9th Amendment

The Ninth Amendment had been mentioned infrequently in decisions of the Supreme Court 4 until it became the subject of some exegesis by several of the Justices in Griswold v. Connecticut. 5 There a statute prohibiting use of contraceptives was voided as an infringement of the right of marital privacy. Justice Douglas, writing the opinion of the Court, asserted that the ''specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.'' 6 Thus, while privacy is nowhere mentioned, it is one of the values served and protected by the First Amendment, through its protection of associational rights, and by the Third, the Fourth, and the Fifth Amendments as well. The Justice recurred to the text of the Ninth Amendment, apparently to support the thought that these penumbral rights are protected by one Amendment or a complex of Amendments despite the absence of a specific reference. Justice Goldberg, concurring, devoted several pages to the Amendment. (Information Found At Findlaw.com)