Source: mississippitoday.org 7/28/23
Mississippi will have to pay more than $400,000 in attorneys’ fees after the attorney general’s office spent years defending a sodomy law that criminalizes oral and anal sex.
The law in question — Section 97-29-59 — was deemed unconstitutional in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Lawrence v. Texas that private sexual conduct was constitutionally protected.
But Mississippi kept its sodomy law on the books, opening the door for a 2016 legal challenge that resulted in the expensive attorneys’ fees.
The AGs office, under both Democrat Jim Hood and Republican Lynn Fitch, fought the class action lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other advocacy legal organizations, which sued on behalf of five Mississippians who were required to register as sex offenders for sodomy convictions.
They should have to pay significantly more in restitution. Government shouldn’t be able to willfully destroy peoples lives and then wash their hands of it. If the penalty isn’t heavy enough, it won’t dissuade them from doing so again, especially since no single individual will be held accountable (like all those prosecutors who willfully withhold evidence).
400k to the attorney. Zero for the victim defendant. Hello.
The repealing of the law can swing both ways (hetero and and non) and be a positive for those who are still on the registry when they shouldn’t be. Those who are afraid to repeal it probably have skeletons in their closet about enjoying the outlawed actions/positions.