ABSTRACT
The doctrine of fundamental rights and the doctrine or rule of strict scrutiny did not arise simultaneously. Their interdependence may have been assumed but was not explicitly articulated before Carolene’s footnote 4 in 1938; for example, in Meyer or Pierce there is no mention or even suggestion of the rule of strict scrutiny of the type of legislation involved in those cases. With the advantage of hindsight, however, it is reasonable to assimilate to the rule decisions that pre-date Carolene, and consider them as precedents for the rule, precisely as Justice Stone himself did in his footnote 4.
