ABSTRACT
The concept of "ripeness" refers to a judicial constraint that the US Supreme Court imposed upon itself in the historic case of Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 US 288. In this case, Justice Louis D. Brandeis explained the gist of the ripeness doctrine: "the Court will not anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it." In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479, the Court overcame its ripeness concerns and overturned the state's prohibition on contraception. Many civil libertarians have said the Court's reliance on the ripeness doctrine denied federal employees their First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly. Essentially, the obstacle of ripeness forced employees to be prosecuted for their political activity before they could question the constitutionality of the Hatch Act. The Court has used ripeness to avoid deciding controversial civil liberties cases-some of which the justices eventually faced in spite of their earlier reservations.
