Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
At issuе in this case is the constitutionality of § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act
I
Appellant Deta Mona Trimble is the illegitimate daughter
Shortly after Gordon’s death, Trimble, as the mother and next friend of Deta Mona, filed a petition for letters of administration, determination of heirship, and declaratory relief in the Probate Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. That court entered an order determining heirship, identifying as the only heirs of Gordon his father, Joseph Gordon, his mother, Ethel King, and his brother, two sisters, and a half brother.
The Circuit Court excluded Deta Mona on the authority of the negative implications of § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act, which provides in relevant part:
“An illegitimate child is heir of his mother and of any maternal ancestor, and of any person from whom his mother might have inherited, if living; and the lawful issue of an illegitimate person shall represent such person and take, by descent, any estate which the parent would*765 hаve taken, if living. A child who was illegitimate whose parents inter-marry and who is acknowledged by the father as the father’s child is legitimate.”6
If Deta Mona had been a legitimate child, she would have inherited her father’s entire estate under Illinois law.
After a notice of appeal was filed, the Illinois Supreme Court entered an order allowing direct appeal of the decision of the Circuit Court, bypassing the Illinois Appellate Court. Appellants were granted leave to file an amicus brief in two pending consolidated appeals which presented similar challenges to the constitutionality of § 12. On June 2, 1975, the Illinois Supreme Court handed down its opinion in In re Estate of Karas,
We noted probable jurisdiction to consider the arguments that § 12 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by invidiously discriminating on the basis of illegitimacy and sex.
II
In Karas, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the equal protection challenge to the discrimination against illegitimate children on the explicit authority of Labine v. Vincent,
Appellees endorse the reasoning of the Illinois Supreme Court and suggest additional justifications for the statute. In weighing the constitutional sufficiency of these justifications, we are guided by our previous decisions involving equal protection challenges to laws discriminating on the basis of illegitimacy.
Appellants urge us to hold that classifications based on illegitimacy are “suspect,” so that any justifications must survive “strict scrutiny.” We considered and rejected a similar argument last Term in Mathews v. Lucas,
III
Thе Illinois Supreme Court prefaced its discussion of the state interests served by § 12 with a general discussion of
A
The Illinois Supreme Court relied in part on the State’s purported interest in “the promotion of [legitimate] family relationships.”
In Weber we examined a Louisiana workmen’s compensation law which discriminated against one class of illegitimate children. Without questioning Louisiana’s interest in protecting legitimate family relationships, we rejected the argument that “persons will shun illicit relations because the offspring may not one day reap the benefits of workmen’s compensation.”
“The status of illegitimacy has expressed through the ages society’s condemnation of irresponsible liaisons beyond the bonds of marriage. But visiting this cоndemnation on the head of an infant is illogical and unjust. Moreover, imposing disabilities on the illegitimate child is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual re*770 sponsibility or wrongdoing. Obviously, no child is responsible for his birth and penalizing the illegitimate child is an ineffectual—as well as an unjust—way of deterring the parent.”406 U. S., at 175 (footnote omitted).
The parents have the ability to conform their conduct to societal norms, but their illegitimate children can affect neither their parents’ conduct nor their own status.
B
The Illinois Supreme Court relied on Labine for another and more substantial justification: the State’s interest in "establish [ing] a method of property disposition.”
The more serious problems of proving paternity might justify a more demanding standard for illegitimate children claiming under their fathers’ estates than that required either for illegitimate children claiming under their mothers’ estates or for legitimate children generally. We think, however, that the Illinois Supreme Court gave inadequate consideration to the relation betweеn § 12 and the State’s proper objective of assuring accuracy and efficiency in the disposition of property at death. The court failed to consider the
The orderly disposition of property at death requires an appropriate legal framework, the structuring of which is a matter particularly within the competence of the individual States. In exercising this responsibility, a State necessarily must enact laws governing both the procedure and substance of intestate succession. Absent infringement of a constitutional right, the federal courts have no role here, and, even when constitutional violations are alleged, those courts should accord substantial deference to a State’s statutory scheme of inheritance.
The judicial task here is the difficult one of vindicating constitutional rights without interfering unduly with the State’s primary responsibility in this area. Our previous decisions demonstrate a sensitivity to “the lurking problems with respect to proof of paternity,” Gomez v. Perez,
In Lucas we sustained provisions of the Social Security Act governing the eligibility for surviving children’s insurance benefits. One of the statutory conditions of eligibility was dependency on the deceased wage earner.
