[1] In the case, the court broke from precedents and restricted the definition of the constitutional right to privacy "to matters relating to 'marriage procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education".

After the charges were dropped, Davis sued the chief of police of Louisville, Kentucky, for distributing "active shoplifter" posters to merchants throughout the city.

The majority opinion held that petitioner's alleged defamation, a typical state court claim, was not actionable under the Due Process Clause[2] and 42 U.S.C.

Justice Brennan pointed out that the majority's opinion was inconsistent with the Court's prior case law and was unduly restrictive in its construction of the Bill of Rights.

[7] Justice Brennan further points out that the majority "by mere fiat and with no analysis, wholly excludes personal interest in reputation from the ambit of "life, liberty, or property" under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, thus rendering due process concerns never applicable to the official stigmatization, however arbitrary, of an individual" adding that "The logical and disturbing corollary of this holding is that no due process infirmities would inhere in a statute constituting a commission to conduct ex party trials of individuals, so long as the only official judgment pronounced was limited to the public condemnation and branding of a person as a Communist, a traitor, an "active murderer," a homosexual, or any other mark that "merely" carries social opprobrium" further pointing out that "The potential of [the majority's holding] is frightening for a free people."

Justice Brennan went on to say I have always thought that one of this Court's most important roles is to provide a formidable bulwark against governmental violation of the constitutional safeguards securing in our free society the legitimate expectations of every person to innate human dignity and sense of worth.