# People v. Onofre

> New York Court of Appeals · December 18, 1980 · 51 N.Y.2d 476

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5533331

## Case

- **Full name:** The People of the State of New York v. Ronald Onofre, Respondent The People of the State of New York v. Conde J. Peoples, III, and Philip S. Goss, Appellants The People of the State of New York v. Mary Sweat
- **Court:** New York Court of Appeals
- **Decided:** December 18, 1980
- **Citations:** 51 N.Y.2d 476; 434 N.Y.S.2d 947; 415 N.E.2d 936; 20 A.L.R. 4th 987; 1980 N.Y. LEXIS 2743
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Jasen
- **Judges:** Another, Cooke, Fuchsberg, Gabrielli, Jasen, Jones, Meyer, Wachtler
- **Cited by:** 108 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5533331

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the right of privacy extends to people who engage in "deviant" sexual conduct "so long as the decisions are voluntarily made by adults in a noncommercial, private setting”

## Opinion text

Jasen, J.
(concurring in result). While I cannot accept the majority’s premise that the so-called “penumbral” right to privacy which first appeared in Griswold v Connecticut ( 381 US 479 ) should be extended to encompass and protect any and all types of consensual sexual behavior in private, I nonetheless concur in result herein for I can discern no rational basis upon which the Legislature could have decided to freely allow the conduct in issue among married people and to make identical conduct criminal among those for whom that estate is undesirable or unattainable.
I hasten to add that, in my opinion, the Legislature does have the power to make moral judgments. However, that legislative power is, as all others are, limited by the supervening requirement that it be exercised with the requisite evenhandedness. Here, it was not.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5533331. Public record. Not legal advice.