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<b>Speaking Out Against Louisiana's "Crime Against Nature"
Law<br>
<i>Justice Department Report, Released Today, Calls Law
Discriminatory<br>
</i>By Jordan Flaherty<br>
</b>
<a href="http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/03/justice-department-report-released.html">
http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/03/justice-department-report-released.html</a>
<br>
<b><i>An earlier version of this article originally appeared on
ColorLines.com<br><br>
</i></b>Eve is a transgender woman living in rural southern Louisiana.
She was molested as a child and left home as a teenager. Homeless and
alone, she was forced to trade sex for survival. While still a teenager,
she was arrested and charged with a Crime Against Nature, an archaic
Louisiana law originally designed to penalize sex acts associated with
gays and lesbians. <br><br>
Now Eve is one of nine plaintiffs fighting the law in a federal civil
rights complaint that advocates hope will finally put this official
discrimination to an end.<br><br>
This legal action comes in the context of increased scrutiny from the
federal government over the conduct of the New Orleans Police Department.
A US Justice Department investigation of the NOPD, released today, found
"reasonable cause to believe that patterns and practices of
unconstitutional conduct and/or violations of federal law occurred in
several areas," including "racial and ethnic profiling and
lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) discrimination." The
report specifically mentioned Louisiana's Crime Against Nature law,
calling it "a statute whose history reflects anti-LGBT
sentiment." The report also concluded that investigators "found
reasonable cause to believe that NOPD practices lead to discriminatory
treatment of LGBT individuals."<br><br>
<b>Punishing Women<br><br>
</b>Eve, who asked that her real name and age remain confidential, spent
two years in prison. During her time behind bars she was raped and
contracted HIV. Upon release, she was forced to register in the state’s
sex offender database. The words “sex offender” now appear on her
driver’s license. “I have tried desperately to change my life,” she says,
but her status on the database stands in the way of housing and other
programs. “When I present my ID for anything,” she says, “the assumption
is that you’re a child molester or a rapist. The discrimination is just
ongoing and ongoing.”<br><br>
Eve was penalized under Louisiana’s 205-year-old Crime Against Nature
statute, a blatantly discriminatory law that legislators have maneuvered
to keep on the state’s books for the purpose of turning sex workers into
felons. As enforced, the law specifically singles out oral and anal sex
for greater punishment for those arrested for prostitution, including
requiring those convicted to register as sex offenders in a public
database. Advocates say the law has further isolated and targeted poor
women of color, transgender women, and especially those who are forced to
trade sex for food or a place to sleep at night. <br><br>
In 2003, the Supreme Court outlawed sodomy laws with its decision in
Lawrence v. Texas. That ruling should have invalidated Louisiana’s law
entirely. Instead, the state has chosen to only enforce the portion of
the law that concerns “solicitation” of a crime against nature. The
decision on whether to charge accused sex workers with a felony instead
of Louisiana’s misdemeanor prostitution law is left entirely in the hands
of police and prosecutors. <br><br>
“This leaves the door wide open to discriminatory enforcement targeting
poor black women, transgender women, and gay men for a charge that
carries much harsher penalties,” says police misconduct attorney and
organizer Andrea J. Ritchie, a co-counsel in a new federal lawsuit
challenging the statute. <br><br>
A media-fueled national panic about child molesters has brought sex
offender registries to every state. But advocates warn that, across the
U.S., these registries have been used disproportionately against African
Americans and other communities of color, and are often used for purposes
outside of their original intent. Louisiana, however, is the only state
in the U.S. that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that
do not involve minors or sexual violence to register as sex offenders.
<br><br>
In 1994, Congress passed Megan’s Law, also known as the Wetterling Act,
which mandated that states create systems for registering sex offenders.
