Lawrence v. Texas Has No Effect in Georgia

Lawrence v. Texas (2003) changed absolutely nothing in the State of Georgia. This is so because, in 1998, the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia struck down OCGA § 16-6-2(a), a statute crimnalizing all acts of sodomy, as an unconstitutional violation of privacy protections afforded under Georgia's constitution.

In an ironic twist, this was the very same act that the Supreme Court of the United States held constitutional in Bowers v. Hardwick. And, the case, Powell v. State of Georgia, was decided fully five years before the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence.

Petitioner, Powell, was charged with performing non-consensual oral sex on his wife's 17 year-old daughter. At trial, the jury acquitted him on the non-consensual charge, but found him guilty of consensual sodomy under the statute. He then appealed, basis for appeal being that the act under which he had been found guilty violated the State constitution's privacy guarantees.

The Georgia Supreme Court agreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Lance Cullpepper stated:

"If he'd be one o' dem, ahhhh, . . . funny types wid the limp wrists an all, o' one o' dem switch hittas, den . . . let's jus say dat we be comin' to a very different kinda decision ta day. But he ain't, and we ain't neitha!! We thinks da boy deserve some privacy. Dis is Georgia, folks. We do dat stuff indoors now."