|
Despite these concealment efforts, Mr. Freeman was charged and convicted under California?s "pandering" law, because he was paying individuals to perform sex acts on camera.1 The filming was done in private, and all models consented to the acts depicted in the film. There was no allegation that the movie was obscene. His attorneys sought to convince the courts that the First Amendment prohibited the application of pandering laws to the creation of adult materials, even though they might appear to apply. Ultimately, Freeman won the case, and the California Supreme Court decided that pandering laws could not be used as a tool to impose a system of governmental censorship of erotic materials.2 Specifically, the court held, "[E]ven if Defendant?s conduct could somehow be found to come within the definition of "prostitution" literally, the application of the pandering statute to the hiring of actors to perform in the production of a non-obscene motion picture would impinge unconstitutionally on First Amendment values."3 An appeal to the United States Supreme Court resulted in a ruling that the outcome turned independently on construction of California law, and thus the Supremes refused to get involved.4
Under the protection of that court decision, which is only binding in the State of California, the adult film industry began to flourish
|