The act was amended in 1996 to require public disclosure of the names on
the registries and again in 2006 to require sex offenders stay in the
public registry for at least 15 years. <br><br>
Megan’s Law was clearly not targeted at prostitution. However, Louisiana
lawmakers opted to apply the registry to the crimes against nature
statute as well, and at that moment started down the path to a new level
of punishment for sex work. “This archaic law is being used to mark
people with modern day scarlet letter,” says attorney Alexis Agathocleus
of the Center for Constitutional Rights, another party in the lawsuit.
<br><br>
People convicted under the Louisiana law must carry a state ID with the
words “sex offender” printed below their name. If they have to evacuate
because of a hurricane, they must stay in a special shelter for sex
offenders that has no separate facilities for men and women. They have to
pay a $60 annual registration fee, in addition to $250 to $750 to print
and mail postcards to their neighbors every time they move. The post
cards must show their names and addresses, and often they are required to
include a photo. Failing to register and pay the fees, a separate crime,
can carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.<br><br>
Women and men on the registry will also find their names, addresses, and
convictions printed in the newspaper and published in an online sex
offender database. The same information is also displayed at public sites
like schools and community centers. Women—including one mother of
three—have complained that because of their appearance on the registry,
they have had men come to their homes demanding sex. A plaintiff in the
suit had rocks thrown at her by neighbors. “This has forced me to live in
poverty, be on food stamps and welfare,” explains a man who was on the
list. “I’ve never done that before.”<br><br>
In Orleans Parish, 292 people are on the registry for selling sex, versus
85 people convicted of forcible rape and 78 convicted of “indecent
behavior with juveniles.” Almost 40 percent of those registered in
Orleans Parish are there solely because they were accused of offering
anal or oral sex for money. Seventy-five percent of those on the database
for Crime Against Nature are women, and 80 percent are African American.
Evidence gathered by advocates suggests a majority are poor or
indigent.<br><br>
Legal advocates credit on-the-ground organizing and the advocacy of the
group Women With A Vision (WWAV) for making them aware of this
discriminatory law. WWAV, a 20-year-old New Orleans-based organization,
provides health care and other services to women involved in survival sex
work. “Many of these women are survivors of rape and domestic violence
themselves,” says WWAV executive director Deon Haywood. “Yet they are
being treated as predators.”<br><br>
<b>Plaintiffs Tell Their Stories<br><br>
</b>Ian, another plaintiff in the legal challenge to the Crime Against
Nature statute, was homeless from the age of 13, and began trading sex
for survival. When an undercover officer approached him and asked him for
sex, Ian asked for money. “All I said was $50,” he says, “And they put me
away for four years.” <br><br>
In prison, Ian was raped by a correction officer and by other prisoners,
and like Eve, he contracted HIV. Now, he says, potential employers see
the words “sex offender” written on his ID and no one will hire him. “Do
I deserve to be punished any more than I’ve already been punished?” he
asks. “I was 13 years old. That’s the only way I knew how to
survive.”<br><br>
Hiroke, a New Orleans resident and another plaintiff in the suit, spoke
on a call set up by advocates. “I had just graduated from high school and
was just coming out as transgender,” she says. Hiroke was arrested and
convicted while still a teenager. As she began to describe her
experience, Hiroke’s voice began to shake. “I was being held with men in
jail at the time…” she began. Then there was silence on the line. Holding
back tears, she then apologized for being unable to continue.<br><br>
The Louisiana legislature recently passed a reform of the Crime Against
Nature statute, but for the vast majority of those affected, the change
makes little to no difference. Although the new law takes away the
registration component for a first conviction, a second conviction
requires 15 years on the registry, and up to five years imprisonment. A
third conviction mandates a lifetime on the registry. More than 538 men
and women remain on the registry because they were convicted of offering
anal or oral sex, with more added almost every day. <br><br>
The legal challenge to the Crime Against Nature law, called Doe v.
