Lawrence Vs Texas Case Study

Lawrence v. Texas: The Justification for the Decision and its Significance for the LGBTQ+ Community

In the case Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558, 2003) which was the United States Supreme Court case the criminal prohibition of the homosexual pederasty was invalidated in Texas. The same issue has been already addressed in 1989 in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, however, the constitutional protection of sexual privacy was not found at that time. Lawrence overruled Bowers and held that sexual conduct was the right protected by the due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The effects of the ruling were quite widespread and led to invalidation of the similar laws throughout the United States that tried to criminalize the homosexual activity of adults which were acting in privacy. The case attracted much of the public

Facts: In 2000, California voters adopted Proposition 22, defining marriage as a relationship only between a man and a woman. The California Supreme Court invalidated Proposition 22 and California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Proponents of Proposition 8, who opposed same-sex marriage, collected signatures and filed petitions to get Proposition 8 on the ballot. In November 2008, California voters approved Proposition 8, "which added language to the California Constitution that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman" (Santoro & Wirth, 2013). Two same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses and were denied, then brought suit under 42 U.S.C.S. ยง 1983, based on the idea that Proposition 8 violated equal protection. The State of California refused to argue in favor of Proposition 8 and the original proponents of Proposition 8 sought to defend the law. In May of 2009, Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional by a California District Court, which held that it violated both the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court's decision. The case then came before the Supreme Court. However, the State of California is not defending Proposition 8; instead, a mix of private parties is defending the law. This has led to questions about standing as well as the constitutional issues in the case.

Texas case served as the tip of the iceberg into advancing the gay rights movement in Texas and nationwide. Without the case as well as the specific decision made by the Supreme Court, Texas would still be majorly intolerant, discriminant, and unrepresented by the LGBT community and supporters. Lawrence and Garner were two men who fought for their love, their privacy, and their rights, and they came out successfully in the end in turn affecting all of society and many events that have taken place since 2003. Considering if sodomy laws were still implemented in Texas, an injustice and unconstitutional hindrance would be in place fostering the traditional culture and conservative views that are voiced as the majority in Texas. In the past few years, Texas Democrats have voiced their support of same-sex marriage, the next step in the gay rights movement. In 2012 their support and advocacy in favor of same-sex marriage began and it would not have been possible without the existence of the Lawrence v. Texas case and its six to three ruling declaring the sodomy laws in Texas unconstitutional. The LGBT community wants what all Americans expect: life, liberty, and property. The pursuit of happiness is the added bonus as to what they strive for, and it was made possible by the ruling of the Lawrence v. Texas case in

The trial court denied Harris’s motion to suppress evidence that was found when Officer Wheetley performed a search, and the court found that Wheetley had probable cause to search Harris’s vehicle. The defendant entered a not guilty plea and appealed to the intermediate state court. The intermediate state court affirmed the trial court's ruling. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the decision stating that Wheetley lacked probable cause. When the case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, they rejected and reversed the decision that the Florida Supreme court made, and they upheld the decision of the trial court.

The assumption approach is the result of two Supreme Court cases, Horowitz and Ewing. In Horowitz, a medical student brought a due process claim against the University of Missouri-Kansas City for dismissing her for academic reasons. The Supreme Court first discussed whether Horowitz had a protected interest. The Supreme Court noted that the plaintiff never alleged a property interest, but that if she were to do so, she would have to rely upon Missouri state law to have a valid claim. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court assumed the plaintiff had a property interest in her case without deciding the question. Instead of addressing the property interest question, the Supreme Court found that the university provided the plaintiff sufficient process under the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore the Supreme Court never determined whether the student had a property interest in her education.

“According to estimates from the 2013 ACS, the U.S. immigrant population stood at more than 41.3 million, or 13 percent, of the total U.S. population of 316.1 million. Between 2012 and 2013, the foreign-born population increased by about 523,000, or 1.3 percent. U.S. immigrants and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 80 million persons, or one-quarter of the overall U.S. population.”People for in other countries that come to America are known as immigrants. They can be categorized as illegal or legal immigrants. Recently there has been a case (Texas v. United States) which corresponds with immigration in the United States of America. Now, it is seen as inhumane to break up families in the United sates, It’s illegal for states to sue the U.S., and the general public does not need time to react to the new program in motion.

Members of the University of Illinois’s men’s swim team filed a lawsuit in 1993 claiming that the school was discriminating against them by cutting their team and not the women’s swim team. The members claimed that this decision was in violation of Title IX, a law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender, along with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The University of Illinois made the decision to cut the men’s swim team due to budgetary limitations. Along with the men’s swim team, the men’s diving, men’s fencing, and women’s diving team were also cut for the same reason. There were many instances previous to this case where female athletes have filed lawsuits claiming that they were being discriminated against, and that the institution was in violation of

By not overruling, court is in fact honoring a precedent previously held. Precedent is reflected in the obligation of lower courts to honor decisions made by higher courts (Vertical) and the binding of judges by decisions of earlier judges in similar matters (Horizontal/ Stare Decisis).

This paper will dive in and analyze the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Texas v. Johnson, and the still active controversy among the public concerning what circumstances state governments and the federal government have the right to constitutionally prohibit the burning or other form of desecration to the American Flag. Under its decision in Texas v. Johnson the later ruling in the case of United States v. Eichman, in 1990, the Supreme Court had ruled that government can not bring criminal prosecutions against those whom burn or desecrate the American flag so long as they are engaged in expressions of political views without abridging the right of free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution at the time. These rulings have sparked public controversy over whether the Court has gone beyond its correct constitutional role and multiple proposed constitutional amendments to overturn the Court 's decisions which have failed to pass due to lack of majority.

In August 2009, the Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans a non-profit organization that works to preserve the memory and reputation of soldiers who fought for the confederacy in the Civil War, applied to have a new specialty license plate issued by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicle. The proposed license plate had two confederate flags on it. Texas SCV sued in federal district court claiming their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.

Lawrence and Garner approached the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals in November of the following year, by June of 2000 the three-judge panel decided in their favor, the Texas statute was considered unconstitutional. Justice John S. Anderson and Chief Justice Paul Murphy had decided that the statute violated the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment of the Texas Constitution, which bans discrimination based on race, color, sex, and national origin. It was a 2-1 ruling, Justice Harvey Hudson dissented. The Court of Appeals reviewed the case, and on March of the following year, the ruling was reversed and the law’s constitutionality was upheld with a 7-2 decision. The equal protection and substantive due process arguments were denied. After that loss,

Under Texas law, does a third party possessor with an unrecorded deed to the property, in the absence of bad faith or inadequate consideration, have a superior claim to a property than a subsequent purchaser if circumstances suggest that the subsequent purchaser should have had constructive notice of his presence on the property?

Texas v. Johnson (No. 88-155). Argued: March 21, 1989. Decided: June 21, 1989 In 1984 the Republican National Convention was held in Dallas, Texas. While there, a group of protesters, opposed to President Reagan's reelection, burned an American flag. Specifically, Greg Johnson was seen dousing the flag with kerosene and lighting it on fire. Johnson was arrested under a Texas flag desecration law. He was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail and fined $2000. The State Court of Appeals affirmed but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the decision.

In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a guidance policy called the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), which would grant temporary deportation protection to about 4.3 million undocumented immigrants. But in that year, twenty-six states challenged the DAPA guidance, therefore the Supreme Court will decide whether the states have standing to challenge DAPA if will increase the costs of state-subsidized benefits, for example drivers license , and if DAPA is lawful and constitutional under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Take Care Clause of the Constitution. This case is called United States v. Texas. The United States states that Texas lacks Article III standing to challenge