Last edited: April 18, 2007

 

North Carolina

  • Statute: 14-177, Crime Against Nature. Unconstitutional under Lawrence v. Texas
  • Penalty: 3 years
  • Classification: Felony
  • Restrictions: None

Statute

14-177. Crime against nature

If any person shall commit the crime against nature, with mankind or beast, he shall be punished as a Class I felon.


History

            1854     North Carolina becomes the last state in the nation to abolish references from its sodomy law to the old English legal custom of benefit of clergy.

            1856     A guidebook for justices of the peace on North Carolina advocates the Napoleonic Code for the state. In France, the Napoleonic Code had decriminalized consensual sodomy.

            1954     A law review recommends amending the state’s sodomy law to exclude married couples from the statute’s coverage, but no one else.

            1964     Federal judge J. Braxton Craven issues a sarcastic opinion ridiculing the North Carolina sodomy law, calling into question trial procedures in sodomy cases, the penalty prescribed by the law, and even the wisdom of outlawing consensual sodomy.  

  • Greensboro's Untold Story: The Gay Scare of '57 - Greensboro News-Record, September 17, 2006
    On Feb. 4, 1957, a Guilford County grand jury emerged from its closed session and issued a bundle of indictments of a scope unlike any before or since - against 32 men accused of being homosexual.
    After witnesses named the men during police interrogations, the suspects were tried one by one in a Greensboro courtroom for crimes against nature, almost exclusively with consenting adults.


Repeal Bills

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 1999

SENATE BILL 759

Short Title: Sexual Privacy Act. (Public)

Sponsors: Senators Kinnaird; Gulley and Lucas.

Referred to: Judiciary II.

April 5, 1999

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT RELATING TO CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR PRIVATE SEXUAL ACTIVITY
BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1. G.S. 14-177 reads as rewritten:

"§ 14-177. Crime against nature.
(a) If any person shall commit the crime against nature, with mankind or beast, he shall be  punished as a Class I felon.
(b) This section shall not apply if the act occurs between consenting adults in privacy and is not for hire."

Section 2. This act is effective when it becomes law.


News


Editorials


Advocates

Equality North Carolina
PO Box 28768
Raleigh, NC 27611-8768
(919) 829-0343

Raymond A. Warren
309 East Morehead Street Suite 150
Post Office Box 36071
Charlotte, NC 28236
Tel: 704-714-4344, Fax: 866-779-3014
Ray@RayWarrenLaw.com


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