Lawrence v. Texas
| Lawrence v. Texas | ||||||
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| Decided June 26, 2003 |
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A Texas law banning anal sex practices between consenting men violates the US Constitution. |
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| Applied Law | ||||||
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Nationwide abolition of the legal prohibitions against homosexual intercourse as well as heterosexual practices such as oral or anal intercourse , since sexual relationships between consenting adults, provided they are private, belong to the privacy worth protecting and may not be prohibited by criminal law. |
Lawrence v. Texas (fully John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, Petitioners versus Texas ) is a court case that was tried in the United States Supreme Court through 2003, the verdict of which resulted in the repeal of the sodomy laws . These laws made consensual anal intercourse between adult men a criminal offense. Similarly, the ruling also repealed many other laws that had criminalized various other consensual sexual practices. This judgment marked a milestone on the road to emancipation for gays in the United States .
The case attracted enormous public attention there, and a large number of activists tried to petition the Supreme Court. The verdict was met with strong rejection from heterosexist circles, but widespread approval from homosexuals, who hoped that the verdict would give them significantly more freedom.
incident
At about 10:30 pm on September 17, 1998, police broke into the home of then 55-year-old white medical technician John Geddes Lawrence and found Lawrence himself and 31-year-old black takeaway seller Tyron Garner. The police had been called by Robert Eubanks, the occasional partner of Lawrence, who untruthfully told 911 that Lawrence had threatened him and others with his firearms. Whether a fourth man was temporarily present could not be clarified. The police officers later made various statements about what exactly they had seen: One of the four police officers reportedly saw anal intercourse between Lawrence and Garner, one oral intercourse, and two had not noticed any sexual contact. Three of the four policemen noticed an obscene picture on the living room wall.
At the time, anal intercourse was a Chapter 21, Sec. 06/21 of the Texas Penal Code. Violations of the ban on same-sex anal intercourse were, of course, only very rarely observed by the police. Therefore, Lawrence and Garner by officers of were Harris County - Sheriff -Department arrested and held overnight in jail. They were eventually released on bail of $ 200 each.
Captain Don McWilliams, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Department, said: “In all honesty, I don't think we've ever arrested anyone under such circumstances. But law is law. We can't give our officials a list of the laws they are supposed to enforce and a list of those we want them to neglect. "
Legal process
On November 20, 1998, Lawrence and Garner were fined $ 125 each by Justice of the Peace Mike Parrott. The defendants then appealed to the Texas Criminal Court. There they argued that the prosecution violated the right to equality before the law guaranteed in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, since only homosexual anal intercourse was punished, not heterosexual intercourse. In addition, the defendants alleged a violation of their right to privacy. The court did not follow this line of argument and sentenced the two to a $ 125 fine each plus $ 142.25 legal fees.
Lawrence and Garner appealed this judgment to the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals on November 4, 1999, again on the grounds of violation of the principle of equality and invasion of privacy. Judges John S. Anderson and Paul Murphy ruled in a three-person committee in favor of the defendants, but the entirety of the judges' panel ignored this decision and ruled in favor of the defendants.
This judgment was appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on April 13, 2001, but this was again rejected. The case then went to the United States Supreme Court on July 16, 2002 .
Bowers v. Hardwick
The lower courts' decisions were based on a 1986 Supreme Court decision: In the Bowers v. Hardwick had found the Georgia sodomy law to be legal with a majority of five to four votes and described the plaintiffs' appeal to the American Constitution as facetious ("droll").
This landmark ruling on the matter made it particularly difficult for the Supreme Court to make a dissenting decision. On the one hand, this would attack the legal opinion and the authority of the Supreme Court ( stare decisis ); on the other hand, a large number of judgments might have to be revised. One therefore worried among other things about the legal peace .
decision
On June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court declared the sodomy laws invalid by six votes to three. In its reasoning, the court stated that the ban had violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the American constitution.
