Episode notes
Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971)
Full notes and cites: https://opinion-of-the-court.pages.dev/ep/024-reed-v-reed
Official text (U.S. Reports, Library of Congress): https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep404/usrep404071/usrep404071.pdf
Full text of the opinions, AI-narrated (Kokoro-82M, voice af_heart). Original introduction; opinion text is public domain. Not legal advice.
Richard Reed, a teenager in Idaho, died in 1967 without a will. His separated parents, Sally and Cecil Reed, each applied to administer his small estate. An Idaho statute said that among people equally entitled, males must be preferred to females, so the court appointed Cecil.
Chief Justice Burger, for a unanimous Court, held that a mandatory preference for men, adopted merely to avoid hearings, was the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause. It was the first time the Court struck down a law for discriminating on the basis of sex.
The opinion is short, and it applies only rational-basis review. The lead brief for Sally Reed was written by a Rutgers law professor named Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would build on this case for the rest of the decade toward the intermediate scrutiny now used for sex classifications.
Citations: reporter citations were shortened or left out of the audio; every citation is listed on the website.
Cases named aloud
- , supra [as printed: , supra; Opinion of the Court (Mr. Chief Justice Burger)] (episode link pending)
Full list of 9 citations not read aloud: https://opinion-of-the-court.pages.dev/ep/024-reed-v-reed