Stephanie Logsdon Smith, et al. v. Kentucky

Borrowing the form of Justice Alito’s framing of the question presented in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392 (June 24, 2022), in this case “[t]he critical question is whether the Constitution, properly understood, confers a [private right of action against an individual State when that State itself violates the explicit prohibitions against slavery and involuntary servitude of Section 1 of U.S. Const. amend. XIII]” by and through a State-employed probation and parole officer who makes personal sex slaves of female probationers and parolees while they are in the State’s care and custody. “In Jones[v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 439 (1968)], the Court left open the question whether § 1 of the [13th] Amendment by its own terms did anything more than abolish slavery. It is also appropriate today to leave that question open….” Memphis v. Greene, 451 U.S. 100, 126 (1981). See also General Building Contractors Ass'n v. Pennsylvania, 458 U.S. 375, 390 n.17 (1982) (“We need not decide whether the Thirteenth Amendment itself…accomplished anything more than the abolition of slavery.”). Today is the day for the Supreme Court of the United States to answer the question finally and formally. Stephanie Logsdon Smith, Bridgett Dennis Parson and Cammie Musinski (collectively the “Petitioners”) are each someone’s mother, sister, daughter, wife and citizens of the United States of