## Facts

- Dewey McLaughlin (Black) and Connie Hoffman (white) were an unmarried couple who lived together in an apartment in Miami Beach, Florida.
- After their landlady complained, police investigated; the couple admitted they were not married and habitually occupied the same room at night.
- Florida charged and convicted both defendants under Fla. Stat. § 798.05, which criminalized an unmarried “negro” and white person who “habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room.”
- The statute applied only to interracial couples and, unlike Florida’s generally applicable adultery/fornication and lewd-cohabitation provisions, did not require proof of sexual intercourse.
- Each defendant received a sentence of 30 days in county jail and a $150 fine.
- The Florida Supreme Court affirmed, relying on Pace v. Alabama, which had upheld race-specific criminal prohibitions on intimate relations on an “equal application” theory.

## Issues

1. Whether a criminal statute that applies only to interracial couples and penalizes conduct not criminalized for same-race couples violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether the “equal application” rationale for race-based criminal laws remains valid when a statute makes criminality depend on the races of the participants.
3. Whether Florida could justify the racial classification as necessary to accomplish a permissible state objective independent of racial discrimination.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Florida Supreme Court and remanded.
- The Court held Fla. Stat. § 798.05 unconstitutional because it denied equal protection by singling out interracial couples for criminal punishment.
- The Court rejected reliance on Pace’s equal-penalty rationale and required more searching review of race-based classifications.
- Concurring opinions agreed the statute was invalid; one concurrence argued more broadly that any criminal law that turns on the race of the actor is unconstitutional.

## Legal Principles

- A statute that criminalizes conduct only when committed by persons of different races, while leaving the same conduct unpunished for persons of the same race, violates equal protection absent a sufficient justification.
- Racial classifications in criminal statutes require a heightened justification; the State must show the classification is necessary to achieve a permissible objective independent of racial discrimination.
- “Equal application” (imposing the same penalty on each race within the targeted interracial pair) does not by itself satisfy equal protection when the law defines the offense by race.
- Courts may evaluate the broader statutory scheme to determine whether race-neutral laws already address the State’s asserted objectives, undermining any claimed need for race-based criminalization.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated Florida’s prohibition on unmarried interracial cohabitation because it imposed a unique criminal burden based solely on race and lacked an adequate, race-independent justification, thereby denying equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.


McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964)