SJC Limits Prosecution for Sodomy
Boston Globe,
February 22, 2002
Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107
Fax: 617-929-2098
Email: letter@globe.com
By John Ellement, Globe Staff
In a ruling hailed as historic by gay rights advocates, the state’s
highest court yesterday gutted longstanding sodomy laws, ruling that people
who engage in sodomy in semipublic places such as parking lots, wooded areas,
and public beaches cannot be prosecuted as long as they make sure they cannot
be seen by others.
The ruling was sought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in
order to end what it considers discriminatory treatment by law enforcement
toward gays and to extend the same rights of privacy and freedom enjoyed by
heterosexuals to gay men and lesbians, said Jennifer L. Levi, the GLAD lawyer
who argued the case before the Supreme Judicial Court.
"For the first time, the court has said that neither of the state
sodomy laws apply to private consensual conduct," Levi said. "What
this means is that antique laws cannot be used to intrude on people’s right
to engage in acts of intimacy when they are in private."
Levi said she expects the ruling to curtail, if not eliminate, law
enforcement sweeps on so-called gay cruising areas such as highway rest stops.
She said police have used the antisodomy laws to target gays for criminal
prosecution while not applying the same standard to heterosexuals engaged in
the same acts in lover’s lanes. "By limiting the scope of these laws,
we take away some of the police’s ability to target gay people in a
discriminatory way," Levi said.
But CJ Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of
Massachusetts said the ruling could lead to more sexual activity in public and
deter some families from using public places.
"It means people won’t be able to take their children walking in the
Blue Hills. It means people won’t be able to use rest stops," he said.
"It means that people will have to be more careful about traveling on
public beaches."
Doyle also said he wasn’t surprised by the SJC decision. "It doesn’t
contain a single justice who supports traditional morality," Doyle said.
"This will prevent reasonable efforts by law enforcement to prevent lewd
displays of public behavior. It will leave more limitations on the freedom of
ordinary citizens and families to enjoy public places."
In the unanimous ruling written by Justice Roderick I. Ireland, the court
technically threw out the case on the grounds that none of GLAD’s plaintiffs
were currently facing criminal prosecution for violating the two antisodomy
statutes, first codified in 1697.
Before it dismissed the case, the court gave GLAD some of what it wanted by
extending to the antisodomy laws rulings from 1974 and 1981 that
decriminalized other forms of private, consensual sexual acts between adults.
In those cases, known as Balthazar and Ferguson, the SJC set out broad
definitions of a public place and also set the standards prosecutors must meet
before they can win a conviction. Among other things, the court said the fact
that someone else sees the sex act does not by itself make the behavior
criminal. Instead, prosecutors must show that the individuals knew they could
be seen by others and performed the sex act anyway.
"We now clarify that our holdings in the Balthazar and Ferguson cases
concerning acts conducted in private between consenting adults extend" to
the antisodomy laws, Ireland wrote in yesterday’s three-page ruling.
GLAD’s plaintiffs, who included a married heterosexual couple,
specifically wanted the SJC to tell them if performing sodomy in a
"wooded outdoor area, vehicles parked in parking lots, and secluded areas
of public beaches" would expose them to prosecution.
The SJC declined to revisit the definition of what is a public place and
what is a private area, ruling only that acts of sodomy are legal as long as
they are done in private or out of public view.
Levi said she would have welcomed a broader ruling, but said that by
linking its ruling to the two earlier cases, the SJC has made the new ground
rules clear.
The attorney general’s office defended the antisodomy laws before the SJC,
while noting that prosecutions under the laws are rare. As part of the GLAD
suit, the attorney general’s office, along with the Suffolk and Middlesex
district attorney’s offices, agreed that no one would be prosecuted under
the statutes unless the act was performed in public, or there was evidence of
coercion or violence.
Ann Donlan, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, downplayed
the significance of the SJC ruling, saying that it merely restated existing
law and that the court had not found the law unconstitutional, as GLAD had
requested.
Massachusetts has two antisodomy statutes, one prohibiting "the
bominable and detestable crime against nature," which case law has
defined as anal sex, and one prohibiting "unnatural acts," which
various court rulings have applied to both oral and anal sex.
[Home] [News] [Massachusetts]
