Wednesday, January 15, 2003
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Wednesday, January 15, 2003 |
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'Fornication' OK for 16-year-olds, Ga. Supreme Court rules in Fayette case By JOHN
MUNFORD The Georgia Supreme Court has overturned a delinquency ruling against a 16-year-old boy who was caught having sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend at her Fayette County home in September of 2001. The boy, identified in press reports as Jesse McClure, now 17, had been ruled delinquent after being charged under the state's fornication law, which forbids unmarried people from having sex. However, another Georgia law allows persons 16 and older to legally have intercourse. The court ruled that "private, unforced, non-commercial acts of sexual intimacy between persons legally able to consent" is protected by the Georgia Constitution. And since there was no force involved and neither the boy nor girl paid the other to engage in sexual activity, their "acts were private," the court ruled. The two 16-year-olds were caught by the girl's mother who had to force her way past a barricaded door, according to court records. The girl had closed her bedroom door and placed a stool against the door, "further evidencing her and McClure's efforts to keep their acts private," the court wrote. "Under these facts, we find that they intended to keep their sexual activity private and took reasonable steps to ensure their privacy," the opinion states. McClure was represented by Catherine Sanderson of the Peachtree City law firm of Cook, Lundy and Sanderson, P.A. and by Gerry Weber of the American Civil Liberties Union. Fayette County prosecutors had argued that since McClure did not live in the house, he did not have a right to privacy when the girl's mother entered her daughter's bedroom. But the Supreme Court noted in its opinion that the daughter had invited the boy to the house on this particular occasion and he had been invited to the home previously. "An invitation to enter another person's private home does not include an implicit condition that the guest surrender his constitutional right to privacy," the court wrote. The opinion, authored by Chief Justice Norman S. Fletcher, also indicates the court was not ruling on whether or not the girl's parents could regulate what occurs inside their home. "Rather, our opinion simply affirms that ... the government may not reach into the bedroom of a private residence and criminalize the private, noncommercial, consensual sexual acts of two persons legally capable of consenting to those acts," the opinion stated.
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