| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | Zoning regulations require a permit for, among other things, group homes for the "feebleminded." The permit is denied. |
| Posture: | Suit in federal district court denies relief. 5th reverses, saying that mental retardation is a quasi-suspect category. |
| Issue: | Two of them:
|
| Holding: | No and no. Affirmed in part and remanded. |
| Rule: | A legislative enactment will be upheld if there's a rational basis for it, absent other troubles like a suspect category. |
| Reasoning: | Basically walking through the various rationales trotted out by the
city and making them look silly.
But there's also discussion of how holding this as a suspect category would be a terrible drain on court resources. |
| Dicta: | Stevens, concurring: the tiered analysis of equal protection claims
is a method of explaining what's going on.
Marshall, concurring and dissenting: the result is good, but we should go farther in fighting this terrible prejudice. |