Crime Against Nature Law Upheld in Some Circumstances

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Crime Against Nature Law Upheld in Some Circumstances

Special Report - September 11, 2006
In a September 5 ruling, a 3-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the State’s crime against nature law as applied to minors participating in consensual sexual activities in a public place. The ruling (download pdf) stems from the Alamance District Court’s conviction under North Carolina’s crime against nature law, N.C.G.S. 14-177, of a 14 year-old boy who engaged in oral sex with an 11 year-old girl. The incidents occurred in the back seat of the girl’s mother’s Suburban when it was parked in a bowling alley parking lot where the girl’s parents were inside bowling.

Although the Court of Appeals found that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas has made it unconstitutional to apply N.C.G.S. 14-177 to private sexual activity between consenting adults, it recognized the limitations placed by the Supreme Court upon its ruling in Lawrence. The Court of Appeals found that “only private conduct, out of public view and between consenting adults is deemed protected by Lawrence.” In keeping with other post-Lawrence decisions involving the crime against nature statute, the Court stated that the statute can be applied when “the conduct involved: minors; public conduct; prostitution; or non-consensual, coercive conduct.”

In this case, the Court of Appeals ruled that a parking lot is available for all to use and is thus a public place, regardless of whether anyone actually saw the sexual activity. Furthermore, the case involved two minors, not consenting adults as there were in Lawrence. These two factors were enough for the Court to rule that the crime against nature statute had been constitutionally applied.