Slam Dunk? - When the Supreme Court ruled in its landmark Lawrence case this summer, one case in particular seemed likely to see an immediate positive impact from the decision: Limon v. Kansas.

The State of Kansas had obtained a conviction against Matthew Limon for committing consensual oral sodomy on a fourteen-year-old who was incarcerated in the same reform school as Limon. Matt had just turned 18. Unlike the Texas law overturned in Lawrence, Kansas criminalized sodomy and statutory rape for both gays and straights. However, Kansas also has a "Romeo & Juliet law" which lessens the penalty for consensual sex crimes between two teens if the younger teenager is between 14 and 16 years old; the older teenager is less than 19 years old; the age difference is less than 4 years; there are no third parties involved; and the two teenagers are members of the opposite sex. If Limon's liason had been with a girl, he could have received no more than 15 months in jail -- possibly only probation. However, because of the discriminatory nature of the Kansas law, Limon was sentenced to 17 years in prision with five years of supervised release. Despite the manifest cruelty of this result, appeals to the highest state court were of no avail. Such was life when Bowers v. Hardwick was the law of the land.

The unfortunate Mr. Limon finally hit a patch of good luck when his lawyers filed their petition of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. Limon v. Kansas was pending before SCOTUS when it decided Lawrence, and on the day that ruling came down, the court vacated the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court upholding Limon's sentencing and ordered a reconsideration in light of the holding in Lawrence.

It's a reflection of the entrenched nature of anti-gay sentiment that prosecutors are continuing to fight for Limon's incarceration. They filed a brief arguing that -- despite Lawrence -- the state's discriminatory Romeo & Juliet law was justified, apparently because youth need greater protection against gay teenagers than straight ones. You can read the ACLU's response to that b.s. here. The state has done all it can to muddy the waters of this case, but given the sweeping language of Lawrence, I'm thinking I'd be willing to take this one on a contingency fee basis. In truth, attacking the disparate effects of a disciminatory criminal law is much easier than getting the law overturned in its entirety (as was famously accomplished in the Lawrence ruling). Here, the appellant is only asking to get the same punishment as straight people, not to be let off scot-free. How can the court fail to agree?

P.S. This isn't the only work the ACLU and others are doing to finish the work started in Lawrence. See this article about efforts to overturn the military's sodomy law, Article 125.