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Casebook Read Credits
Criminal Law Spring 2021
Resource 2 . 1 . 5
20 minutes

Lawrence v. Texas

Jeannie Suk Gersen

We have just read a few cases that illustrate the concept of legality in terms of the legal institutions that define crimes, the importance of notice, and the dangers of vagueness. Legality, however, goes beyond these somewhat procedural issues to implicate questions of substance: what conduct can a just society legally punish in the first place? Our next case, Lawrence v. Texas, grapples with this question.

Supreme Court of the United States
539 U.S. 558, 156 L. Ed. 2d 508, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 2003 U.S. LEXIS 5013, SCDB 2002-083
No. 02-102
2003-06-26

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