1540

LAWS OF MARYLAND

Ch. 573

or the Criminal Court of Baltimore City [shall have] HAS
full and absolute jurisdiction to try all offenses
committed in violation of this [[subtitle]] SUBHEADING,
[when such] IF transportation [or any part thereof shall
be] IS offered, solicited, begun, continued or ended in
[such] THAT county or the City of Baltimore.

553.

Every person convicted of the crime of sodomy shall
be sentenced to the penitentiary for not [less than one
year nor] more than ten years.

Every person who [shall be] IS convicted of taking
into his or her mouth the sexual organ of any other
person or animal, or who shall be convicted of placing
his or her sexual organ in the mouth of any other person
or animal, or who shall be convicted of committing any
other unnatural or perverted sexual practice with any
other person or animal, shall be fined not more than one
thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or be imprisoned in jail or
in the house of correction or in the penitentiary for a
period not exceeding ten years, or shall be both fined
and imprisoned within the limits above prescribed in the
discretion of the court.

And in any indictment for the commission of any of
the acts, hereby declared to be offenses, it shall not be

necessary to set forth the particular unnatural or

perverted sexual practice with the commission of which
the defendant may be charged, nor to set forth the
particular manner in which said unnatural or perverted
sexual practice was committed, but it shall be sufficient

if the indictment set forth that the defendant__committed

a certain unnatural and perverted sexual practice with a
person or animal, as the case may be.

[[SECTION 4. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That
the common—law]] [[crime of rape is]] [[crimes of rape
and sodomy are abolished.]]

SECTION 4. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That the
provisions of this Act are applicable only to offenses
committed after the effective date of this Act; and the
repeal or amendment by this Act of crimes and offenses
existing prior to the effective date of this Act does not
preclude the prosecution of persons who, prior to the
effective date of this Act, committed those crimes and
offenses as those crimes and offenses then existed.

SECTION 5. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this Act
shall take effect July 1, 1976.

Approved May 17, 1976.