The Ninth Circuit, in United States v. Quaempts (thanks to How Appealing for the pointer) had to choose between two precedents: One held that a person standing in the doorway of his home could be arrested without an arrest warrant, because the doorway is public enough; another held that a person who was lying in bed and could be seen through the open door couldn’t be arrested, because he was still in his private home. The question was which category someone who opened the door while lying in bed — it was a very small trailer — fit in, and the court said the latter.
I have nothing against that decision as such: Courts sometimes have to make some choices, and draw some mighty thin lines, especially when they have to work with precedents that aren’t as crisply theorized as one might like. The process may seem silly to outsiders, but the decisions have to be made.
Still, I was puzzled by this argument:
Quaempts, however, was in his bed, the sanctuary of the right to privacy. See Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
Really? I know people use “bed” as a reference to “sex,” and I know lots of sex goes on in bed. But surely Lawrence isn’t so limited — presumably sex on the rug, the counter, the kitchen table, or even up against the door (granted, from the inside, with the door closed) is just as covered by Lawrence as sex in the bed. Is this just a little bit of absurdist legal humor, or did someone get carried away with analogies here?
Or perhaps this might add another answer to the old Why do Baptists not have sex standing up? joke — because it’s constitutionally unprotected.
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