Lawrence v. Texas
| Lawrence v. Texas | |
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| Argued March 26, 2003 Decided June 26, 2003 |
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| Full case name | John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner v Texas |
| Docket nos. | 02-102 |
| Citations | 539 U.S. 558 (more)
123 S. Ct. 2472; 156 L. Ed. 2d 508; 2003 U.S. LEXIS 5013; 71 U.S.L.W. 4574; 2003 Cal. Daily Op. Service 5559; 2003 Daily Journal DAR 7036; 16 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 427
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| Argument | Oral argument |
| Prior history | Defendants convicted, Harris County Criminal Court (1999), rev'd, 2000 WL 729417 (Tex. App. 2000) (depublished), aff'd en banc, 41 S.W.3d 349 (Tex. App. 2001), review denied (Tex. App. 2002), cert. granted, 537 U.S. 1044 (2002) |
| Subsequent history | Complaint dismissed, 2003 WL 22453791, 2003 Tex. App. LEXIS 9191 (Tex. App. 2003) |
| Holding | |
| A Texas law classifying consensual, adult homosexual intercourse as illegal sodomy violated the privacy and liberty of adults to engage in private intimate conduct under the 14th Amendment. Texas state courts reversed and charges dismissed. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | , joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer |
| Concurrence | |
| Dissent | , joined by Rehnquist, Thomas |
| Dissent | |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Tex. Penal Code § 21.06(a) (2003) | |
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This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
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| Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) | |
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. The Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas in a 6-3 decision and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. The Court, with a five-justice majority, overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy.
Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the 14th Amendment. Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants.
The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs were filed. Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates, and set the stage for further reconsiderations of standing law, including the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges which recognized same-sex marriage as a fundamental right.
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