376
Thomas, J., concurring
The Davis Court was motivated in no small part by the potentially radical implications of the Griffin/Douglas rationale. As Justice Harlan recognized in Douglas: "Every financial exaction which the State imposes on a uniform basis is more easily satisfied by the well-to-do than by the indigent." 372 U. S., at 361 (dissenting opinion). Under a disparate-impact theory, Justice Harlan argued, regulatory measures always considered to be constitutionally valid, such as sales taxes, state university tuition, and criminal penalties, would have to be struck down. See id., at 361-362.6 Echoing Justice Harlan, we rejected in Davis the disparate-impact approach in part because of the recognition that "[a] rule that a statute designed to serve neutral ends is never-to read into the Constitution a philosophy of leveling that would be foreign to many of our basic concepts of the proper relations between government and society. The State may have a moral obligation to eliminate the evils of poverty, but it is not required by the Equal Protection Clause to give to some whatever others can afford." Id., at 362 (dissenting opinion). See also Griffin, 351 U. S., at 35-36 (Harlan, J., dissenting); id., at 29 (Burton, J., dissenting) ("The Constitution requires the equal protection of the law, but it does not require the States to provide equal financial means for all defendants to avail themselves of such laws").
6 Although he concurred in the judgment in Griffin, Justice Frankfurter expressed similar concerns. He emphasized that "the equal protection of the laws [does not] deny a State the right to make classifications in law when such classifications are rooted in reason," id., at 21, and that "a State need not equalize economic conditions," id., at 23. Justice Frankfurter acknowledged that differences in wealth are "contingencies of life which are hardly within the power, let alone the duty, of a State to correct or cushion." Ibid. He also expressed concern that if absolute equality were required, a State would no longer be able to "protect itself so that frivolous appeals are not subsidized and public moneys not needlessly spent." Id., at 24. See also United States v. MacCollom, 426 U. S., at 330 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment) (the Constitution does not "require that an indigent be furnished every possible legal tool, no matter how speculative its value, and no matter how devoid of assistance it may be, merely because a person of unlimited means might choose to waste his resources in a quest of that kind").
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