Strict scrutiny is the most stringent standard of judicial review used by United States courts. It is part of the hierarchy of standards that courts use to weigh the government's interest against a constitutional right or principle. The lesser standards are rational basis review and exacting or intermediate scrutiny. These standards are used to test statutes and government action at all levels of government within the United States.
The notion of "levels of judicial scrutiny", including strict scrutiny, was introduced in footnote 4 of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Carolene Products (1938), one of a series of decisions testing the constitutionality of New Deal legislation. The first and most notable case in which the Supreme Court applied the strict scrutiny standard and found the government actions valid was Korematsu v. United States (1944), in which the Court upheld the exclusion of Japanese Americans from designated areas during World War II. Statutes and policies that are subjected to strict scrutiny often but not always fail to meet it.
Read more about Strict Scrutiny: Applicability, Suspect Classification, De Jure Versus de Facto Discrimination
Famous quotes containing the word strict:
“Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)