Lawrence v. Texas

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2003 U.S. Supreme Court case on anti-sodomy laws

2003 United States Supreme Court case

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults are unconstitutional .[a] [1] [2] The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy " that earlier cases had found the United States Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated .[3] It based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with any or all forms of private sexual activities between consenting adults.[4]

In 1998, John Geddes Lawrence Jr. was arrested along with Tyron Garner at Lawrence's apartment in Harris County, Texas . Garner's former boyfriend had called the police, claiming that there was a man with a weapon in the apartment. Sheriff's deputies said they found the men engaging in sexual intercourse. Lawrence and Garner were charged with a misdemeanor under Texas' anti-sodomy law ; both pleaded no contest and received a fine. Assisted by the American civil rights organization Lambda Legal , Lawrence and Garner appealed their sentences to the Texas Courts of Appeals , which ruled in 2000 that the sodomy law was unconstitutional. Texas appealed to have the court rehear the case _en banc _, and in 2001 it overturned its prior judgment and upheld the law. Lawrence appealed this decision to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals , which denied his request for appeal. Lawrence then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his case.

The Supreme Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas in a 6–3 decision, and by extension invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, thus protecting from governmental regulation throughout the U.S. all forms of private, consensual sexual activity between adults. In the same case, the Court overturned its previous ruling in the 1986 case _Bowers v. Hardwick _, where it had upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy . It explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that the previous ruling had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution .[5]

The case attracted much public attention, and 33 _amici curiae _ ("friends of the court") briefs were filed.[6] Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates , and set the stage for further reconsideration of standing law, including the landmark cases of _United States v. Windsor _ (2013), which invalidated Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act , and _Obergefell v. Hodges _ (2015), which recognized same-sex marriage as a fundamental right under the United States Constitution.

Background

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Legal punishments for sodomy often included heavy fines, prison sentences, or both, with some states, beginning with Illinois in 1827, denying other rights, such as suffrage , to anyone convicted of the crime of sodomy.[7] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several states imposed various eugenics laws against anyone deemed to be a "sexual pervert". As late as 1970, Connecticut denied a driver's license to a man for being an "admitted homosexual".[8]

As of 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law.[9] In 1961, the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code advocated the repeal of sodomy laws as they applied to private, adult, consensual behavior.[10] Two years later the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took its first major case in opposition to these laws.[11]

In _Griswold v. Connecticut _ (1965), the Supreme Court struck down a law barring the use of contraceptives by married couples. In Griswold, the Supreme Court recognized for the first time that couples, at least married couples, had a right to privacy,[12] drawing on the Fourth Amendment 's protection of private homes from searches and seizures without a warrant based on probable cause, the Fourteenth Amendment 's guarantee of due process of law in the states, and the Ninth Amendment 's assurance that rights not specified in the Constitution are "retained by the people". _Eisenstadt v. Baird _ (1972) expanded the scope of sexual privacy rights to unmarried persons.[13] In 1973, in _Roe v. Wade _ the US Supreme court extended that right to privacy to protect a woman's right to have an abortion, although the extent to which that might be regulated by the government varied, with almost absolute protection in the first trimester, and allowing for increasing regulation as the pregnancy progressed.

In _Bowers v. Hardwick _ (1986), the Supreme Court heard a constitutional challenge to sodomy laws brought by a man who had been arrested, but was not prosecuted, for engaging in oral sex with another man in his home.[14] The Court rejected this challenge in a 5 to 4 decision. Justice Byron White 's majority opinion emphasized that Eisenstadt and Roe had only recognized a right to engage in procreative sexual activity, and that long-standing moral antipathy toward homosexual sodomy was enough to argue against the notion of a right to sodomy . Justice Blackmun , writing in dissent, argued that Eisenstadt held that the Constitution protects people as individuals, not as family units.[15] He then reasoned that because state intrusions are equally burdensome on an individual's personal life regardless of his marital status or sexual orientation, there is no reason to treat the rights of citizens in same-sex couples any differently.[16]

By the time of the Lawrence decision, ten states—Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Utah, and Virginia—still banned consensual sodomy without respect to the sex of those involved, and four—Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri (partially)—prohibited same-sex couples from engaging in anal and oral sex.[9]

History

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Arrest of Lawrence and Garner

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On September 17, 1998, John Geddes Lawrence Jr.,[17] [18] a gay medical technologist, was hosting two gay acquaintances, Tyron Garner[19] and Robert Eubanks,[[20]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawren

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