Opinion ID: 1733223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: constitutionality of la. rev. stat. 14:89(a)(2)

Text: A review of the records lodged in the related cases [16] reveals the erroneous impression that the Fourth Circuit's opinion in Smith somehow overruled this Court's decision in State v. Baxley, 94-2982 (La.5/22/95), 656 So.2d 973, or at least supplanted the rationale of Baxley by holding that oral sex is not unnatural sex. However, these rulings, patterned after the Fourth Circuit's opinion in Smith, are both misplaced and premature. None of the judgments granting the Motions to Quash set forth plausible reasons for departing from the controlling precedent of Baxley. The trial courts in the instant cases were misguided in their attempts to find the solicitation provision of La.Rev. Stat. 14:89(A)(2) unconstitutional. First, after evidentiary hearings in State v. Baron, the judge issued a five-page judgment explicating his view that La. Rev.Stat. 14:89(A)(2) violates the Equal Protection Clauses of the state and federal constitutions. Next, State v. Varnado contains a written statement of reasons, explaining subsequent grants of Motions to Quash in other cases arising under La.Rev. Stat. 14:89(A)(2), explaining why the statute violates the Eighth Amendment. Finally, although no written reasons in State v. Garrett, were issued the remarks from the bench reflect agreement that the legislature's provision of different penalties for what he believes to be equivalent sex acts is unconstitutional. Although decided under different constitutional provisions, the judgments in these cases share a common analytical approach premised on the belief that, given contemporary sexual mores, there is no difference in the naturalness (or unnaturalness) of oral sex, anal sex, and vaginal sex. According to this view, the stark differences in the penalties provided by the legislature for soliciting vaginal sex (i.e., prostitution, a six-month misdemeanor offense defined by La.Rev.Stat. 18:81), as opposed to solicitation of oral or anal sex (a five-year felony offense punished by La. Rev.Stat. 14:89(A)(2)), in reality concern the same or equivalent sexual acts and therefore represent wholly arbitrary and capricious classifications. Nevertheless, as a matter of law, the trial courts' judgments are invalid because they erroneously cite, and actually even misapply the Fourth Circuit's opinion in Smith, which is now vacated by this opinion, for the proposition that because the Louisiana legislature may not constitutionally declare oral sex as unnatural, the legislature may not punish solicitation of that act in a commercial context. This reason is in direct conflict with binding precedent set by Baxley's explicit recognition of the legislature's prerogative to determine that solicitation for `unnatural carnal copulation' is more offensive than solicitation for `indiscriminate sexual intercourse [i.e. prostitution].' Baxley, 94-2982, p.11, 656 So.2d at 980. As the State's brief aptly observes: Even assuming that the public morality point advanced by the trial court has any validity, Smith, at best, only arguably suggests that public morality considerations do not suffice as a justification, under the Privacy Clause, to prohibit consenting adults from engaging in private non-commercial oral sex. The public morality considerations noted in Smith were NOT intended to be the basis for concluding that oral and vaginal sex are, in effect, the same conduct. The Smith court clearly intended to suggest that the policing of public morals was an insufficient reason to condemn the private, non-commercial participation in not only vaginal sex (intercourse), but oral sex as well. There is no reasonable interpretation of the Smith decision which even arguably suggests that oral and vaginal sex are in effect the same conduct. (Emphasis in original). Even assuming, arguendo, that the Fourth Circuit opinion in Smith would still be good law, the same arguments made for privacy rights of non-commercial, consensual sex are simply not as persuasive for commercial sex acts.