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In United States constitutional law, the penumbra includes a group of rights derived, by implication, from other rights explicitly protected in the Bill of Rights. Scholars have characterized the term as a metaphor for a process of "reasoning-by-interpolation", where judges recognize rights from "general idea[s]" explicitly expressed in other constitutional provisions. Although scholars have traced the origin of the term to the nineteenth century, the term first gained significant popular attention in 1965, when Justice William O. Douglas' majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut found a right to privacy in the "penumbra" of the constitution.

Origins of the term
Commentators disagree about the precise origin of the use of the term "penumbra" in American legal scholarship, but most believe it was first used in legal scholarship in the late nineteenth century. Some scholars trace the first use of the word "penumbra" to an 1873 law review article written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in which he argued that it is better for new law to grow "in the penumbra between darkness and light, than to remain in uncertainty". Others trace the term to Justice Stephen Johnson Field's 1871 circuit court opinion in Montgomery v. Bevans, where Justice Field used the term to describe "the period during which the law might or might not determine that [a] missing individual was dead." However, commentators have noted "penumbral" reasoning "has been around for a long time" and trace its origins to Supreme Court cases from the nineteenth century that were the "clear product of penumbral reasoning". For example, some scholars have described Chief Justice John Marshall's opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland as "the quintessential example of penumbral reasoning".

Definition
Although the meaning of the term has varied over time, scholars now generally agree that the term refers to a group of rights that are not explicitly stated in the constitution, but can be inferred from other enumerated rights. The definition of the term was originally derived from its primary scientific meaning, which is "a space of partial illumination (as in an eclipse) between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light." Some scholars have described the term as "the most important and puzzling spatial metaphor in American constitutional law", while others have described the term as "intellectually confusing". Some analysts have also noted that the "penumbra" of the constitution is "a seemingly strange place to discover constitutional guarantees".

Definitions prior to Griswold v. Connecticut
The term "penumbra" first appeared in an opinion published by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916, and the term appeared ten more times in published opinions between 1916 and 1941. Between 1941 and the date of publication of Griswold v. Connecticut, the term was used eight times by Justice William O. Douglas and four times by other Justices. Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Learned Hand also used the term eleven times between 1915 and 1950, usually to "emphasize the ambiguity of words and concepts." For example, in Commissioner v. Ickelheimer, Judge Hand wrote, "[t]he colloquial words of a statute have not the fixed and artificial content of scientific symbols; they have a penumbra, a dim fringe, a connotation, for they express an attitude of will, into which it is our duty to penetrate and which we must enforce ungrudgingly when we can ascertain it, regardless of imprecision in its expression."

Before Griswold, different Supreme Court Justices would often give the term "different meanings in different cases", possibly because the Justices "did not know what the word meant". In Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, for example, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used the term to describe rights derived by implication. He wrote, "the law allows a penumbra to be embraced that goes beyond the outline of its object in order that the object may be secured." Likewise, in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Holmes argued that evidence obtained through wire-tapping should not be admitted at trial, and that "the penumbra of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments covers the defendant." However, in A.L.A. Schecter Poultry Corp. v. United States, Justice Benjamin Cardozo used the term to describe an area of uncertainty in the law. He wrote, "[t]here is no penumbra of uncertainty obscuring judgment here. To find immediacy or directness here is to find it almost everywhere." Additionally, in Coleman v. Miller, Justice Felix Frankfurter used the term in a manner "that bore some connection to its conventional meaning." When arguing that a group of legislators lacked standing, he wrote, "[n]o doubt the bounds of such legal interest have a penumbra which gives some freedom in judging fulfillment of our jurisdictional requirements".

Definition after to Griswold v. Connecticut
Scholars agree that the term "came directly into the spotlight" after Justice Douglas' majority opinion in Griswold v. Conntecticut held a right to privacy existed in the "penumbra" of the constitution. In Griswold, the Supreme Court ultimately held that a Connecticut law that criminalized the use of contraception was unconstitutional. Writing for a majority of the Court, Justice Douglas held that the Connecticut law violated a fundamental right to privacy. After reviewing a line of cases in which the Supreme Court identified rights not explicitly enumerated in the constitution, Justice Douglas declared that "[t]he foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance". Justice Douglas argued that the Court could infer find a right to privacy by looking at "zones of privacy" protected by First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments:

"Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.""

Consequently, Justice Douglas argued that the constitution included "penumbral rights of privacy and repose." Justice Douglas also remarked that without "peripheral rights," the "specific rights" enumerated in the constitution would be "less secure". Scholars have observed that Justice Douglas' majority opinion did not use the term "penumbra" to express the boundaries of law and language," as Justice Holmes had done, but rather to "link text to a new principle and right".

"Penumbral reasoning"
Scholars have described the process of finding a right to privacy in the penumbra of the constitution as an interpretive technique known as "penumbral reasoning". Contemporary analysts have described this interpretive framework as the process of "drawing logical inferences by looking at relevant parts of the Constitution as a whole and their relationship to one another." Other commentators have used the term "penumbral reasoning" to describe the process of "reasoning-by-interpolation" that Justice Douglas used to find a right to privacy in Griswold. Some scholars suggest that "penumbral reasoning is routinely engaged in by courts regardless of their location on the political spectrum.

Scholarly analysis of penumbral reasoning
Some scholars have argued in favor of the "conceptual integrity" of penumbral reasoning. One commentator has even stated that penumbral reasoning is "an important feature of American constitutional practice in cases involving individual rights and government power". However, other commentators note that penumbral reasoning has generated significant controversy. One scholar even wrote that "Justice Douglas's 'penumbral' reasoning was so transparently fictional that it generated widespread ridicule .... Not surprisingly, these constitutional rationales were swiftly abandoned".

Robert Bork, for example, has been a particularly vocal critic the Court's attempts to "derive constitutional rights from sources other than explicit constitutional language". In his dissenting opinion in Griswold, Justice Hugo Black stated his concerns with finding a right to privacy in the penumbra of the constitution and that he disagreed with the majority's attempts to "stretch" the Bill of Rights. Other scholars note that "while penumbral reasoning, political-process theory, or even fundamental rights analysis might justify intervention on behalf of the kinds of individual rights promoted by liberals, these rationales also could justify intervention on behalf of economic rights." Some also caution that "implicit constitutional rights" are vulnerable to being lost "due to their lack of permanency."