State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 06 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-KA-2019., No. 99-KA-2015, No. 99-KA-0606, No. 99-KA-2094
• Citation: 766 So.2d 501
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Mitchell SMITH. State of Louisiana v. Lisa M. Garrett. State of Louisiana v. Melanie Varnado. State of Louisiana v. Kelly A. Baron.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

766 So.2d 501

STATE of Louisiana v. Mitchell SMITH.

State of Louisiana v. Lisa M. Garrett.

State of Louisiana v. Melanie Varnado.

State of Louisiana v. Kelly A. Baron.

Nos. 99-KA-0606, 99-KA-2094, 99-KA--KA-2019.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

July 6, 2000.

Rehearing Denied August 31, 2000.

Dissenting Opinion Denial of Rehearing July 6, 2000.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Harry F. Connick, District Attorney, Balentin M. Solino, Counsel for Applicant in No. 99-KA-2094.

Elizabeth W. Cole, Hans P. Sinha, Counsel for Respondent in No. 99-KA-2094.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Harry F. Connick, District Attorney, Valentin M. Colino, Keva M. Landrum, Counsel for Applicant in No. 99-KA-2019.

William R. Campbell, Jr., Robert C. Jenkins, Jr., Sharon Setzer, Counsel for Respondent in No. 99-KA-2019.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Harry F. Connick, District Attorney, Serena Conosciani, Jonathan P. Friedman, Valentin M. Colino, Counsel for Applicant in No. 99-KA-2015.

William R. Campbell, Jr., Christine T. Changho, Sharon Setzer, Counsel for Respondent in No. 99-KA-2015.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Harry F. Connick, District Attorney, Charles H. Braud, Jr., Thomas S. Halligan, Valentin M. Colino, Holli Ann Herrle-Castillo, Counsel for Applicant in No. 99-KA-0606.

Bryne W. Dyer, III, Counsel for Respondent in No. 99-KA-0606.

Jeffrey Thomas Reeder, Stephen R. Scarborough, Counsel for amici curiae in No. 99-KA-0606, William P. Richardson, Bart Gould, Denne B. Aime, Stephen J. Crump, First Unitarian University Church, Eugene G. Lamothe.

Martha Jean Kegal, Michael Adams, Counsel for amicus curiae in No. 99-KA-0606, American Civil Liberties Union.

Dissenting Opinion by Judge Lemmon on Denial of Rehearing July 6, 2000.

TRAYLOR, Justice.¹

FACTS/PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On September 24, 1995, the alleged victim and Mitchell Smith began talking while consuming alcohol at Brewski's Lounge in Chalmette. After at least one cocktail together, Mr. Smith asked her to accompany him to another bar, and the two left and went to Gabby's, a bar in New Orleans East. While at Gabby's, the alleged victim felt sick, apparently from consuming alcohol while taking epilepsy medicine. Although she testified that she told Mr. Smith she wanted to go home, Mr. Smith convinced her to go to a motel with him to "rest." She claimed she hesitantly agreed after insisting that nothing was going to happen between them. Mr. Smith testified that he asked her to "fool around" and she agreed. He also testified that they kissed in his car. The accuser testified that, after arriving at Jack's Motel on Chef Menteur Highway, she passed out on the bed, but awoke to find Mr. Smith undressing her. There was conflicting testimony as to exactly what occurred at the motel. Mr. Smith testified that oral sex occurred, but that consensual oral sex was the extent of the sexual activity. His accuser claimed that she cried rape, but was unable to move, and was forced to have vaginal and anal intercourse. After, she became ill, Mr. Smith helped her to his car and drove her home.

On September 25, 1995, the alleged victim contacted the New Orleans Police Department sex crimes unit and reported that she had been sexually assaulted the previous day. She then showed a detective various locations where she had been with Smith, then known to her only as "Mitch."

The State of Louisiana charged defendant, Mitchell Smith, by bill of information with one count of aggravated crime against nature, a violation of La.Rev.Stat. 14:89.1. In a separate bill of information, the State charged Smith with simple rape, a violation of La.Rev.Stat. 14:43. After a bench trial, the court found Smith not guilty of simple rape, but guilty of the lesser offense of simple crime against nature under La.Rev.Stat. 14:89.

Smith filed a Motion in Arrest of Judgment, alleging that La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and denies him his right to privacy and fair treatment in relation to others. The trial court denied the motion, and sentenced Smith to three years in the Department of Corrections, suspended, and two years probation.

Mr. Smith appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal, asserting the same challenges made in his Motion for Arrest of Judgment. The Court of Appeal reversed Smith's conviction, finding that La. Rev.Stat. 14:89(A)(1) was unconstitutional on its face as an infringement upon the right to privacy expressly guaranteed by Article I, § 5 of the Louisiana Constitution to the extent it criminalized the performance of private, consensual, non-commercial acts of sexual intimacy between individuals legally capable of consent.

