In Loving v. Virginia, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote on behalf of a unanimous Supreme Court to declare antimiscegenation laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Laws against interracial marriage were widespread in the United States into the 1960s. An interracial couple, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, traveled to Washington, D.C., to get married and then returned to their home state of Virginia to take up life as Mr. and Mrs. Richard Loving. Police raided their home in 1958, jailed the couple, and took them to court for being married “against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.” They were convicted in Virginia of the crime of marrying each other, but they were allowed to leave the state for Washington, D.C. From there, they appealed their convictions, and the case went to the Supreme Court. There, the Fourteenth Amendment was interpreted to declare unconstitutional all state laws against interracial marriage. States retained their authority over the law of marriage in other respects but no longer in regard to classification by race.