Loving v. Virginia (1967)

Violation of Anti-Miscegenation Laws

Richard Loving reportedly presented the marriage certificate to the officer, who in turn claimed that it was invalid in Virginia. Later that morning, July 11, 1958, both Mildred and Richard Loving were taken into custody for violating Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws. Richard Loving spent the day and night in jail, and the pregnant Mildred Loving was there for nearly a week. Both were eventually released and ordered to appear in court for sentencing.

Six months later, the judge of Virginia's Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Leon Bazile, found the couple guilty and sentenced both to one year in prison. However, Bazile reached a plea agreement with the defendants and offered to suspend the sentence for 25 years if the couple left Virginia. The Lovings reluctantly agreed, settled their court costs, and moved to Washington, D.C. Once there, they struggled financially and wished to return to their families and hometown.

Richard Loving even contacted Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a legal organization that had developed a strong reputation for advancing civil rights through the courts. Lawyers with the ACLU met with the Lovings and concluded that Virginia had violated the couple's right to equal protection as articulated in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

By the middle of the 1960s, the Loving case had become a cause célèbre among the burgeoning civil rights movement and proponents of marriage equality. The ACLU appealed the Fifteenth Circuit's ruling, and over the next several years, lawyers Bernard Cohen and Phillip Hirschkop took the case before the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Still, they received no resolution to the case, and it seemed clear that it would eventually reach the Supreme Court. During the appeal process, the Lovings had two additional children and made several illegal return visits to Virginia, though they always traveled separately.

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