[July 4th]

A lot of places try to leave laws like this on the books so they can get people on something if all of the other charges dry up. Like if the cops busted in on a drug dealer having sex with another woman (not his wife), but if the drugs were somehow excluded at trial. Then you'd actually prosecute the charge.

In Wisconsin, we do that all the time with the bail jumping charge. It rarely gets charged, unless it's the only thing that the prosecutor can make stick.

[weegee]

The law against fornication had been on the books since the early 1800s but was last enforced against consenting adults in 1847

Statutory rape laws no longer are applied to minors under the age of consent. A fornication law could have still been used to prosecute the offenders.

"consenting adults" is bunk, same sex sodomy is just as legal for minors as for adults (some states used to set the bar at 18 for homosexual acts, but the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision did away with that).

[NJ_gent]

"It rarely gets charged, unless it's the only thing that the prosecutor can make stick."

If the only way a prosecutor can get someone is to make use of a BS, completely unconstitutional law, then he doesn't deserve to get the guy in the first place. Using false charges to cover up for the failure to make real ones stick is precisely the sort of BS done in China, North Korea, and every other country that stinks. We're better than that, and we should act like it. :-)