Alabama court overturns anti-sodomy law

[June 17, 2014]  (Reuters) - An Alabama appeals court has thrown out a law prohibiting consensual homosexual intercourse, declaring it to be unconstitutional.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruling, issued last Friday, came in the case of an Alabama man found guilty of engaging in consensual sex with another man in 2010 and sentenced to a year in jail.

The decision cited a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law.

Alabama is one of several U.S. states with anti-sodomy laws on its books, some of which have recently come under review.

Last year, Georgia's supreme court upheld the constitutionality of a state law banning solicitation of sodomy.

The case is Dewayne Williams v. State of Alabama, #CR-12-1385.

(Reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky; Editing by David Adams and Paul Tait)

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