## Facts

- C.H. Poindexter and Frank Moore were indicted in Caldwell County, Kentucky, for felony “sodomy” under the state’s crime-against-nature statute.
- The conduct at issue was oral-genital contact between human beings.
- Defendants initially pleaded guilty, and a jury returned guilty verdicts and set punishment at two years’ imprisonment for each.
- Defendants moved for a new trial, asserting they had misunderstood the law and that the charged conduct was not legally “sodomy.”
- The trial court granted a new trial; on retrial, defendants demurred to the indictment as failing to state an offense.
- The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the indictment.
- The Commonwealth appealed the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether oral-genital contact between human beings constitutes “sodomy” (the crime against nature) under Kentucky’s statute, which did not define the term.
2. Whether an indictment alleging only such conduct states a criminal offense under that statute.

## Decision

- The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the order sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the indictment.
- The court held that “sodomy,” as used in the statute, incorporated the established common-law meaning.
- Under that meaning, penetration of the mouth does not constitute sodomy.
- Because the indictment alleged conduct outside the statutory offense, it failed to charge a crime and was properly dismissed.

## Legal Principles

- When a criminal statute uses a common-law term without defining it, courts determine its content from common-law sources, including treatises and precedent.
- Legislatures are presumed to adopt the technical, established legal meaning of an undefined common-law term, not a broader moral or colloquial sense.
- Under the common-law definition applied, sodomy covers certain forms of “carnal copulation against nature” but does not include oral-genital contact.
- An indictment is legally insufficient and subject to demurrer when it alleges conduct that does not fall within the statutory definition as properly construed.

## Conclusion

The court construed Kentucky’s undefined sodomy statute in light of common-law authorities and held that oral-genital contact is not “sodomy,” making an indictment based solely on that conduct insufficient and requiring dismissal.


Commonwealth v. Poindexter, 118 S.W. 943 (Ky. Ct. App. 1909)