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Pace v. Alabama
Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court affirmed that Alabama's anti-miscegenation statute was constitutional. This ruling was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1964 in McLaughlin v. Florida and in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Pace v. Alabama is one of the oldest court cases in America pertaining to interracial sex.
The plaintiff, Tony Pace, an African-American man, and Mary Cox, a white woman, were residents of the state of Alabama, who had been arrested in 1881 because their sexual relationship violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute. They were charged with living together "in a state of adultery or fornication" and both sentenced to two years imprisonment in the state penitentiary in 1882.
Because "miscegenation", that is marriage, cohabitation and sexual relations between people of different racial backgrounds, was prohibited by Alabama's anti-miscegenation statute (Ala. code 4189), it would have been illegal for the couple to marry in Alabama. However, Tony Pace and Mary Cox were not married, for this reason, and they did not live together. They spent time together near their homes in Clarke County, north of Mobile. They could not marry each other under Alabama law. Interracial marital sex was deemed a felony, whereas extramarital sex ("adultery or fornication") was only a misdemeanor.
Because of the criminalization of interracial relationships, they were penalized more severely for their extramarital relationship than if they had been of the same race. The Alabama code stated:
If any white person and any negro, or the descendant of any negro to the third generation, inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation was a white person, intermarry or live in adultery or fornication with each other, each of them must, on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not less than two nor more than seven years.
Cox argued to the state Supreme Court that her indictment should be quashed on the basis that she had been charged and indicted under the name "Mary Ann Cox", but her name was in fact, "Mary Jane Cox". The Alabama Supreme Court rejected this argument and upheld the indictment:
"The law knows but one Christian name, and the insertion or omission of a defendant's middle name in an indictment is entirely immaterial; and a mistake in the middle name will not support a plea of misnomer."
On appeal to the Supreme Court of the state, the judgment was affirmed. Pace brought the case there, insisting that the act which he was indicted and convicted under conflicted with the final clause of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which declares that no state shall deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.
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Pace v. Alabama
Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court affirmed that Alabama's anti-miscegenation statute was constitutional. This ruling was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1964 in McLaughlin v. Florida and in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Pace v. Alabama is one of the oldest court cases in America pertaining to interracial sex.
The plaintiff, Tony Pace, an African-American man, and Mary Cox, a white woman, were residents of the state of Alabama, who had been arrested in 1881 because their sexual relationship violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute. They were charged with living together "in a state of adultery or fornication" and both sentenced to two years imprisonment in the state penitentiary in 1882.
Because "miscegenation", that is marriage, cohabitation and sexual relations between people of different racial backgrounds, was prohibited by Alabama's anti-miscegenation statute (Ala. code 4189), it would have been illegal for the couple to marry in Alabama. However, Tony Pace and Mary Cox were not married, for this reason, and they did not live together. They spent time together near their homes in Clarke County, north of Mobile. They could not marry each other under Alabama law. Interracial marital sex was deemed a felony, whereas extramarital sex ("adultery or fornication") was only a misdemeanor.
Because of the criminalization of interracial relationships, they were penalized more severely for their extramarital relationship than if they had been of the same race. The Alabama code stated:
If any white person and any negro, or the descendant of any negro to the third generation, inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation was a white person, intermarry or live in adultery or fornication with each other, each of them must, on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not less than two nor more than seven years.
Cox argued to the state Supreme Court that her indictment should be quashed on the basis that she had been charged and indicted under the name "Mary Ann Cox", but her name was in fact, "Mary Jane Cox". The Alabama Supreme Court rejected this argument and upheld the indictment:
"The law knows but one Christian name, and the insertion or omission of a defendant's middle name in an indictment is entirely immaterial; and a mistake in the middle name will not support a plea of misnomer."
On appeal to the Supreme Court of the state, the judgment was affirmed. Pace brought the case there, insisting that the act which he was indicted and convicted under conflicted with the final clause of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which declares that no state shall deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.