‘Felony Franks (#1)’
courtesy of ‘JOE MARINARO’
I had no idea that this law was still on the books: “If any person carnally knows in any manner any brute animal, or carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony, except as provided in subsection B.” Really, you don’t want to read subsection B if you want to keep your breakfast down, but suffice it to say it involves keeping it in the family, if you get my drift. Anyhow, this is still law in Virginia. A Class 6 felony gets you “a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years, or in the discretion of the jury or the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.”
Are you as horrified as I am? I had no idea I was such a criminal. I had thought these laws were gone with Lawrence v. Texas a few years back, but there’s a story in today’s post about a Baptist Youth Pastor who was sexually involved with one of his charges, and he’s being held on $3,000 bond, and charged with sodomy.
So, I guess you can what the point of the story is, if you suffer from any law which makes no sense to you, hire the Garde Wilson criminal defence lawyers to lend you a hand at court.
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
Believe it or not, run-of-the-mill fornication was still a felony in Virginia until the Virginia Supreme Court struck it down in 2005. We really are a backwards state.
Damn, I just moved to Florida. Does that make me a runaway felon? Cause I class 6’ed it a lot…
DC’s laws against both sodomy and fornication have been repealed. http://www.hrc.org/issues/839.htm
Most governments never do a purge of out dated laws, and thus you get situations like this. Some cities still have laws on the books about when your cows and sheep can graze in common areas.
As always, there’s a Simpsons reference for that: “Hey, according to the town charter, as sheriff I’m supposed to get a pig! And a lass of virtue true.”
As Brian says, the fact that the laws have been declared unconstitutional doesn’t mean they get removed from the books. Sometimes the more shameful bits like miscegenation gets excised, as I believe it has been in Virginia, but sometimes nobody wants to take the potential political lumps for suggesting they get removed even if they’re toothless.
I wonder if the adultery laws are still on the books
Yup, adultery is still a Class 4 misdemeanor in Va. Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-365.
Virginia is for lovers… of “normal” sexual intercourse between a man and woman who have been duly married to each other and who promise to only put “A” into “B”, not “C”, and certainly not “D” and don’t even *think* about putting it in “E”…
ps – I’m thinking about putting it in “E” right now. And so are you, sicko.
for the curious:
B. Any person who performs or causes to be performed cunnilingus, fellatio, anilingus or anal intercourse upon or by his daughter or granddaughter, son or grandson, brother or sister, or father or mother is guilty of a Class 5 felony. However, if a parent or grandparent commits any such act with his child or grandchild and such child or grandchild is at least 13 but less than 18 years of age at the time of the offense, such parent or grandparent is guilty of a Class 3 felony.
C. For the purposes of this section, parent includes step-parent, grandparent includes step-grandparent, child includes step-child and grandchild includes step-grandchild.
I’m no judge or lawyer but I believe these laws are still on the books and used frequently.
If you’ve heard “6 counts of sexual assault” usually that means there were multiple laws broken and multiple fines and jail time. Keeping the laws mean longer jail sentences for bad people.