Although the present case arises in a сontext different from that in Lucas, the question whether the statute “is carefully tuned to alternative considerations” is equally applicable here. We conclude that § 12 does not meet this standard. Difficulties of proving paternity in some situations do not justify the total statutory disinheritance of illegitimate children whose fathers die intestate. The facts of this ease graphically illustrate the constitutional defect of § 12. Sherman Gordon was found to be the father of Deta Mona in a state-court paternity action prior to his death. On the strength of that finding, he was ordered to contribute to the support of his child. That adjudication should be equally sufficient to establish Deta Mona’s right to claim a child’s share of Gordon’s estate, for the State’s interest in the accurate and efficient disposition of property at death would not be comprоmised in any way by allowing her claim in these circumstances.
C
The Illinois Supreme Court also noted that the decedents whose estates were involved in the consolidated appeals could have left substantial parts of their estates to their illegitimate children by writing a will. The court cited Labine as authority for the proposition that such a possibility is constitutionally significant.
Despite its appearance in two of our opinions, the focus on the presence or absence of an insurmountable barrier is somewhat of an analytical anomaly. Here, as in Labine, the question is the constitutionality of a state intestate succession law that treats illegitimate children differently from legitimate children. Traditional equal protection analy
By focusing on the steps that an intestate might have taken to assure some inheritance for his illegitimate children, the analysis loses sight of the essential question: the constitutionality of discrimination against illegitimates in a state intestate succession law. If the decedent had written a will devising property to his illegitimate child, the case no longer would involve intestate succession law at all. Similarly, if the decedent had legitimated the child by marrying the child’s mother or by complying with the requirements of some other method of legitimation, the case no longer would involve discrimination against illegitimates. Hard questions cannot be avoided by a hypothetical reshuffling of the facts. If Sherman Gordon had devised his estate to Deta Mona this case would not be here. Similarly, in Reed v. Reed,
D
Finally, appellees urge us to affirm the decision below on the theory that the Illinois Probate Act, including § 12, mirrors the presumed intentions of the citizens of the State regarding the disposition of their property at death. Individualizing this theory, appellees argue that we must assume that Sherman Gordon knew the disposition of his estate under the Illinois Probate Act and that his failure to make a will shows his approval of that disposition. We need not
To the extent that other policies are not considered more important, legislators enacting state intestate succession laws probably are influenced by the desire to reflect the natural affinities of decedents in the allocation of estates among the
IV
For the reasons stated above, we conclude that § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act
So ordered.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Blackmun, and Mr. Justice Rehnquist dissent. Like the
Notes
Ill. Rev. Stat. c. 3, § 12 (1973). Effective January 1, 1976, § 12 and the rest of the Probate Act of which it was a part were repealed and replaced by the Probate Act of 1975, Public Act 79-328. Section 12 has been replaced by Ill. Rev. Stat. c. 3, § 2-2 (1976). Although § 2-2 of the Probate Act of 1975 differs in some respects from the old § 12, that part of § 12 that is at issue here was recodified without material change in § 2-2. As the opinions below and the briefs refer to the disputed statutory provision as § 12, we will continue to refer to it that way.
Ill. Rev. Stat. c. 3, § 2-1 (b) (1976).
There is sоme dispute over the status of Jessie Trimble in this litigation. It has been argued that she is in the case only as the next friend of her daughter. As the question is relevant only to the claim of sex discrimination against the mothers of illegitimate children, an issue we do not reach, we need not resolve the dispute.
App. 8.
Id., at 14.
See n. 1, supra.
See n. 2, supra.
For purposes of its decision, the court assumed that the children had been acknowledged. There is no mention of a prior adjudication of paternity.
App. 54-56.
Not presented here is the appellants’ contention below that § 12 discriminates on the basis of race because of its alleged disproportionate impact on Negroes.
This case represents the 12th time since 1968 that we have considered the constitutionality of alleged discrimination on the basis of illegitimacy. The previous decisions are as follows: Mathews v. Lucas,
See cases cited n. 11, supra. Labine v. Vincent, supra, is difficult to place m the pattern of this Court’s equal protection decisions, and subsequent cases have limited its force as a precedent. In Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., supra, we found in Labine a recognition that judicial deference is appropriate when the challenged statute involves the “substantial state interest in providing for the stability of . . . land titles and in the prompt and definitive determination of the valid ownership of property left by decedents’. . . .”
