Summary
The Supreme Court considered whether the Federal Constitution protected a fundamental right for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual sodomy, thereby invalidating Georgia's sodomy statute. The Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit and held that no such fundamental right was protected under the Due Process Clause. Separate opinions concurred and dissented, including discussion of privacy, intimate association, and potential Eighth Amendment concerns.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon consenting adults to engage in homosexual sodomy in private.
- Whether Georgia's sodomy statute violates the substantive component of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether the Eleventh Circuit erred in reversing dismissal of Hardwick's constitutional challenge.
Holdings
- The Federal Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in consensual sodomy.
- The Court was unpersuaded that moral disapproval of homosexual sodomy was an inadequate basis for Georgia's law and declined to invalidate the statute on that ground.
- The Court resolved only Hardwick's challenge to the statute as applied to consensual homosexual sodomy and expressed no opinion on the statute's constitutionality as applied to other acts of sodomy.
Key quotations
“The issue presented is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy and hence invalidates the laws of the many States that still make such conduct illegal and have done so for a very long time.” (478 U.S. at 190)
“Precedent aside, however, respondent would have us announce, as the Court of Appeals did, a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do.” (478 U.S. at 191)
“It is obvious to us that neither of these formulations would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy.” (478 U.S. at 192)
“The law, however, is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.” (478 U.S. at 196)
Factual background
In August 1982, Michael Hardwick was charged with violating Georgia Code Ann. § 16-6-2 after engaging in consensual sodomy with another adult male in the bedroom of Hardwick's home. The district attorney did not present the charge to the grand jury unless further evidence developed. Hardwick then filed a federal action alleging that the statute, as applied to consensual homosexual sodomy, violated the Federal Constitution and placed him in imminent danger of arrest.
Procedural history
Hardwick was charged under Georgia's sodomy statute after police found him engaging in consensual sodomy with another adult male in his home. The federal district court dismissed his challenge for failure to state a claim, relying on Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney, and the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that the statute violated fundamental privacy and intimate-association rights. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the Eleventh Circuit.