Additionally, we have several consolidated cases to determine the constitutionality of La.Rev.Stat. 14:89(A)(2) which prohibits "solicitation by a human being of another with the intent to engage in any unnatural carnal copulation for compensation." All of these cases involve defendants who allegedly solicited undercover police offices to engage in oral sex for compensation. Following the granting of Motions to Quash La.Rev.Stat. 14:89(A)(2) as unconstitutional, the State now seeks review.

Because the aforementioned rulings declared parts of a statute unconstitutional, the State is entitled to have all holdings appealed to this court under La. Const. art. V, § 5(D).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

As a general rule, deferential standards of review apply to factual and other trial determinations, while determinations of law are subject to de novo review. See, e.g., City of New Orleans v. Board of Commrs, 93-0690, p. 28 (La.7/5/94), 640 So.2d 237, 253. Interpretation of a constitutional issue of law properly before this court is reviewed de novo.

CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

Vagueness and Overbreadth

The Fourth Circuit rejected Mr. Smith's claims that La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 is unconstitutionally vague, and overbroad. In our discussions of vagueness, we have held, relying on the summary of jurisprudence found in State v. Phillips, 365 So.2d 1304 (La.1978), that:

The statutory terms defining the crime as "unnatural carnal copulation" involving the "use of the genital organ of one of the offenders" have acquired historically and jurisprudentially a definite meaning. As between human beings, it refers only to two specified sexual practices: sodomy (anal-genital intercourse of a specified nature, ... ) and oral-genital activity (whereby the mouth of one of the participants is joined with the sexual organ of the other participant).

State v. Neal, 500 So.2d 374, 376 (La.1987).

We believe that the relevant case law indicates that La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 is neither unconstitutionally vague² nor overbroad.³ The Fourth Circuit was correct in holding that La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 is neither unconstitutionally vague nor overbroad.

The Right of Privacy Under the U.S. and Louisiana Constitutions

Article I, § 5 (the Privacy Clause) of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974 expressly guarantees that every individual shall be secure against unreasonable invasions of privacy. It is undisputed that the guarantee of the right to privacy contained in the Louisiana Constitution affords more stringent protection of individual liberty than the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. State v. Perry, 610 So.2d 746, 756 (La.1992). That being said, this court has never determined whether the right to engage in oral or anal sex is protected by the Louisiana Constitution.

Interpreting Louisiana's privacy clause, the Fourth Circuit noted, "This clause is an explicit expression of the principles recognized in the United States Supreme Court decisions on the right to privacy." This clearly is true. However, the United States Supreme Court has never recognized a constitutional right to engage in oral or anal sex. Quite the contrary, it has explicitly rejected a privacy rights claim challenge to sodomy laws, specifically holding that the federal constitution does not prohibit states from enacting laws which prohibit private acts of consensual sodomy between adults. Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S.Ct. 2841, 92 L.Ed.2d 140 (1986).

"Sodomy was a criminal offense at common law and was forbidden by the laws of the original thirteen States when they ratified the Bill of Rights." Bowers, 478 U.S. at 192,106 S.Ct. 2841.⁴ Clearly, Mr. Smith has no federal constitutional right to engage in acts proscribed by La.Rev.Stat. 14:89.

Although we have explicitly rejected claims of La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 violating the federal right to privacy, State v. McCoy, 337 So.2d 192 (La.1976), we have never addressed La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 relative to a right to privacy guaranteed by the Louisiana Constitution. In State v. McCoy, 337 So.2d 192 (La.1976) the defendant attacked La.Rev.Stat. 14:89 as unconstitutional, inter alia, in light of the right of privacy recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965). We rejected this position, citing Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney for Richmond, 425 U.S. 901, 96 S.Ct. 1489, 47 L.Ed.2d 751 (1976), which upheld a Virginia law punishing crimes against nature when committed by consenting partners.

The defense argues that the right to privacy guaranteed by the Louisiana Constitution grants citizens the right to engage in private oral sex. However, the only case law in Louisiana ever holding that the right of consenting adults to engage in private, noncommercial sexual activity free from government interference is protected by the Louisiana Constitution's privacy clause is the Fourth Circuit's opinion reversing the conviction of Mr. Smith.

In Neal, 500 So.2d 374 (La.1987), we reviewed the Crime Against Nature Statute only for the purpose of explaining "solicitations of sexual acts for compensation." Neal, 500 So.2d at 377. In so doing, we left for another day the determination of whether the request for recognition of a right to privacy insulating all private sexual acts for consenting adults. Id. at 378....