Title: Young v. State

State: tennessee

Issuer: Tennessee Supreme Court

Document:

531 S.W.2d 560 (1975) Leonard Jasper YOUNG, Petitioner, v. STATE of Tennessee, Respondent. Supreme Court of Tennessee. December 30, 1975. Walker Gwinn, C.L. Lenow, Asst. Public Defenders, Memphis, for petitioner. R.A. Ashley, Jr., Atty. Gen., Tom Jennings, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, Lloyd A. Rhodes, Dist. Atty. Gen., Joe Patterson, Asst. Dist. Atty. Gen., Memphis, for respondent. HENRY, Justice. We address the narrow and limited issue of whether cunnilingus is a crime against nature as defined and prohibited by Section 39-707 T.C.A.[1] Petitioner was convicted under an indictment charging that he committed a crime against nature "by placing his mouth against the genital organs" of a female. The proof showed the female to have been fourteen years of age and that the act was committed forcibly, violently and against her will. *561 The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court, rejecting petitioner's insistence that the judgment could not stand since cunnilingus was not a crime at the common law and is not specified as a forbidden act under § 39-707 T.C.A. Notwithstanding the fact that this statute was initially adopted in 1828, the first reported case dealing with its meaning and effect was Fisher v. State, 197 Tenn. 594, 277 S.W.2d 340 (1955). There the indictment charged penetration per os and the defense was that this did not constitute the crime of sodomy, and was not within the contemplation of the statute. The Supreme Court recognized and rejected the "narrow restrictive definition of the offense" and held that fellatio was an offense against the statute and a crime against nature. Four years after Fisher, this Court decided Sherrill v. State, 204 Tenn. 427, 321 S.W.2d 811 (1959), and held again that fellatio was within the scope of the statute. The Court's opinion, as in Fisher, was substantially based upon State v. Cyr, 135 Me. 513, 198 A. 743 (1938), wherein the Maine Court said, in part: Neither Fisher (1955) nor Sherrill (1959) cited State v. Townsend, 145 Me. 384, 71 A.2d 517, decided by the Maine Supreme Court in 1950, and holding cunnilingus to be a crime against nature. In Davis v. State, 1 Tenn.Cr.App. 345, 442 S.W.2d 283 (1969) the court upheld a conviction of fellatio, however this case essentially involved corroboration. Next in chronological sequence we note Polk v. Ellington, 309 F. Supp. 1349 (W.D. Tenn. 1970), which, to our knowledge, represents the first attack made on the sodomy statute based upon its being vague and overbroad. The Court invoked the doctrine of abstention but did hint that the statute "may be unconstitutionally overbroad." In 1973 our courts, for the first time, considered the constitutionality of the statute, holding in Stephens v. State, 489 S.W.2d 542 (Tenn.Cr.App. 1973), that it was not unconstitutionally vague. The Court, however, was dealing with an act of conventional sodomy. The Court said, in part: The Court of Criminal Appeals was unduly cautious in its assertion that "(o)ur courts probably accept the broader meaning." Our Court in Fisher, supra, and Sherrill, supra, and clearly accepted the broader meaning. The Court of Criminal Appeals decided Stephens, supra, on September 28, 1972, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari in January 1973. In October of that year the Court released its opinion in Locke v. State, 501 S.W.2d 826 (Tenn.Cr.App. 1973). For the first time cunnilingus was held to be a crime against nature, within the meaning of our statute. The Court relied upon Fisher, Stephens and Sherrill, supra. Significantly the Court concluded its opinion by saying: The constitutionality of the statute in a case involving sodomy, was again upheld in Cook v. State, 506 S.W.2d 955 (Tenn.Cr. App. 1974). Then in Lundy v. State, 521 S.W.2d 591 (Tenn.Cr.App. 1975), the Court held that forcible cunnilingus was a proscribed crime against nature. In the meantime Locke was working its way through the federal system. First, he filed his petition for the writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. That court denied the petition, holding that when considered in the light of previous interpretations by the courts of Tennessee, § 39-707 was "not constitutionally vague nor impermissibly overbroad." Petitioner appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and that court held that Tennessee's "crime against nature" statute, even when aided by decisional law, did not give fair notice that the law applied to an act of cunnilingus. See Locke v. Rose, 514 F.2d 570 (6th Cir.1975). The court took the position that the statute did not put men of common intelligence "on notice of the court's cunnilingus interpretation" and did not preclude the necessity of their guessing at its meaning, citing Bouie v. Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 351, 84 S. Ct. 1697, 12 L. Ed. 2d 894 (1964). The State then petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for writ of certiorari. The writ was granted and a per curiam opinion was released on 17 November 1975. See Rose v. Locke, ___ U.S. ___, 96 S. Ct. 243, 46 L. Ed. 2d 185 (1975). The following language from the Court's opinion is significant: We digress to quote the following language from Wainwright, supra, in view of the Court's reliance thereon: After noting the holdings in Fisher and Sherrill, supra, the Court, in Rose v. Locke, said: We hold that § 39-707 T.C.A. embraces the crime of cunnilingus. Tennessee's posture is firmly established by ample judicial precedent. This is now buttressed by a holding of the Supreme Court of the United States that the statute is not impermissibly vague. While we are not bound by this holding, except to the extent of federal constitutional law, we recognize that there is substantial merit in the stability and consistency of the law. With these considerations in mind, we hold that the statute is not impermissibly vague under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of Tennessee. We do not reach the general question of the constitutionality of this statute in the face of a challenge based upon its being overbroad. See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965). Specifically we make no judgment with respect to the constitutionality of the application of this statute to private consensual acts engaged in by adults, nor such practices pursued in private and within the framework of the marital relationship. In those instances other controlling considerations are involved. It would not be amiss for the legislature to take a new and fresh look at Tennessee's 150-year old "crime against nature" statute. Such a re-evaluation, in the light of modern mores and morality, would be in the public interest and would be of substantial assistance in the administration of criminal justice. Affirmed. FONES, C.J., COOPER and HARBISON, JJ., and DYER, Special Justice, concur. [1] Section 39-707 T.C.A. provides: Crimes against nature, either with mankind or any beast, are punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary ...