Equal Protection:

LibraryThe Rulebook: The Definitive Quick Reference Guide for New York Criminal Law Practitioners (2020 Ed.)

EQUAL PROTECTION: "Pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, '[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws' (US Const, Amend XIV, § 1). The New York Constitution provides for equivalent equal protection safeguards (NY Const, art I, § 11; see Hernandez v Robles, 7 NY3d 338, 362 [2006])" (People v Aviles, 28 NY3d 497, 502 [2016]).

Appropriate Classification: "Under the equal protection analysis developed by the Supreme Court, the type of classification drawn by the [government] determines the appropriate level of judicial scrutiny. Clark v Jeter, 486 US 456 (1988). "When Congress legislates in the area of economics and social welfare, review by the courts generally is limited to determining whether there is a rational basis for the classifications drawn. Bowen v Owens, supra, 476 US at 345; Cleburne, supra, 473 US at 440; Mathews, supra, 429 US at 185. Strict scrutiny is required where the classification drawn 'impermissibly interferes with the exercise of a fundamental right or operates to the peculiar disadvantage of a suspect class.' Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v Murgia, 427 US 307, 312 (1976) (footnotes omitted). . . . Suspect classifications are those drawn on the basis of race, alienage, or national origin, Cleburne, supra, 473 US at 440, 105 S Ct at 3254, or which discriminate against a group '"saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process."' Murgia, supra, 427 US at 313, 96 S Ct at 2567 (citation omitted). Fundamental rights generally are those either explicitly or implicitly recognized in the Constitution itself. Cleburne, supra, 473 US at 440; Plyler, supra, 457 US at 217 n 15; San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v Rodriguez, 411 US 1, 33-34 (1973)" (Disabled Am. Veterans v US Dept. of Veterans Affairs, 962 F2d 136, 141 [2d Cir 1992]).

Distinction Between Rational Basis and Intermediate Scrutiny: There is an important distinction between rational basis scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny: under intermediate scrutiny, the defender of the governmental action "must show that [such action] is 'substantially related' to the achievement of 'important' governmental interests" (id., quoting Craig v Boren, 429 US 190, 197 [1976]; see Tuan Anh Nguyen v I.N.S., 533 US 53, 75 [2001] [Scalia and Thomas, JJ., concurring], quoting United States v Virginia, 518 US 515, 531 [1996] for the proposition that, under heightened scrutiny, "[t]he burden of justification is demanding and it rests entirely on (the party defending the classification)"]). By contrast, [u]nder rational basis scrutiny, the defender of the classification 'has no obligation to produce evidence to sustain the rationality of [the governmental action]. Heller v Doe, 509 US 312, 320 (1993). Instead, '[t]he burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it, whether or not the basis has a foundation in the record. Id. at 320-321 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)" (Tuan Anh Nguyen v I.N.S., 533 US 53, 75 [2001]).

Ethnicity as a Suspect Class: ...

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