Conclusion:
A unanimous Court held that the Act violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since some crimes such as embezzlement, punishable as felonies in Oklahoma, were excluded from the Act's jurisdiction, Justice Douglas reasoned that the law had laid "an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense." Moreover, Douglas viewed procreation as one of the fundamental rights requiring the judiciary's strict scrutiny.