Majority opinion
The majority opinion of the Court that the judge Anthony Kennedy put it, the judges concluded John Paul Stevens , David Souter , Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer on. This majority opinion mainly criticized the evidence in the Bowers v. Hardwick . At the time, it was argued that condemnation of homosexuality had been a widespread consensus in the western world and in western history. Kennedy opposed this and cited, among other things, the judgment in the Dudgeon v. United Kingdom of the European Court of Human Rights in 1981 , which found that the criminality of consensual homosexual acts was a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Kennedy referred to the Supreme Court decision in the Bowers v. Hardwick as wrong, both at the time of the judgment and today.
In the majority opinion, Kennedy found that consensual sexual acts among adults were part of the freedom protected by the 14th Amendment. Furthermore, the state of Texas could not establish any state interests that could have justified an intrusion of the state into the personal private lives of people.
Ruth Harlow, the plaintiff's attorney, said in a post-ruling interview, "The court admitted its 1986 mistake and admitted that the ruling at the time was wrong." She stressed that gay Americans, like everyone else, have the full Respect of the state and equal constitutional rights.
Dissenting vote by judge Sandra Day O'Connor
Judge Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the court's decision, but on a different basis. Since in the Bowers v. Hardwick had agreed with the majority opinion, she refused to revise her judgment at the time and did not agree to recognize sexuality as part of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom. Instead, O'Connor relied on the right to equal treatment in its justification. She was bothered by the fact that the law was only directed against a certain group of people. However, she did not object in principle to laws that attempt to regulate consensual sexuality, provided that these are formulated neutrally and do not only target a specific group.
Minor opinion
The conservative judge Antonin Scalia formulated a separate vote in order to express his dissenting opinion on the judgment. The judges William H. Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas agreed with this lesser opinion . Scalia protested in sharp words against the decision in the Bowers v. Revise Hardwick . He feared that many lower court decisions based on this judgment would be cast in doubt. He also criticized the fact that certain formal principles of law finding had been applied differently in other judgments. Scalia thus followed his previous conservative line of interpreting the constitution as accurately as possible to the letter and refraining from interpreting the constitution in the light of a changing society.
Clarence Thomas commented on the judgment in another brief minor opinion. He stated that he considered the sodomy laws to be “exceptionally stupid”, but ultimately not unconstitutional. He granted the state the right to enact such laws if, as a member of the legislature, he would vote for their abolition.
Consequences of the decision
Although many American states had long since abolished the sodomy laws, in some cases decades before, there were still numerous states in 2003 in which sodomy laws were still in force. In addition to Texas, these were the states of Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri (in some counties), North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. In these states, the sodomy laws became null and void after the landmark Texas judgment.
In addition, some states also had laws criminalizing not only homosexual anal intercourse, but also other sexual practices among heterosexuals, such as oral intercourse. These laws were also affected by the fundamental decision of the Supreme Court.
In the case of Stern v. Cosby (Case 1: 07-cv-08536-DC, Aug. 12, 2009) ruled in a New York City district court that the allegation of a person's homosexuality was not defamation per se . Reference was made to the changed views in society and to the fact that same-sex sexuality is no longer punishable.
See also
- Homosexuality in the United States
- History of Homosexuality in the United States
- Chronology of the sodomy laws in the United States
Web links
- Michaela Simon: Lawrence v. Texas , Telepolis, June 27, 2003
- Dahlia Lithwick: Extreme Makeover - The story behind the story of Lawrence v. Texas . In: The New Yorker , March 12, 2012
Individual evidence
- ^ Dahlia Lithwick: Extreme Makeover: The story behind the story of Lawrence v. Texas. The New Yorker , March 5, 2012.
- ↑ Texas Penal Code: Title 5. Offenses Against the Person, Chapter 21. Sexual Offenses.
- ^ Paul Duggan: Activists Arrest Battle For Gay Legal Opens Sodomy Texas. Washington Post , November 29, 1998.
- ↑ Live From The Headlines: Interview With Ruth Harlow. CNN , transcript from a broadcast on June 26, 2003.
- ^ Mark Hamblett: Calling Someone Homosexual Is Not Defamation Per Se, Judge Rules in Suit by Anna Nicole Smith Lawyer , law.com, August 13, 2009; with a link to the judgment in PDF format
