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Privacy Revisited: The Downfall Of Griswald, Martin R. Levy, C. Thomas Hectus

University of Richmond Law Review

This article presents a review of the Supreme Court's privacy decisions since Griswold v. Connecticut, and concentrates on Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney for City of Richmond as a vehicle to review the Burger Court's trends in the privacy area. Doe is a good vehicle because, though decided without opinion, the summary affirmance of a lower court decision denying homosexuals constitutional protection resolved the tension developing between Douglas' penumbra theory of privacy, which was the opinion of the Court in Griswold, and the more modern substantive due process analysis. The authors conclude that the opinions in Griswold are dead as far …