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Lawrence v. Texas Has No Effect in Georgia

Welcome to Our First Installment of . . . .

Did you know that Lawrence v. Texas (2003) changed absolutely nothing in Georgia? That is so because, in 1998, the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia struck down OCGA § 16-6-2(a), a statute crimnalizing all acts of sodomy, as an unconstitutional violation of privacy protections afforded under Georgia's constitution?

Ironically, this was the very same act that the Supreme Court of the United States held constitutional in Bowers v. Hardwick! And, the case, Powell v. State of Georgia, was decided fully five years before the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence.

Petitioner, Powell, was charged with performing non-consensual oral sex on his wife's 17 year-old daughter. At trial, the jury acquitted him on the non-consensual charge (Powell: "Oh, thank God!!"), but found him guilty of consensual sodomy under the statute (Powell: "What the f**k?"). He then appealed, basis for appeal being that the act under which he had been found guilty violated the State constitution's privacy guarantees.

The Georgia Supreme Court agreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Lance Cullpepper stated:

"If he'd be one o' dem, ahhhh, . . . funny types wid the limp wrists an all, o' one o' dem switch hittas, den . . . let's jus say dat we be comin' to a very different kinda decision ta day. But he ain't, and we ain't neitha!! We thinks da boy deserve some privacy in his . . . what we might call cominglin' an' whatnot. Dis is Georgia, folks. We do dat stuff indoors now."

This has been Did You Know?

Stay tuned for our other new program, "Oh, Thank God!! / Hey!! What the f**k?!"

Our first topic will be an indepth news report of an average citizen's reaction to being found not guilty of non-consensual sodomy, but guilty of consensual sodomy.

Full post as published by Supreme Dicta on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).