This purpose is not apparent from the statute. Penalizing children as a means of influencing their parents seems inconsistent with the desire of the Illinois Legislature to make the intestate succession law more just to illegitimate children. Moreover, the difference in the rights of illegitimate children in the estates of their mothers and their fathers appears to be unrelated to the purpose of promoting family relationships. In this respect the Louisiana laws at issue in Labine were quite different. Those laws differentiated on the basis of the character of the child’s illegitimacy. “Bastard children” were given no inheritance rights. “Natural children,” who could be and were acknowledged under state law, were given limited inheritance rights, but still less than those of legitimate children.
Evidence of paternity may take a variety of forms, some creating more significant problems of inaccuracy and inefficiency than others. The States, of course, are free to recognize these differences in fashioning their requirements of proof. Our holding today goes only to those forms of proof which do not compromise the States’ interests. This clearly would be the case, for example, where there is a prior adjudication or formal acknowledgment of paternity. Thus, we would have a different case if the state statute were carefully tailored to eliminate imprecise and unduly burdensome methods of establishing paternity.
In Levy the Court struck down a Louisiana wrongful-death statute that gave legitimate, but not illegitimate, children a cause of action for the wrongful death of their parents.
Appellees characterizе the Illinois intestate succession law as a “statutory will.” Because intent is a central ingredient in the disposition of property by will, the theory that intestate succession laws are “statutory wills” based on the “presumed intent” of the citizens of the State may have some superficial appeal. The theory proceeds from the initial premise that an individual could, if he wished, disinherit his illegitimate children in his will. Because the statute merely reflects the intent of those citizens who failed to make a will, discrimination against illegitimate children in intestate succession laws is said to be equally permissible. The term “statutory will,” however, cannot blind us to the fact that intestate succession laws are acts of States, not of individuals. Under the Fourteenth Amendment this is a fundamental difference.
Even if one assumed that a majority of the citizens of the State preferred to discriminate against their illegitimate children, the sentiment hardly would be unanimous. With respect to any individual, the argument of knowledge and approval of the state law is sheer fiction. The issue therefore becomes where the burden of inertia in writing a will is to fall. At least when the disadvantaged group has been a frequent target of discrimination, as illegitimates have, we doubt that a State constitutionally may place the burden on that group by invoking the theory of “presumed intent.” See Eskra v. Morton,
The Illinois statute can be distinguished in several respects from the Louisiana statute in Labine. The discrimination in Labine took a different form, suggesting different legislative objectives. See, e. g., n. 13, supra. In its impact on the illegitimate children excluded from their parents’ estates, the statute was significantly different. Under Louisiana law, all illegitimate children, “natural” and “bastard,” were entitled to support from the estаte of the deceased parent.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition against “any State . . . deny[ing] to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws” is undoubtedly one of the majestic generalities of the Constitution. If, during the period of more than a century since its adoption, this Court had developed a consistent body of doctrine which could reasonably be said to expound the intent of those who drafted and adopted that Clause of the Amendment, there would be no cause for judicial complaint, however unwise or incapable of effective administration one might find those intentions. If, on the other hand, recognizing that those who drafted and adopted this language had rather imprecise notions about what it meant, the Court had evolved a body of doctrine which both was consistent and served some arguably useful purpose, there would likewise be little cause for great dissatisfaction with the existing state of the law.
Unfortunately, more than a century of decisions under this Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment have produced neither of these results. They have instead produced a syndrome wherein this Court seems to regard the Equal Protection Clause as a cat-o’-nine-tails to be kept in the judicial closet as a threat to legislatures which may, in the view of the judiciary, get out of hand and pass “arbitrary,” “illogical,” or “unreasonable” laws. Except in the area of the law in which the Framers obviously meant it to apply—classifications basеd on race or on national origin, the first cousin of race—the Court’s decisions can fairly be described as an endless tinkering with legislative judgments, a series of conclusions unsupported by any central guiding principle.
It is too well known to warrant more than brief mention that the Framers of the Constitution adopted a system of
Following the Civil War, Congress propounded and the States ratified the so-called “Civil War Amendments”—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which, together with post-Civil War legislation, sharply altered the balance of power between the Federal and State Governments. See Mitchum v. Foster,
This was strong medicine, and intended to be such. But it cannot be read apart from the original understanding at Philadelphia: The Civil War Amendments did not make this Court into a council of revision, and they did not confer upon this Court any authority to nullify state laws which were merely felt to be inimical to the Court’s notion of the public interest.
The Equal Protection Clause is itself a classic paradox, and makes sense only in the context of a recently fought Civil War. It creates a requirement of equal treatment to be applied to the process of legislation—legislation whose very purpose is to draw lines in such a way that different рeople are treated differently. The problem presented is one of sorting the legislative distinctions which are acceptable from those which involve invidiously unequal treatment.
