LOUISA, Va (WTVR) -- Louisa County Prosecutor, Rusty McGuire has developed a reputation for putting many sex offenders behind bars.
However, with the state’s anti-sodomy law in jeopardy, McGuire fears that some convicted sex offenders may go free.
“It puts Virginia children at risk and it's open season,” says McGuire.
McGuire tells CBS 6’s Lorenzo Hall, that’s why he’s standing behind Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The Attorney General filed a petition with the US Supreme Court to uphold Virginia’s anti-sodomy law.
This comes after the US Court of Appeals deemed it unconstitutional. The panel of judges based its decision off of a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which stated, it's unconstitutional to criminalize sexual conduct in a sodomy case out of Texas involving two adults.
However, Virginia’s law remained intact until now. The three-judge panel ruled in favor of a 47-year-old man who was once convicted under Virginia’s anti-sodomy law for soliciting a 17-year-old girl for oral sex.
Judges said the law doesn't apply to contact between minors and adults.
“They got it wrong, they misinterpreted the law,” says McGuire.
He says the anti-sodomy law in Virginia is the basis for many charges needed to convict sex offenders.
“Every conviction that we've had is in jeopardy,” McGuire tells CBS 6.
The Louisa Prosecutor says, contrary to popular belief, this law has nothing to do with prosecuting adults who engage in such acts. Other groups disagree and question the role Ken Cuccinelli played when the original statute was drafted in 2004.
“It has been made abundantly clear, with no gray area, you cannot prosecute two consenting adults for what they do in the privacy of their own home,” said McGuire.
He tells CBS 6, there is already one convicted sex offender looking to be released from prison because of the Court of Appeals’ recent ruling.
Click on the video below for McGuire's full explanation of the anti-sodomy law.
