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Old 09-05-2004, 02:37 AM
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Default Re: Gay Teen Gets 17 Year Sentence

Quote:
Lawrence & Garner v. State of Texas
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that sodomy laws are unconstitutional on June 26, 2003.
http://www.sodomylaws.org/lawrence/lawrence.htm

As of June 24, 2004:

Quote:
The American Civil Liberties Union Thursday filed a brief supporting a Kansas gay teen sentenced to 17 years in prison for having sex with another teenager.

Matthew Limon is appealing a 206-month prison sentence he received shortly after turning 18 because while he was a resident at a private school for developmentally disabled youth he performed consensual oral sex on another teenager.

Limon would have served a maximum of 15 months in jail under the Kansas law had the other teenager been female. But because the state’s “Romeo and Juliet” law applies only to heterosexuals, Limon was convicted under the much harsher state sodomy law.

“In America, all people are supposed to be treated the same under the law, but because he’s gay Matthew Limon was sentenced to 13 times longer than another person would have to serve,” said Tamara Lange, Limon’s attorney from the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.

“We hope that the Court will agree that the state of Kansas should treat all its citizens equally.”

The sex act for which Limon was convicted occurred just one week after his 18th birthday.

“As we’ve said all along, the punishment Matthew Limon received shouldn’t be any different from that anyone else would have been given for the same offense,” said Dick Kurtenbach, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri.

“This young man has already served three and a half years longer than a heterosexual teen would have, and he deserves a chance at rebuilding his life.”

The papers filed today in support of Limon’s appeal argue that the “Romeo and Juliet” law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. The Kansas Supreme Court agreed last month to hear the case after the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in January. Limon’s case had landed back before the lower court after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to reconsider the matter in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last summer in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down all same-sex-only sodomy laws.

Under the Kansas “Romeo and Juliet” law, consensual oral sex between two teens is a lesser crime if the younger teenager is 14 to 16 years old, if the older teenager is under 19, if the age difference is less than four years, if there are no third parties involved, and if the two teenagers “are members of the opposite sex.”
http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/kansas/ksnews060.htm

As of August 9, 2004:

Quote:
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and its Kansas chapter today called on the Kansas Supreme Court to reverse the conviction of a teenager who is serving a prison sentence 13 times longer than he would have received if he were heterosexual.

Matthew Limon is appealing a 206-month prison sentence he received shortly after turning 18 because while he was a resident at a private school for developmentally disabled youth he performed consensual oral sex on another teenager.

Limon would have served a maximum of 15 months in jail under the Kansas law had the other teenager been female. But because the state’s “Romeo and Juliet” law applies only to heterosexuals, Limon was convicted under the much harsher state sodomy law.

The Kansas Supreme Court agreed last month to hear the case after the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in January. Limon’s case had landed back before the lower court after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to reconsider the matter in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last summer in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down all same-sex-only sodomy laws.

“The state claims that the much harsher sentence Matthew Limon received is justified for reasons that we as social workers know aren’t valid,” said Dorthy Stucky Halley, president of the Kansas chapter of the NASW. She added, “One’s sexual orientation could never justify 16 additional years in jail.”

In a friend of the court brief, the 153,000 member organization of professional social workers attacks the state’s claims that the length of Limon’s sentence is justified because young people who engage in same-sex intimacy are so impressionable that they may be swayed into becoming gay. The NASW brief points to social science evidence that same-sex attractions surface much earlier in life—well before puberty—and that one gay sexual experience can’t make someone “turn” gay.

In June the ACLU also filed a similar brief on Limon’s behalf. The brief argues that the “Romeo and Juliet” law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

The court has given no indication when it might deliver a ruling in the case.
http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/kansas/ksnews061.htm
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