offense may be prosecuted and punished as if were the principal offender. Griswold and Buxton opened the clinic in 1961, in New Haven Connecticut, and were shut down ten days later and fined one-hundred dollars each. They appealed their convictions, stating that the law violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Essentially, the clinic operated as a medical advice center, where married persons could get counciling, advice, and instruction on contraception devises. For their advice they charged patients according to their ability to pay. There was, however, a question to wether Griswold could assert the rights of married couples. But the Supreme Court ruled that she did because under the terms of the statute she could be convicted for offering her services to them and because her relationship with the married couples was a professional one. ACertainly the accessory should have standing to assert that the offense which he is charged with assisting is not, or cannot constitutionally be a crime.@ This was significant because there had been two earlier challanges to the law, but the Court refused to hear them on grounds that it was not clear if they could be prosecuted (1943, 1961). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Griswold, and her claim that the state contraceptive law was unconstitutional. However, even those justices that agreed with her argument were not unanimous in their reasons for doing so.Justice Douglas in the opinion of the court: Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions surrounding the marriage relationship...We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights-...Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life... Yet it is an association for ...
