Virginia Sodomy Appeal Declined
The Washington
Blade, June 8, 2001
By Rhonda Smith
An effort to have Virginias sodomy law struck down fell short this week
when a three-member panel of the states Supreme Court declined to hear an
appeal of 10 men convicted in 1998 of soliciting oral sex from undercover
officers in Roanokes Wasena Park.
Justices Lawrence Koontz Jr., Elizabeth Lacy, and Christian Compton issued
the ruling June 1 without comment. The plaintiffs in the case, Elvis
DePriest et al. v. Commonwealth of Virginia, have 14 days to decide
whether to file a petition for a rehearing by the full seven-member Virginia
Supreme Court.
Openly gay Roanoke lawyer Sam Garrison, who represented the plaintiffs, led
the effort to have the states "Crimes Against Nature" law repealed.
"Its been an honor to have the opportunity to try to fight for the
privacy rights of 4.5 million Virginians," he said, "because only a
tiny fraction of acts of oral sex occur in public, yet the law makes it a
felony for people to engage in oral sex anywhere."
The plaintiffs sought to challenge the law as an unconstitutional
infringement on the privacy rights of all Virginians because it prohibits any
act of oral or anal sex regardless of whether the participants are in public
or private, male or female, married or single.
But last November, a three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals
upheld the convictions of the 10 men and ruled that because they solicited sex
in a public place they had no legal grounds to challenge the states sodomy
law, which makes consensual oral sex a felony. Garrison then petitioned the
state Supreme Court for a hearing.
Garrison told the Blade this week that he plans to petition for a rehearing
by the full Virginia Supreme Court. And if that fails, he said, the case would
be finished.
"Some day this statute is going to fall, either by a different kind of
case or by action in the legislature," he said, noting that various other
states have repealed their sodomy laws or courts have struck them down.
"One day, one way or another, were going to have the same result in
Virginia."
A total of 18 men were originally charged with soliciting sex in Wasena
Park about three years ago. Four of the men took part in separate jury trials
and only one was convicted. The other three men were acquitted.
Garrison represented nine other men who entered guilty pleas. The guilty
plea allowed them to contest the validity of Virginias sodomy law. Garrison
also represented the man whom a jury convicted.
This year in the Virginia legislature, lawmakers proposed various bills
that addressed changing the state sodomy statute, but they did not vote on any
of them. In 2000, the House of Delegates voted 50-49 on legislation to drop
the charge for violating the sodomy law from a felony to a misdemeanor. A
similar measure died before getting out of a Senate committee, however.
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