Gay Sex Law Appealed to U.S. High Court
Gay.com /
PlanetOut.com Network, July 16, 2002
By Ann Rostow
SUMMARY: Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund has asked the U.S.
Supreme Court to review the Texas "homosexual conduct" law.
As expected, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund has asked the U.S.
Supreme Court to review the Texas "homosexual conduct" law.
In a petition filed Tuesday, the legal group appealed the case of two
Houston men, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, who were arrested in their own
home by police following up on a false call placed by an old boyfriend. The
men were subsequently jailed for 24 hours, convicted and fined $200 each.
Texas is one of just four states, including Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma,
that criminalizes same-sex couples for private, consensual sex. Up until
recently, there were five such states, but the Arkansas Supreme Court struck
that state’s sodomy law as unconstitutional on July 5. Nine other states
retain sodomy laws that apply to all couples, gay or straight.
If the justices accept the case, Lambda will argue that sodomy laws in
general violate constitutional privacy rights, and that Texas’s law violates
the right to equal protection as well. Four of the nine justices must agree to
hear the appeal in order for the case to proceed, and although only a few of
the many appeals to the high court are accepted, there are strong reasons to
believe Lawrence and Garner v. Texas may be one of those few.
In the mid-1990s, the Texas Supreme Court backed away from ruling on an
earlier sodomy case, determining that the issue was out of its jurisdiction
and belonged in the criminal courts. After their arrest in 1998, Lawrence and
Garner indeed took their case up the criminal court ladder, winning a state
appellate verdict, which was overturned by the full appellate court.
That ruling, in turn, was appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals—the
highest criminal court in the state—in the spring of 2001. After doing
nothing for a year, however, the Court of Criminal Appeals declined to hear
the case without explanation last April.
At a time when state supreme courts all over the country have been
addressing the constitutionality of sodomy laws, the two courts of final
appeal in Texas have both ducked the issue. The day after the April non-ruling
by the Court of Criminal Appeals, Lambda announced that it was
"likely" to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, in part due to the
inaction of the Lone Star State courts. That inaction is also a compelling
reason for the high court to take the case, the lawyers believe.
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