New York v. Onofre
Encyclopedia
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
laws, decided in the New York Court of Appeals
New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the U.S. state of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six associate judges who are appointed by the Governor to 14-year terms...
.
Brief summary
In People v. Ronal Onofre, et al., the appeal consisted of several cases consolidated into one. They were appealing a 1965 law, New York Penal Law § 130.38, which made it a misdemeanor to engage in "deviate sexual inercourse" (defined to include anal and oral but not vaginal sex) with another person.Appellants
Ronald Onofre was convicted for violating New York Penal Law that made it a misdemeanor to engage in sodomy (encompassing anal and oral sex, not vaginal), when he was caught having sex with his 17-year-old male lover in his home. Conde Peoples, III and Philip Goss were convicted for engaging in oral sex in an automobile parked in downtown Buffalo. . Mary Sweat was convicted for having oral sex with a man in a parked truck, also in Buffalo. . All these defendants appealed their convictions and argued that the consensual sodomy statute was unconstitutional. .Influences by Other Cases
The Court ruled that on the basis of Griswold v. ConnecticutGriswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut, , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives...
, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)) and Stanley v. Georgia
Stanley v. Georgia
Stanley v. Georgia, , was a United States Supreme Court decision that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law.The Georgia home of Robert Eli Stanley, a suspected and previously convicted bookmaker, was searched by police with a federal warrant to seize betting paraphernalia...
, the above sexual actions, when consensual, should fall under the right to privacy alluded to in the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. Specifically, the Court opined:
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- "The People are in no disagreement that a fundamental right of personal decision exists; the divergence of the parties focuses on what subjects fall within its protection, the People contending that it extends to only two aspects of sexual behavior - marital intimacy (by virtue of the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold) and procreative choice (by reason of Eisenstadt and Roe v. Wade)." .
The Court also relied on Stanley, a case where the court found violative of the individual's right to be free from governmental interference in making important, protected decisions a statute which made criminal the possession of obscene matter within the privacy of the defendant's home. The Onofre Court stated,
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- "In light of these decisions, protecting under the cloak of the right of privacy individual decisions as to indulgence in acts of sexual initmacy by unmarried persons and as to satisfaction of sexual desires by resort to material condemned as obscene by community standardswhen done in a cloistered setting, no rational basis appears for excluding from the same protection decisions - such as those made by the defendants before us - to seek sexual gratification from what at least once was commonly regarded as "deviant" conduct, so long as the decisions are voluntarily made by adults in a noncommercial, private setting."
The Court concluded its ruling by stating:
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- "In sum, there has been no showing of any threat, either to participants or the public in general, in consequence of the voluntary engagement by adults in private, discreet, sodomous conduct. Absent is the factor of sommercialization with the attendant evils commonly attached to the retailing of sexual pleasures; absent the elements of force or of involvement of minors which might constitute compulsion of unwilling participants or of those too young to make an informed choice, and absent too intrusion on the sensibilities of members of the public, many of whome would be offended by being exposed to the intimacies of others. Personal feelings of distates for the conduct sought to be proscribed by New York Penal Law § 130.38 and even disapproval by a majority of the populace, if that disapproval were to be assumed, may not substitute for the required demonstration of a valid basis for intrusion by the State in an area of important personal decision protected under the right of privacy drawn from the United States Constitution - areas, the number and definition of which have steadily grown but, as the Supreme court has observed, the outer limits of which it has not yet marked."
Court's Holding
The 5-to-2 majority opinion was written by Judge Hugh R. JonesHugh R. Jones
Hugh Richard Jones was an American lawyer and politician.-Life:...
, who wrote that "it is not the function of the penal law to provide for the enforcement of moral or theological values." Specifically, those concurring with the decision, believed that "the People have failed to demonstrate how government interference with the practice of personal choice in matters of intimate sexual behavior out of view of the public and with no commercial component will serve to advance the cause of public morality or do anything other than restrict individual conduct and impose a concept of private morality chosen by the State."
Judge Jasen concurred with the result. He rejected the Griswold analysis, but found that the law had no currently rational basis, much like Justice White
Byron White
Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White won fame both as a football halfback and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until his retirement in 1993...
's concurring opinion in Griswold.
Judge Domenick L. Gabrielli
Domenick L. Gabrielli
Domenick Luciano Gabrielli was an American lawyer and politician.-Life:...
and Chief Judge Cooke dissented with the majority. In their opinion, the analysis utilized by the majority meant that "all private, consensual conduct would necessarily involve the exercise of a constitutinoally protected "fundamental right" unless the conduct in question jeopardize the physical health of the participant." They concluded their dissent by stating,
- "The fact remains that western man has never been free to pursue his own choice of sexual gratification without fear of State inference. Consequently, it simply cannot be said that such freedome is an integral part of our concept of ordered liberty as embodied in the due process clauses of the Fifth AmendmentFifth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
and Fourteenth AmendmentFourteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
."
See also
- Kentucky v. WassonKentucky v. WassonKentucky v. Wasson was a 1992 Kentucky Supreme Court decision striking down that state's criminalization of consensual sodomy between same-sex partners, holding that this was a violation of both the equal protection of the laws and the right to privacy...
- Bowers v. HardwickBowers v. HardwickBowers v. Hardwick, , is a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld, in a 5-4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals. Seventeen years after Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court...
- Lawrence v. TexasLawrence v. TexasLawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by proxy, invalidated sodomy laws in the thirteen other states where they remained in existence, thereby making same-sex sexual activity legal in...
- Sex-related court cases
- Stanley v. GeorgiaStanley v. GeorgiaStanley v. Georgia, , was a United States Supreme Court decision that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law.The Georgia home of Robert Eli Stanley, a suspected and previously convicted bookmaker, was searched by police with a federal warrant to seize betting paraphernalia...
- Griswold v. ConnecticutGriswold v. ConnecticutGriswold v. Connecticut, , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives...