Michael O. Leavitt, Governor of Utah, et al., v. Jane L., et al. (518 U.S. 137)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 17, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 518 U.S. 137 · 116 S. Ct. 2068
- Decided
- June 17, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 5–4
- Issue area
- Privacy
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. The State of Utah seeks review of a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit which declared invalid a provision of Utah law regulating abortions “[a]fter 20 weeks gestational age.” Utah Code Ann. §76-7-302(3) (1995). The court made that declaration, not on the ground that the provision violates federal law, but rather on the ground that the provision was not severable from another provision of the same statute, purporting to regulate abortions up to 20 weeks’ gestational age, which had been struck down as unconstitutional. The court’s severability ruling was based on its view that the Utah Legislature would not have wanted to regulate the later-term abortions unless it could regulate the earlier-term abortions as well. Whatever the validity of such speculation as a general matter, in the present case it is flatly contradicted by a provision in the very part of the Utah Code at issue, explicitly stating that each statutory provision was to be regarded as having been enacted independently of the others. Because we regard the Court of Appeals’ determination as to the Utah Legislature’s intent to be irreconcilable with that body’s own statement on the subject, we grant the petition for certiorari as to this aspect of the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and summarily reverse. Utah law, as amended by legislation enacted in 1991, establishes two regimes of…
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