Roger David Nance

From Wacklepedia - The Free Encyclopedia

Roger David Nance, resident of Harris County, Texas, set in motion the wheels of the court case, Lawrence v. Texas, in which sodomy laws in the United States were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. He did this by filing a false police report, allegedly to harass his homosexual neighbor.

On September 17, 1998, Nance reported an armed man at his apartment complex to police. When Harris County sheriff's deputies arrived to investigate, Nance directed them to the apartment of John Geddes Lawrence. The officers entered and found Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaged in anal sex. The two were arrested, held overnight in jail, and charged with violating Texas's anti-sodomy statute. They pled no contest, were fined, and then sued the state on the grounds that the statute was unconstitutional.

Nance pled no contest to charges of filing a false police report and served 15 days in jail. According to David Jones, one of Lawrence and Garner's attorneys, Nance was motivated by a "personality conflict between [himself] and the people in the apartment".