At least a dozen men since 2011 in Baton Rouge have been arrested under an unenforceable law “to ensnare men who merely discussed or agreed to have consensual sex with an undercover agent,” an investigation by The Advocate newspaper found.
The District Attorney said his office refused to prosecute each of the cases because no crime was found to have occurred, and a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman denied to the Advocate that investigators had been misapplying the anti-sodomy law, which is currently a state-statute.
“This is a law that is currently on the Louisiana books, and the sheriff is charged with enforcing the laws passed by our Louisiana Legislature,” Casey Rayborn Hicks, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said. “Whether the law is valid is something for the courts to determine, but the sheriff will enforce the laws that are enacted.”
