Opinion ID: 1733223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: History of Louisiana's Crime Against Nature Statute

Text: A legislative history of La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 prohibitions provides the relevant background necessary to determine whether these prohibitions violate any rights guaranteed by the current Louisiana Constitution. [5] La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 is a comprehensive crime against nature statute. It covers both heterosexual and homosexual acts, both private and public acts, and both commercial and non-commercial acts. That ban applies only to acts, not to persons or groups. Crime against nature was not originally a crime under the common law of England, being an ecclesiastical offense only. [6] However, it was made a common law felony by statute so early that crime against nature was considered a common law crime in this country. [7] The crime against nature has been prohibited in Louisiana at least since 1805 under the Laws of the Territory of Orleans as a felony carrying a mandatory life sentence. [8] The law was defined only as the abominable crime against nature and provided that the crimes herein before named, shall be taken, intended and construed, according to and in conformity with the common law of England ... [9] The Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1856 separated the crime against nature statute from the offense of rape, but continued to provide that [w]hoever shall be convicted of the detestable and abominable crime against nature, committed with mankind or beast, shall suffer imprisonment at hard labor for life. La.Rev.Stat. Crimes and Offenses, § 5 (1856). This provision, as it was written, was reenacted as part of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1870, which also provided that all crimes be construed according to and in conformity with the common law of England. See La.Rev. Stat. of 1870 §§ 788, 976. In 1896 the legislature amended and reenacted La. Rev.Stat. § 788, clarifying that the crime could be committed using the mouth of the offender and reducing the possible penalty. 1896 La. Acts § 69 thus read: Whoever shall be convicted of the detestable and abominable crime against nature committed with mankind or beast with the sectual [sic] organs, or with the mouth, shall suffer imprisonment at hard labor for not less than two years and not more than ten years. This 1896 amendment specifically included acts involving the mouth. Prior to Act 69 of 1896, buggery and sodomy were the only crimes against nature prohibited by law. State v. Murry, 136 La. 253, 66 So. 963, 966 (1914). Early in the twentieth century, this court recognized that the original crime against nature statute covered only sodomy, buggery, and bestiality and that the addition of the phrase with the sexual organs, or with the mouth, in 1896 was a legislative expansion of the original common law crime. See State v. Murry, 136 La. 253, 66 So. 963 (1914); State v. Long, 133 La. 580, 63 So. 180 (1913); State v. Vicknair, 28 So. 273 (1900). Thus, this court in Murry noted that it was to include and denounce this particular crime against nature that the statute of 1896 added the common-law crime against nature, `with the sexual organs or with the mouth.' Murry, 66 So. at 965. The Statute was next amended as part of the wholesale revision of the Criminal Code in 1942, which provided: Crime Against Nature is the unnatural carnal copulation by a human being with another of the same or opposite sex or with an animal. Emission is not necessary, and, when committed by a human being with another, the use of the genital organ of one of the offenders of whatever sex is sufficient to constitute the crime. Whoever commits the crime against nature shall be fined not more than two thousand dollars, or imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than five years, or both. 1942 La. Acts. No. 43, Art. 89. The Statute remained unchanged until 1975, when the legislature amended it to reflect that crime against nature did not include those acts which would constitute rape. This amendment enacted a provision which, substantively, reflected the present subsections (A)(1) and (B). 1975 La. Acts No. 612, § 89. An amendment to the Statute in 1982 (in addition to changing two of the rape designations) redesignated the sections of the Statute and added the solicitation provision of (A)(2). A review of the legislative history indicates that the legislators enacted the solicitation provision at the request of the New Orleans Police Department in response to a growing problem in male prostitution. Minutes of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Section C, July 6, 1982, n.p.