Opinion ID: 2366001
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Consent and the Right of Privacy

Text: The defendant next argues that the governing statute, insofar as it purports to proscribe sexual acts committed in private by consenting adults, violates his constitutional right of privacy as explicated in recent Supreme Court decisions. [4] The defendant lacks standing to press this contention, however, because of the traditional rule that bars a person to whom a statute may be constitutionally applied from challenging that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to others in hypothetical situations not before the court. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 610, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2915, 37 L.Ed.2d 830, 839 (1973); State v. Picillo, 105 R.I. 364, 369, 252 A.2d 191, 194 (1969). That principle applies in this case because, notwithstanding the positive, uncontradicted and unimpeached testimony that the act of fellatio in this case was nonconsensual, defendant is here urging the claim of a hypothetical consenting adult to an asserted constitutional protection. Consequently, even were we to hold § 11-10-1 unconstitutional as applied to consenting adults, defendant would take nothing; his conviction would still stand because it is predicated upon the undeniably constitutional application of the statute to a sexual act forced upon an unwilling victim. Cf. Commonwealth v. Balthazar, supra, 366 Mass. at 302, 318 N.E.2d at 481. This, therefore, is not a proper case for us to consider the constitutionality of § 11-10-1 as applied to the private sexual activities of consenting adults. See Commonwealth v. LaBella, 364 Mass. 550, 553-54, 306 N.E.2d 813, 815-16 (1974).