## Facts

- Harold Locke, a Tennessee state prisoner, was convicted under Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-707, which criminalized “crimes against nature” without defining the phrase.
- The prosecution alleged Locke entered a neighbor’s apartment and forcibly compelled cunnilingus.
- Prior reported Tennessee decisions applying § 39-707 involved anal copulation (sodomy) and fellatio, not cunnilingus.
- No reported Tennessee appellate decision before Locke’s case had applied § 39-707 to cunnilingus.
- After state appellate affirmance and denial of certiorari, Locke sought federal habeas relief; the district court denied relief, relying on Supreme Court precedent upholding a similar Florida statute with a settled state-court construction.

## Issues

1. Whether Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-707 was unconstitutionally vague, as applied to cunnilingus, because it failed to give fair notice that the conduct fell within “crimes against nature.”
2. Whether the absence of a clear, established Tennessee judicial construction covering cunnilingus rendered Locke’s conviction inconsistent with due process.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of habeas relief and remanded.
- The court held § 39-707 was unconstitutionally vague as applied to cunnilingus and could not constitutionally support Locke’s conviction.
- The court distinguished Supreme Court precedent upholding Florida’s statute because Florida courts had long construed that statute to cover the specific acts at issue, unlike Tennessee’s statute as to cunnilingus.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal statute violates due process for vagueness if persons of common intelligence must guess at its meaning and may differ in its application.
- As-applied vagueness focuses on whether the statute gave fair notice that the defendant’s specific conduct was prohibited, even if the statute may be valid in other applications.
- A limiting, longstanding state-court construction can supply the specificity needed to defeat a vagueness challenge; absent such a construction, a broad label like “crime against nature” may not provide adequate notice for previously unaddressed conduct.
- Divergent interpretations of similar language across jurisdictions support a finding that the statutory term is insufficiently definite when applied to conduct not clearly covered by local precedent.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit granted habeas relief because Tennessee’s undefined “crimes against nature” statute, lacking prior Tennessee decisions applying it to cunnilingus, failed to provide fair notice and was void for vagueness as applied to Locke’s conduct.


Locke v. Rose, 514 F.2d 570 (6th Cir. 1975)