| CS-Jay |
10-21-2005 12:31 PM |
Here's something fun: After I read the AFA site, I get an newsletter email from the FSC, let's compare...shall we...:
Quote:
Legality of Obscenity at Center of Smut Case Appeal
By Allie Martin
October 20, 2005
(AgapePress) - An attorney with the Family Research Council (FRC) says a case before the Third U.S. Court of Appeals could have a big impact on obscenity laws nationwide.
Two years ago, California-based Extreme Associates and its owners Robert Zicari and Janet Romano were indicted by the Department of Justice for selling videos with brutal and graphic depictions of sexual violence. However, earlier this year -- in a blow to the government's renewed crackdown on extreme, hard-core, violent porn -- U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster threw out those indictments, ruling that the government's ban on distribution of obscenity violated the public's constitutional rights to possess such material.
The pro-porn attorney had argued that if individuals were unable to purchase the material, "there really is no right. In order to be able to possess it, I need to be able to buy it."
This week, lawyers for both sides argued the case before a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Pittsburgh. Pat Trueman, legal counsel for FRC, says the case is another example of judicial activism.
"Congress has said that distribution of obscenity is illegal," Trueman points out. "[But] this judge [Lancaster] says obscenity should be legal. Unfortunately he has that power, even though it's an abusive power, and we hope the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit will agree with previous rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States that obscenity is properly illegal."
Trueman, who expects a ruling by next spring, contends the outcome of the case could have far-reaching implications. "[This] could have a very big impact," he says. "If this kind of material is legal, anything is legal."
And what will happen if the case is appealed even further? Truemen issues a warning. "There are members of the United States Supreme Court, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- former general counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union -- who would gladly rule that all obscene material is legal in America," he states.
For that reason, the FRC spokesman says, "we have to watch and pray for this case very closely."
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EXTREME ASSOCIATES APPEAL FOCUSES ON MORALITY
PITTSBURG, PA -- The government has presented its arguments here to a panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an effort to reinstate obscenity charges against Extreme Associates and the company?s owners Rob Black and Lizzie Borden. U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster dismissed the 10-count indictment against the defendants in January. The government later appealed the decision in what has become a highly controversial national test case.
?The nation?s obscenity laws cannot stand in light of Lawrence,? Lancaster wrote, referring to Lawrence vs. Texas (2003), the case in which the Supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law. The Lawrence decision, Lancaster said, ?can be reasonably interpreted as holding that public morality is not a legitimate state interest sufficient to justify infringing on adult, private, consensual, sexual conduct even if that conduct is deemed offensive to the general public?s sense of morality.?
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan?s view is the polar opposite of Lancaster?s. "Morality is at the basis of all our laws," she told the three-judge appeals panel. The government will continue to pursue regulating obscenity and its proliferation in order to protect children, unwitting adults, morality, public safety and societal order, she said.
Buchanan conceded that individuals have the right to possess obscene materials at home, but told the panel that there is no right to receive or distribute obscenity. She outlined First Amendment decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with the concept that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.
Extreme Associates attorney Louis Sirkin responded that the case was not a First Amendment liberty interest challenge. In Lawrence, he said, the Supreme Court had protected the privacy of individuals from unwarranted intrusions into their bedrooms. All of the First Amendment obscenity cases cited by Buchanan, he explained, had referred in some way to public display of the material, whereas the case at hand involved material that was seen only by the sender and the receiver, both of whom knew exactly what they were getting.
The issues in this case are starkly drawn. Sirkin?s arguments are based on privacy grounds. In the Extreme Associates case the defendants had established a sufficiently reliable method to prevent exposure to children and unwilling adults by means of credit card subscription. After Lawrence -- absent exposure to children or unwilling adults -- there is no legitimate government interest in protecting public morality.
Mark Kernes, in a first-hand report, says statements during the 50-minute hearing were compelling. He says the high drama left even observers fatigued. In a follow-up Adult Video News report, Kernes provides extended quotes from First Amendment attorneys present at the hearing.
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