4 and half pages History final paper

"Lawrence & Garner vs. Texas" (June 2003)

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Gte as: 539 U. S. __ (2003)

Opinion of the Court NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication In the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Dedsionsl Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 02-102

JOHN GEDDES LAWRENCE AND 1YRON GARNER, PETITIONERS v. TEXAS

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF lEAS

) )

FOURTEENrn DISTlUCf [June 26, 2003)

JU5T1CE KENNEOY delivered the opinion of the Court Uberty protects the person from unwarranted government

intrusions into a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of OUf lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bouocs, liberty presumes an autonomy of self that indudes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The inst4lnt case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.

I

TIle question before the COUrt is the validity of a Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct.

In Houston, Texas, officers of the Harris County Police Department were dispatched to a private residence in response to a reported weapons disturbance. They entered an apartment where one of the petitioners, John Geddes Lawrence, resided. The right of the police to enter does not seem to have been questioned. The officers observed

Sections Balded by Professor Frank Nobilertl, San Diego State University

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LAWRENCE v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexuaJ persons seek to enter. The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from eecn otner, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifesty\e. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or

A control their destiny by making thelr private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. "It is is promise of the ConstituUon that there is it realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.' ca~ supra,at 847. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.

Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its mani fold possibilities, they might have

a been more specif.c. They did not presume to have this insight.. They P knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see

that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact: serve only CQ OPPre5S. As the Constitution endures, persons in evecy generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Texas Fourteenth Distrlct is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings: not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Sections Bolded by Professor Frank Ncbileni, San Diego State University