Lots of Love for this Loving Analysis
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
5-26-2014
ISSN
2330-1295
Publisher
University of Miami School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
Few authors can bring cases and their meaning(s) alive like Professor Bennett Capers. Capers does not disappoint with his recent chapter The Crime of Loving: Loving, Lawrence, and Beyond. Capers provides a criminal law lens for family law scholars to further examine and understand the landmark decision, Loving v. Virginia. In Loving, the Supreme Court struck down Virginia statutes that criminally prohibited and punished marriage between Whites and non-Whites as violations of equal protection and due process. In reconsidering this landmark case through the lens of criminal law, Capers exposes the power of “white-letter law,” which “suggests societal and normative laws that stand side by side and often undergird black-letter law, but . . . [that] remain invisible to the naked eye.” (P. 120.) More so, Capers beautifully reveals how “Loving and Lawrence both serve as cautionary reminders of the long leash we have given to criminal law.” (P. 125.) He details the many ways in which criminal law has been used to regulate and shape many aspects of our personal and social lives. Noting such regulation has occurred through the use of “a whole host of victimless crimes,” such as adultery, gambling, pornography, and premarital sex, Capers joins scholars such as Melissa Murray in exposing the often-ignored manner in which criminal law is used to invade citizens’ privacy and enact a moral code upon behaviors that are not generally associated with criminality.
Recommended Citation
Angela Onwuachi-Willig,
Lots of Love for this Loving Analysis
,
in
JOTWELL
(2014).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/shorter_works/16
Publisher URL
https://family.jotwell.com/lots-of-love-for-this-loving-analysis/
Comments
Review of: Bennett Capers, The Crime of Loving: Loving, Lawrence, and Beyond, in Loving v. Virginia in a Post Racial World” Rethinking Race, Sex, and Marriage (Kevin Noble Maillard & Rose Cuison Villazor eds., 2012).