Supreme Court rejects military sodomy case

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to review an Air Force lieutenant's criminal conviction for having sex with a 15-year-old boy, which the officer contended was protected by a previous court decision overturning state statutes that criminalized gay sex. Justices, without comment, rejected the appeal by Second Lt. Ryan W. Davis. He pleaded guilty to consensual sodomy and conduct unbecoming an officer in military court following an April 1997 meeting with a boy at a park in Gulf Breeze, Fla. Davis was subsequently dismissed from the Air Force, confined for 24 months, and ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances. Davis had asked the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction following its 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas. That ruling struck down state statutes criminalizing gay sex as a violation of an individual's constitutional right to sexual privacy.