Court Opinion

ID: 9790070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:45:48.787926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:25.998486
License: Public Domain

*631CONCURRING OPINION OF
PADGETT, J.
I concur in the affirmance of the conviction. With respect to the majority opinion’s learned discussion of the scope of the constitutional right to privacy as it relates to such matters as marital relationships, birth control, abortion and pornography, none of those issues are before the court in this case, and I am unwilling to make any pronouncements on the law with regard to them in the absence of a real case with a real record.
The constitution limits us to deciding actual cases or controversies. The actual case before us involves a “hooker” who, while in her apartment, was contacted by telephone by a “john” who, unbeknownst to her, was a police officer. Over the telephone she agreed to have sex with him in her apartment for $100.
Appellant contends that her right to privacy under the state and federal constitutions protected her commercial sexual activity since it was conducted in her apartment and without advertising. The argument is novel, ingenious and insubstantial.
To quote the title of a famous madam’s published memoirs “A house is not a home.” The rights of privacy guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions do not bar the State from prohibiting, by statute, commercial sexual activities even if they are conducted, without advertising, as a cottage industry.