Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday to uphold Virginia’s anti-sodomy law, arguing that if the law is overturned nearly 90 people convicted of sex crimes involving minors could qualify to have their names erased from the state’s sex offender registry.
Back in March, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Virginia’s “crimes against nature law,” which says oral and anal sex is illegal, is unconstitutional. The law, according to Cuccinelli, led to a 47-year-old man’s conviction of criminal solicitation for allegedly demanding oral sex from a 17-year-old girl.
“This has nothing to do with sexual orientation or private acts between consenting adults. In fact, the law can’t be used for those purposes,” Cuccinelli said in a statement. “The Fourth Circuit’s decision threatens to undo convictions of child predators that were obtained under this law after 2003. It also takes away an important tool that prosecutors use to put child molesters in jail. This has very real implications for public safety.”
