Last edited: April 14, 2007


Arizona

  • Statute: 13-1411, Crime Against Nature, Repealed 2001
  • Penalty: 30 days/$500
  • Classification: Misdemeanor
  • Restrictions: None
  • Statute: 13-1412, Lewd and Lascivious Acts, Repealed 2001
  • Penalty: 30 days/$500
  • Classification: Misdemeanor
  • Restrictions: None

Statute

13-1411. Crime against nature; classification

A person who knowingly and without force commits the infamous crime against nature with an adult is guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor.

13-1412. Lewd and lascivious acts; classification

A person who knowingly and without force commits, in any unnatural manner, any lewd or lascivious act upon or with the body or any part or member thereof of a male or female adult, with the intent of arousing, appealing to or gratifying the lust, passion or sexual desires of either of such persons, is guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor.

History

            1913     Just seven months after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the common-law definition of sodomy did not permit prosecutions for fellatio, the legislature changed the law. Although a complete recompilation of state law was adopted, in which the compiler was denied �any power to change or modify or make any law or laws,� the sodomy law was changed to include �the penetration of the mouth of any human being by the organ of any male person.� Another new law adopted in the Code was that a wife was considered competent to testify against her husband, but not vice versa, in a trial for �the crime against nature, or any similar offense[.]�

            1944     The Arizona Supreme Court is the first in the nation to receive a sodomy case in which an explicit right to privacy is raised. The Court did not address the claim; it merely ignored it.

            1962     The Arizona Supreme Court upholds a conviction in the only known published sodomy case in which a man arrested for sodomy accuses the arresting officer of being attracted to other men.

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