The first anti-miscegenation law was passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 1691, criminalizing interracial marriage. By the late 1800s, 38 US states had anti-miscegenation statutes, and by 1924 it was still in force in 29 states. In 1958, officers in Virginia entered the home of Richard and Mildred Loving and dragged them out of bed for living together as an interracial couple, on the basis that “any white person intermarry with a colored person”— or vice versa—each party “shall be guilty of a felony” and face prison terms of five years. The law was ruled unconstitutional in 1967 by the U.S. Supreme Court in "Loving v. Virginia".