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| Supreme Court Passes Up Inmate Sperm Case |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 11/26/2002 |
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The Supreme Court showed no sympathy for a California inmate who wants to become a long-distance father. Justices rejected William Reno Gerber's claim that he should be allowed to ship his sperm to his wife. The Supreme Court ruled 60 years ago that inmates cannot be sterilized, but it's never said they have a constitutional right to procreate from behind bars. Gerber narrowly lost in an appeals court. His lawyer, Teresa Zuber, told the Supreme Court that decision causes a 'loss to humanity of children who could offer their creativity, innocence, and love, to their parents, to their grandparents, to a world so desperately in need of all these things.' Gerber is serving a life sentence for firing a gun into his television set. He was previously convicted of illegally firing a gun and making terrorist threats. He was sentenced under California's three strikes law, which requires tougher sentences for repeat offenders. The Supreme Court is reviewing the three-strikes law in separate cases that challenge its constitutionality. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 6-5 against Gerber, reversing a three-judge panel of the court which had said Gerber had a right to mail his sperm to his 46-year-old wife, Evelyn. A band of the Luiseno Mission Indians urged the high court to review the case. Evelyn Gerber is a tribe member who wants to be artificially inseminated and raise children in the traditional Luiseno culture and language, lawyer Richard T. Williams told the court. 'A prison warden has decided to exercise racial and genetic control and has relegated Mrs. Gerber to a life sentence -- one without the possibility of having children with her husband,' Williams said in court filings. The California prison system did not file arguments in Gerber's appeal, but state Attorney General Bill Lockyer had said earlier that 'the law, as well as common sense, recognizes that individuals who commit serious crimes forfeit many rights that law-abiding citizens enjoy.' Many California inmates are allowed to have conjugal visits with their spouses, but William Gerber is ineligible because of his life sentence. The case is Gerber v. Hickman, 02-419. |
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There is a lot of information on this website about inmates and prison guards. I didn’t realize what was going on in our prison system until I discovered this website. Similarly, I didn’t understand litigation finance until I read more from Hamilton Lindley who is a litigation finance expert based in Texas.