Courts expand constitutional rights by redefining the legal standard they rest on.

Evidence

Although the Court in Eisenstadt based its decision on the right to privacy, the quotation indicates that the Court’s definition of the right— what Levi refers to as the rule or legal standard—had changed. No longer did the Court view the right to privacy as rooted in certain legally sanctioned relationships, such as marriage (the position it had taken in Griswold). Instead, it argued that the right to privacy belonged to the individual. The Court also expanded the right from a safeguard against unreasonable invasions of the marital bedroom into a right to choose whether to procreate. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2533

Categorization

• DEFINE: Levi’s ‘rule or legal standard’ names the doctrinal unit courts actually revise between cases.
• XREF: Ties to the course’s interest in how competing understandings of privacy, equality, and freedom shape doctrine and judicial decisions. — connects to: American courts have grown in their role governing the nation. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 90; American judges reshaped inherited common law to fit democracy and industrialization — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 139; Supreme Court decisions establish broad legal standards, not just case outcomes — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 951 (+1 more)