Lawrence Vs Texas Essay

The reasoning for this essay to examine the Supreme Court case of Lawrence V. Texas. I will also provide reasoning for the trial, the court’s opinion of the situation, review of both litigations, and the ultimate decision/ruling of the case. As well as provide an overall opinionated review of the case. Now to begin with the foundation that established the case of Lawrence V. Texas. In September of 1998, Houston police received a report of a disturbance called in by a resident in living in the same private residence as the accused, John Lawrence. To be exact the Houston police were responding to “a reported weapons disturbance in a private residence” (Oyez, 2018) occurring the Lawrence residence. When the police arrived to the scene they proceeded

Texas was a success not only for the convicted John Lawrence and Tyron Garner but a success for the entirety of the LGBT community. The reason for this is because I believe it laid the foundation for other changes and ordinances set in place by the United States government to insure more freedom to individuals who identify as something other than heterosexual, such as same sex marriage. In terms of the verdict I believe the Supreme Court rightfully defended the rights of the people by ensuring that their freedoms could not be removed from them based on something as sexuality. However there were some issues with the case that I would like to identify that should have been touched upon when this occurred. First is that when the police enter Lawrence’s apartment they did not in fact have a search warrant, which is needed to enter the home. While researching none of the sources stated that the police had a search warrant, rather they just stated the police abruptly entered the home, caught Lawrence and Garner, and proceeded to arrest them. This issue was also never brought up in the courts during the trials which was very odd as well. The second issue was that the enter report of a “weapons disturbance” was false. The person who called reported the disturbance was in fact Lawrence’s neighbor who had a past with Lawrence and had, “been accused of harassing Lawrence” (Urofsky, 2014), and even admitted to lying about the police report. This issue was brought to court where the neighbor, “pleaded no contest to charges of filing a false police report, and served 15 days in jail” (Urofsky, 2014). So once again Lawrence V. Texas was an overall victory for not only Lawrence /Garner but also the LGBT community and hopefully we will continue to make strides surrounding the acceptance of the LGBT communities as we move