Quote:
Originally Posted by Nina
Brother,
Remember Lawrence v Texas?
This was the sodomy case where (If I remember correctly)the Supreme Court first cited Foreign Court rulings to neuter the prevailing sodomy laws.
Here is Wikipedia concerning the probable cause ruling.
Notice there was also a hoax call here.
The petitioners, medical technologist John Geddes Lawrence, then 55, and Tyron Garner (1967–2006),[2] then 31, were alleged to have been engaging in consensual anal sex in Lawrence's apartment in the outskirts of Houston between 10:30 and 11 p.m. on September 17, 1998 when Harris County sheriff's deputy Joseph Quinn entered the unlocked apartment, with his weapon drawn, arresting the two.
The arrests had stemmed from a false report of a "weapons disturbance" in their home — that because of a domestic disturbance or robbery, there was a man with a gun "going crazy." The person who filed the report, neighbor Robert Royce Eubanks, then 40,[3] had earlier been accused of harassing the plaintiffs. (Despite the false report, probable cause to enter the home was not at issue in the case; Eubanks, with whom Garner was romantically involved at the time of the arrest,[4] later admitted that he was lying, pled no contest to charges of filing a false police report, and served 15 days in jail.)
Interesting stuff.
Nina
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Nina- It is not up to the Court to look for possible legal issues but to address the issues the attorneys raise. To the best of my knowledge, probable cause wasn't objected to.
Instead, this case was used to change the law regarding homosexual acts between consenting adults because they appealed the case against them based on equal protection and privacy grounds.
This argument in the big picture, had much greater ramifications than simply avoiding a comparitively small fine by arguing a lack of probable cause.
Consequently, so long as the court made no determination about probable cause in this case; it isn't a case that belongs in a probable cause section of Wikepedia.
PS I haven't read the entire case since law school. So feel free to let me know if probable cause was raised.
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