Defying U.S. Supreme Court, Kansas Court Upholds 17-Year Prison Sentence of
Bisexual Teenager
American Civil Liberties Union,
January 30, 2004
For Immediate Release
Contact: Chris Hampton, (212) 549-2673 Dick Kurtenbach, (816) 756-3113
TOPEKA, KS—The American Civil
Liberties Union today deplored a Kansas appeals court ruling that it is
constitutional to give a bisexual teenager a sentence 13 times longer than a
straight teenager would receive for the same crime.
“The court’s opinion in this case defies
comprehension, and we intend to seek an appeal,” said Dick Kurtenbach,
Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. “The U.S.
Supreme Court ordered Kansas to reconsider this case in light of its holding
last summer that the government can’t have a different set of rules for gay
people than it does for straight people. But the Kansas court’s opinion is
written as if Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down same-sex-only sodomy laws,
had never even happened.”
The two-to-one decision from the Kansas Court of Appeals
today upholds the state’s “Romeo and Juliet” law, which gives much
lighter sentences to heterosexual teenagers who have sex with younger teens,
but specifically excludes gay teenagers. In its decision, the Court gave three
explanations for sentencing gays so much more severely: that doing so will
reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, that doing so encourages
“traditional sexual mores,” and that doing so promotes procreation and
marriage.
“The Court’s reasons for approving this law are
absurd,” said Tamara Lange, Limon’s attorney from the ACLU’s Lesbian and
Gay Rights Project. “All young people should be entitled to protection from
sexually transmitted diseases, and punishing gay kids more harshly
‘protects’ no one. The Supreme Court made it very clear that
‘traditional sexual mores’ are no longer a legitimate rationale for
discriminating against gay people. To suggest that the state should give
straight men a lighter sentence to encourage them to marry the 14- and
15-year-old girls they impregnate and support the children that result from
their crimes is incomprehensible.”
Matthew Limon is currently serving 17 years in prison,
instead of the 13 to 15 months he would have faced if he were heterosexual.
The Kansas law makes sexual relations with a minor a lesser crime if both
people are teens, but it only applies to opposite-sex relations. In June, the
U.S. Supreme Court vacated Limon’s conviction and instructed the Kansas
Court of Appeals to give it further consideration in light of the historic
ruling on sexual intimacy in Lawrence v. Texas. The “Romeo and Juliet”
law, like the overturned Texas sodomy law, treats the sexual conduct of
lesbian and gay people differently.
Under the Kansas law, consensual oral sex between two
teens is a lesser crime if the younger teenager is 14 to 16 years old, if the
older teenager is under 19, if the age difference is less than four years, if
there are no third parties involved, and if the two teenagers “are members
of the opposite sex.”
Selected Quotes from Justice Henry W. Green, Jr.’s
Majority Opinion
Heterosexual men who have sex with 14- and 15-year-old
girls deserve a lighter sentence to encourage procreation:
“Throughout history, governments have extolled the
virtues of procreation as a way to furnish new workers, soldiers, and other
useful members of society. The survival of society requires a continuous
replenishment of its members.”
Heterosexual men who have sex with 14- and 15- year-old
girls deserve a lighter sentence to encourage the young men to marry the girls
they have slept with and provide for their potential offspring:
“When a child is born from a relationship between a
minor and a young adult, the minor is often unable to financially support the
newborn child. In many cases, the minor is still a dependent. As a result, the
financial burden to support the newborn child properly falls to the young
adult. Obviously, the young adult cannot furnish adequate financial support
for the newborn child while he or she is incarcerated. The legislature could
well have concluded that incarcerating the young adult parent for a long
period would be counterproductive to the requirement that a parent has a duty
to provide support to his or her minor child... On the other hand, same-sex
relationships do not generally lead to unwanted pregnancies. As a result, the
need to release the same-sex offender from incarceration is absent.”
From Justice Joseph Pierron, Jr.’s Dissent
“Carved in stone above the pillars in front of the
United States Supreme Court building are the words ‘Equal Justice Under
Law.’ In bronze letters on the north interior wall of the Kansas Judicial
Center we read ‘Within These Walls The Balance Of Justice Weighs Equal.’
There are reasons why we remind ourselves so graphically of the importance of
equal justice. Persons in power and authority have historically been tempted
to discriminate against people they do not like or understand. If these
personal and political dislikes become law and exceed the bounds of
constitutionality, the courts have been given the duty to be the final
protectors of our ideal of equality under the law. This blatantly
discriminatory sentencing provision does not live up to American standards of
equal justice.”
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