All constitutional provisions for protection of individuals involve difficult questions of line drawing. But most others have implicit within them an understandable value judgment that certain types of conduct have a favored place and are to be protected to a greater or lesser degree. Obvious examples are free speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to a fair trial. The remaining judicial task in applying those guarantees is to determine whether, on given facts, the constitutional value judgment embodied in such a provision has been offended in a particular case.
In the case of equality and equal protection, the constitu
The essential problem of the Equal Protection Clause is therefore the one of determining where the courts are to look for guidance in defining “equal” as that word is used in the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the Amendment grew out of the Civil War and the freeing of the slavеs, the core prohibition was early held to be aimed at the protection of blacks. See Strauder v. West Virginia,
The presumptive invalidity of all of these classifications has made decisions involving them, for the most part, relatively easy. But when the Court has been required to adjudicate equal protection claims not based on race or national origin, it has faced a much more difficult task. In cases involving alienage, for example, it has cоncluded that such classifications are “suspect” because, though not necessarily involving race or national origin, they are enough like the latter to warrant similar treatment. See Graham v. Richard
Illegitimacy, which is involved in this case, has never been held by the Court to be a “suspect classification.” Nonetheless, in several opinions of the Court, statements are found which suggest that although illegitimates are not members of a “suspect class,” laws which treat them differently from those born in wedlock will receive a more far-reaching scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause than will other laws regulating economic and social conditions. Levy v. Louisiana,
The appropriate “scrutiny,” in the eyes of the Court, appears to involve some analysis of the relation of the “purpose” of the legislature to the “means” by which it chooses to carry out that purpose. The Court’s opinion abounds in language of this sort. We are told that “the sufficiency of the justifi
The “difficulty” of the “judicial task” is, I suggest, a self-imposed one, stemming not from the Equal Protection Clause but from the Court’s insistence on reading so much into it. I do not see how it can be doubted that the purpose (in the ordinary sense of that word) of the Illinois Legislature in enacting § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act was to make the language contained in that section a part of the Illinois law. I presume even the Court will concede that this purpose was accomplished. It was this particular language which the Illinois Legislature, by the required vote of both of its houses and the signature of the Governor, enacted into law. The use of the word “purpose” in today’s opinion actually expаnds the normal meaning of the word into something more like motive. Indeed, the Court says that the law “must be considered in light of this motivating purpose.” Ante, at 768. The question of what “motivated” the various individual
“Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the ‘dominant’ or ‘primary’ one. In fact, it is because legislators and administrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp.,429 U. S. 252 , 265 (1977) (footnote omitted).
What the Court in this case is apparently trying to ascertain is what the legislature had in mind or was trying to accomplish by enacting § 12. And, of course, this is actually an inquiry into motive: Why did the legislature pass this particular law?
If the great difficulties, described in Arlington Heights, supra, of ascertaining what various individual legislators “had in mind” when they voted to enact § 12 of the Illinois Probate Act are surmounted, this Court then takes it upon itself to inquire into whether the Act in question accomplished the “purpose” which the Court first determines the legislature had in mind. It should be apparent that litigants who wish to succeed in invalidating a law under the Equal Protection Clause must have a certain schizophrenia if they are to be successful in their advocacy: They must first convince this Court that the legislature had a particular purpose in mind in enacting the law, and then convince it that the law was not at all suited to the accomplishment оf that purpose.
But a graver defect than this in the Court’s analysis is that it also requires a conscious second-guessing of legislative judgment in an area where this Court has no special expertise
The fundamental flaw, to me, in this approach is that there is absolutely nothing to be inferred from the fact that we hold judicial commissions that would enable us to answer any one of these questions better than the legislators to whose initial decision they were committed. Without any antecedent constitutional mandate, we have created on the premises of the Equal Protection Clause a school for legislators, whereby opinions of this Court are written to instruct them in a better understanding of how to accomplish their ordinary legislative tasks.
I would by no means suggest that this case is the first, and I fear it will not be the last, to import this sort of analysis into the Equal Protection Clause. As long ago as Royster Guano. Co. v. Virginia,
The familiar quotation from Royster Guano comes from a time when the Court was giving a broad, reading to both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate legislation in a way which, it is hoped, would not recur today. See, e. g., Concordia Ins. Co. v. Illinois,
Here the Illinois Legislature was dealing with a problem of intestate succession of illegitimates from their fathers, which, as the Court concedes, frequently presents difficult problems of proof. The provisions of Illinois Probate Act § 12, as most recently amended, alleviate some of the difficulties which pre