New York City. His career as a journalist spans more than four decades. He witnessed and chronicled some of the most important civil rights events from the 1960s onwards. He was the only reporter present when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Caldwell is a founding member of the steering committee of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, as well as the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In 2009 he was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Panther Party</span> US Black political organization (1966–1982)

The Black Panther Party was a Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California. The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major American cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia. They were also active in many prisons and had international chapters in the United Kingdom and Algeria. Upon its inception, the party's core practice was its open carry patrols ("copwatching") designed to challenge the excessive force and misconduct of the Oakland Police Department. From 1969 onward, the party created social programs, including the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, education programs, and community health clinics. The Black Panther Party advocated for class struggle, claiming to represent the proletarian vanguard.

Andrew W. Roraback is an American politician from Connecticut. He has served in both the Connecticut House of Representatives and the Connecticut State Senate, representing the Republican Party. As a legislator, he was a social moderate and a fiscal conservative. He never missed a roll call vote during his eighteen years in the General Assembly, earning the nickname "the Cal Ripken of the Senate." He became a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Estelle Griswold</span> American civil rights activist and feminist (1900–1981)

Estelle Naomi Trebert Griswold was a civil rights activist and feminist most commonly known as a defendant in what became the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, in which contraception for married couples was legalized in the state of Connecticut, setting the precedent of the right to privacy. Griswold served as the executive director of Planned Parenthood in New Haven when she and Yale professor C. Lee Buxton opened a birth control clinic in New Haven in an attempt to change the Connecticut law banning contraception. Their actions set into motion legislation that resulted in both Poe v. Ullman and Griswold v. Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ericka Huggins</span> American activist and educator (born 1948)

Ericka Huggins is an American activist, writer, and educator. She is a former leading member of the political organization, Black Panther Party (BPP). She was married to fellow BPP member John Huggins in 1968.

Charles Lee Buxton was an American gynecologist, professor at the Yale School of Medicine, and appellant in US Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut. He is best known as a birth control advocate and, along with Estelle Griswold, party to several legal cases that ultimately repealed Connecticut's Comstock laws and established a Constitutional right to privacy for married couples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penumbra (law)</span> Rights derived from rights protected in the Bill of Rights

In United States constitutional law, the penumbra includes a group of rights derived, by implication, from other rights explicitly protected in the Bill of Rights. These rights have been identified through a process of "reasoning-by-interpolation", where specific principles are recognized from "general idea[s]" that are explicitly expressed in other constitutional provisions. Although researchers have traced the origin of the term to the nineteenth century, the term first gained significant popular attention in 1965, when Justice William O. Douglas's majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut identified a right to privacy in the penumbra of the constitution.

In a confidential birth, the mother provides her identity to authorities, but requires that her identity not be disclosed by the authorities. In many countries, confidential births have been legalized for centuries in order to prevent formerly frequent killings of newborn children, particularly outside of marriage.

Alberto T. Roraback was an American lawyer, politician, and judge. He was a judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1908 to 1919.

Abortion in Connecticut is legal up to the point of fetal viability, or after that if necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman. A poll by the Pew Research Center found that 67 percent of adults in the state believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Abortions took place early in the state's history. People at that time talked about abortions using euphemisms. The death of Sarah Grosvenor following unsuccessful abortion resulted in a prosecution in colonial Connecticut. Connecticut became the first state to criminalize abortion after codifying its common law in 1821. Later, such laws were justified as trying to protect the life of the women from bad actors providing unsafe abortion services. The state was one of ten states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. In 1965, the US Supreme Court heard the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, striking down laws that banned the sale, use of and prescription of contraceptives, even for married couples. The Court's later decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. In 1990, state law was amended to read, "the decision to terminate a pregnancy prior to the viability of the fetus shall be solely that of the pregnant woman in consultation with her physician", the first such law in state codifying the Court's holding in Roe, as it would be later modified by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The number of abortion clinics in the state has been declining in recent years, going from 46 in 1982 to 43 in 1992 to 21 in 2014. There were 10,625 legal abortions performed in Connecticut in 2014, and 9,888 in 2015. In 1964, Gerri Santoro of Connecticut died trying to obtain an illegal abortion and her photo became the symbol of the pro-choice movement. Abortion rights activists in the state participated in the #StoptheBans movement in May 2019. Anti-abortion rights organizations were created in the state in the late 1960s.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Hevesi, Dennis (October 20, 2007). "Catherine Roraback, 87, Influential Lawyer, Dies". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ "The Struggle for the Thirty-Sixth State". InfoPlease. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  3. ↑ "Yale Alumni Magazine - Where They Are Now". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  4. ↑ "Catherine Roraback's Enduring Gift". tribunedigital-thecourant. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  5. ↑ "Catherine Roraback Is Recalled As Legal World Force of Nature" . Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2011-03-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. 1 2 "Catherine Roraback Knew Who Was Watching". newhavenindependent.org. 2007-10-22. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  8. ↑ "TCExtra.com Barbara Gibbons and Peter Reilly: 35 years after that tragic night". Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  9. ↑ O'Connor, John J. (March 1978). "TV:True ,story, 'Death in Canaan'". New York Times. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  10. ↑ "Catherine Roraback Awards".
  11. ↑ "Catherine Roraback Awards, NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut".
  12. ↑ "Catherine G. Roraback dead at 87 :: American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut". Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2011-03-10.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.