Jindal, has been filed in Louisiana’s US District Court Eastern District
on behalf of nine anonymous plaintiffs. It was filed by the Center for
Constitutional Rights, attorney Andrea J. Ritchie, and the Law Clinic at
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. The anonymous plaintiffs
include a grandmother, a mother of four, three transgender women, and a
man, all of whom have been required to register as sex offenders from 15
years to life as a result of their convictions for the solicitation of
oral sex for money.<br>
<i>Jordan Flaherty is a journalist and staffer with the Louisiana Justice
Institute. His award-winning reporting from the Gulf Coast has been
featured in a range of outlets including the New York Times, Mother
Jones, and Argentina's Clarin newspaper. He has produced news segments
for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy Now, and appeared as a guest on
CNN Morning, Anderson Cooper 360, and Keep Hope Alive with the Reverend
Jesse Jackson. His new book is FLOODLINES: Community and Resistance from
Katrina to the Jena Six. He can be reached at
<a href="mailto:neworleans@leftturn.org">neworleans@leftturn.org</a>, and
more information about Floodlines can be found at
<a href="http://floodlines.org">floodlines.org</a>. For speaking
engagements, see
<a href="http://communityandresistance.wordpress.com.">
communityandresistance.wordpress.com.</a><br><br>
<b>A version of this article originally appeared on ColorLines.com<br>
</i></b>
<a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/03/federal_civil_rights_suit_challenges_louisianas_felony_sex_work_law.html">
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/03/federal_civil_rights_suit_challenges_louisianas_felony_sex_work_law.html</a>
<br><br>
<br>
<b>Organizations and Resources Mentioned in Article:<br>
</b>Women With A Vision<br>
<a href="http://wwav-no.org/">http://wwav-no.org/</a><br><br>
Andrea J. Ritchie, Esq<br><br>
<a href="http://www.queerinjustice.com/">
http://www.queerinjustice.com/</a><br><br>
Loyola Law Clinic<br><br>
<a href="http://www.loyno.edu/lawclinic/">
http://www.loyno.edu/lawclinic/</a><br><br>
Center for Constitutional Rights<br><br>
<a href="http://www.ccrjustice.org">http://www.ccrjustice.org</a><br><br>
Doe v. Jindal<br><br>
<a href="http://www.ccrjustice.org/crime-against-nature">
http://www.ccrjustice.org/crime-against-nature</a><br><br>
US Justice Department Investigation of the NOPD:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/nopd.php">
www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/nopd.php</a><br><br>
<br>
<b>Recent Reporting by Jordan Flaherty:<br>
</b>Her Crime? Sex Work in New Orleans: <br><br>
<a href="http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=673">
http://www.colorlines.com/archives/2010/01/her_crime_sex_work_in_new_orleans.html</a>
<a href="http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=673"><br>
</a><br>
New Orleans’ Police Problem:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.theroot.com/views/new-orleans-police-problem">
http://www.theroot.com/views/new-orleans-police-problem</a><br>
Fears of Cultural Extinction on Louisiana's Gulf Coast:<br>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/fears-of-cultural-extinct_b_612626.html">
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/fears-of-cultural-extinct_b_612626.html</a>
<br>
Jena Sheriff Seeks Revenge for Civil Rights Protests:<br>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/jena-sheriff-seeks-reveng_b_575413.html">
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/jena-sheriff-seeks-reveng_b_575413.html</a>
<br>
New Complaints of Police Violence in New Orleans:<br>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/new-complaints-of-police_b_544335.html">
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/new-complaints-of-police_b_544335.html</a>
<br>
<a href="http://www.theroot.com/views/new-orleans-real-city-never-sleeps">
<br>
</a>One Year After Haiti Earthquake, Corporations Profit While People
Suffer: <br><br>
<a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/flaherty120111.html">
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/flaherty120111.html</a><br><br>
<br>
<b>Other Resources:<br><br>
</b>Louisiana Justice Institute:
<a href="http://www.louisianajusticeinstitute.org/">
http://www.louisianajusticeinstitute.org</a> <br>
Justice Roars:
<a href="http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/">
http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com</a> <br>
This is a low-volume email list for Jordan Flaherty's articles and
updates from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. To subscribe, email
jordanhurricane-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. To unsubscribe, email
jordanhurricane-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net. <br><br>
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