The Daily Background

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the alleged “DC Madam,” and her lawyers are fighting to have the government’s case against her dismissed, citing a gay civil rights case.

The case Lawrence v Texas, decided in 2003, found that the government could not regulate private sexual acts, and resulted in the striking down of a Texas law banning gay sex. Palfrey, who is accused of running an elite DC prostitution ring, said Sunday in an email sent to The Daily Background that she believes the case may apply to her situation as well.

“The Supreme Court held that private, consensual sex between homosexual adults is protected under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Palfrey said. Her lawyers contended in a legal brief filed earlier this year that the government is seeking to enforce “antiquated statutes aimed at regulating morality and lifestyle choices, the criminality of which has been seriously called into question in the aftermath of Lawrence.”

Palfrey says she believes her situation is the first case in which the Lawrence v Texas decision has been invoked with relation to prositution. “To date,” she said, “there has been no significant ‘test case’ in the intervening four years, which challenges the expansion of Lawrence, into the realm of prostitution.”

It is unclear how seriously the DC District Court will consider the motion to dismiss the indictment, but at the very least the invocation of the 2003 case is an interesting legal twist. Palfrey says she wants to “expand upon the intellectual debate” regarding prostitution in general, and says she is “determined to see that some – actually considerable – good comes from my rather sick and twisted situation.”

Palfrey seems eager to turn her own legal fight into a broader discussion of laws regarding prostitution. The United States of America v Deborah Jeane Palfrey isn’t just about her, she contends. Indeed, she has already dragged several high level governmental officials and former clients into the fray, including Louisiana’s Republican Senator David Vitter, conservative pundit Jack Burkman, Iraq War architect Harlan K Ullman, and Condoleezza Rice’s former Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias.

One thing’s for sure: the DC Madam is anything but coy about what the consequences might be if the court accepts the argument her lawyers are advancing. “If the Court grants the motion,” predicts Palfrey, “prostitution – albeit in private… likely would be decriminalized.”

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