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. 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. 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.
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.15 Geo. Mason U. C.R. L.J. 105 2004–2005; 102 Mich. L. Rev. 1555 2003–2004
The case attracted much public attention, and 33 amici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs were filed. 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 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. 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".
As of 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law.The New York Times: Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Law Banning Sodomy", June 26, 2003, accessed July 16, 2012 In 1961, the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code advocated the repeal of sodomy laws as they applied to private, adult, consensual behavior.Illinois in 1961 became the first state to repeal its sodomy law. Laws of Illinois 1961, page 1983, enacted July 28, 1961, effective Jan. 1, 1962. The History of Sodomy Laws in the United States: Illinois. Two years later the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took its first major case in opposition to these laws.
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, 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. 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. 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.Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. at 453. 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.Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 219.
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.
History
Arrest of Lawrence and Garner On September 17, 1998, John Geddes Lawrence Jr.,John Geddes Lawrence, August 2, 1943 – November 20, 2011. MetroWeekly: Chris Geidner, "John Geddes Lawrence, of Lawrence v. Texas, Has Died at 68", December 23, 2011 , accessed May 9, 2012 a gay medical technologist, was hosting two gay acquaintances, Tyron GarnerJuly 10, 1967 – September 11, 2006. New York Times: "Tyron Garner, 39, Plaintiff in Pivotal Sodomy Case, Dies", September 14, 2006, accessed September 14, 2006 and Robert Eubanks,Robert Royce Eubanks, July 22, 1958 – October 14, 2000. Social Security Death Index at his apartment at 794 East Normandy Street, in northeast Harris County, Texas, east of the Houston city limits. Lawrence and Eubanks had been friends for more than 20 years. Garner and Eubanks had had an intermittent romantic relationship since 1990. Lacking transportation home, the guests were preparing to spend the night. Eubanks, who had been drinking heavily, left to purchase a soda from a nearby vending machine. Apparently outraged that Lawrence had been flirting with Garner, he called police and reported "a black male going crazy with a gun" at Lawrence's apartment.Though Eubanks' report was false, it gave the police probable cause to enter Lawrence's home.
Four Harris County sheriff's deputies responded within minutes and Eubanks pointed them to the apartment. They entered the unlocked apartment toward 11 p.m. with their weapons drawn. In accordance with police procedures, the first to arrive, Joseph Quinn, took the lead both in approaching the scene and later in determining what charges to bring. He later reported seeing Lawrence and Garner having anal sex in the bedroom. A second officer reported seeing them engaged in oral sex, and two others did not report seeing the pair having sex. Lawrence repeatedly challenged the police for entering his home. Quinn had discretionary authority to charge them for a variety of offenses and to determine whether to arrest them. When Quinn considered charging them with having sex in violation of state law, he had to get an Assistant District Attorney to check the statutes to be certain they covered sexual activity inside a residence. He was told that Texas' anti-sodomy statute, the "Homosexual Conduct" law, made it a Class C misdemeanor if someone "engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex". The statute, Chapter 21, Sec. 21.06 of the Texas Penal Code, had been adopted in 1973 when the state revised its criminal code to end its proscription on heterosexual anal and oral intercourse.
Quinn decided to arrest Lawrence and Garner and charge them with having "deviate sex". In the separate arrest reports he filed for each, he wrote that he had seen the arrestee "engaged in deviate sexual conduct namely, anal sex, with another man".Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct, 83 Lawrence and Garner were held in jail overnight. At a hearing the next day, they pleaded not guilty to a charge of "homosexual conduct". They were released toward midnight, after posting a bail of $200.Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct, 113–4 Eubanks pleaded no contest to charges of filing a false police report. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail but was released after serving just 15 days of his sentence.Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct, 131
At the time of the arrest, prosecuting this offense was rare for people in their own residences. District Attorney John B. Holmes, said that only "two or three" sodomy cases had been pursued in the county since 1958, and all involved inmates in the county jail.
Prosecution and appeals The gay rights advocates from Lambda Legal litigating the case convinced Lawrence and Garner not to contest the charges and to plead no contest instead. On November 20, Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest to the charges and waived their right to a trial. Justice of the Peace Mike Parrott found them guilty and imposed a $100 fine and court costs of $41.25 on each defendant. When the defense attorneys realized that the fine was below the minimum required to permit them to appeal the convictions, they asked the judge to impose a higher penalty. Parrott, well aware that the attorneys intended to use the case to raise a constitutional challenge, increased it to $125 with the agreement of the prosecutor.Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct, 19–40
To appeal, Lawrence and Garner needed to have their cases tried in Harris County Criminal Court. Their attorneys asked the court to dismiss the charges against them on Fourteenth Amendment equal protection grounds, claiming that the law was unconstitutional since it prohibited sodomy between same-sex couples, but not between heterosexual couples. They also asserted a right to privacy and that the Supreme Court's decision in Bowers v. Hardwick that found no privacy protection for consensual sex between homosexuals was "wrongly decided".Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct, 144–9 On December 22, Judge Sherman Ross denied the defense motions to dismiss. The defendants again pleaded "no contest". Ross fined them $200 each, the amount agreed upon in advance by both sides.Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct, 150–2