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Ask your District Attorney: | |
Will you enforce state obscenity laws? |
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If you live in one of the 40 states with a workable statewide obscenity law, your local prosecutor - called the District Attorney, State's Attorney, State Prosecutor, or other title depending on your state - is key to protecting your community from the scourge of hard-core pornography.
To see your state's obscenity laws, go to the NOLC's Federal and State Obscenity Statutes page.A commitment from your local prosecutor can make all the difference in the world. One recent example: In Cincinnati, Hamilton County prosecutors won a guilty plea earlier this year from porn merchant Larry Flynt, who had once vowed never to plead guilty to obscenity. To see this and other examples, look at our "good news" articles, below.The following ten states either do not have a statewide obscenity law or do not have effective ones: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia.
Maine, South Dakota and West Virginia, however, do allow local control of obscenity. New Mexico also allows local control of obscenity, but the New Mexico Supreme Court weakened those laws. In Colorado, Hawaii, and Oregon, the State Supreme Court either invalidated [Oregon] or greatly weakened the state's obscenity law. Amendments to the State Constitution are needed in these states.
Contrast this with the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney's office. According to statistics obtained by MIM, of the 249 actions initiated under the obscenity laws in New York State from 1988 to 1998, only 20 involved New York County - and of those 20 actions, 11 cases were "not prosecuted."
In Manhattan, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau refused to vigorously enforce the state obscenity laws, and Times Square ("42nd Street") became a synonym for porn-infested urban blight. The recent "cleanup" of "adult businesses" in New York City is the result of enforcement of zoning laws - but with zoning, these sordid businesses must be allowed to relocate in other areas.
When prosecutors vigorously enforce obscenity laws, it is the pornographers, not the American people, who are on the run. When they don't, pornography grows like cancer, harming an ever-enlarging circle of individuals (young and old), marriages, and neighborhoods.
A model letter for local state prosecutors in states with obscenity laws can be found below.
If you live in one of the ten states which don't have an effective statewide obscenity law, you should ask your Governor and state legislators to work for passage of such a law. A model letter for state officials in states without obscenity laws can found below.
"Hustler" magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who had once vowed never to plead guilty to on obscenity charge, reached a plea bargain guilty deal with prosecutors on the third day of jury selection in their obscenity trial in Cincinnati.
Under the terms of the deal, reached on May 12, Larry Flynt and his brother Jimmy agreed to have their corporation, Hustler News and Gifts, Inc., plead guilty to two counts of pandering obscenity. The Flynts also agreed to pay a $10,000 fine, to remove all existing videos from their store, and to "not in the future disseminate or cause to be disseminated, any sexually explicit videos in Hamilton County, Ohio." Prosecutors then agreed to drop the remaining charges.
The indictment alleged that the Flynts disseminated more than a dozen videos purchased at the shop by undercover vice squad officers, sold a video that was obscene for minors to a 14-year-old boy, and engaged in a pattern of corrupt activity.
Anti-porn activist Phil Burress, chairman of Cincinnati Citizens for Community Values, told the Associated Press that the plea bargain "keeps our community standards where they were 22 years ago when Mr. Flynt was convicted of pandering obscenity here. This is a victory for the people of this community."
Cincinnati, once again, has no "adult" businesses of any kind.
After a jury trial, Family Video, a local store in Belleville, Ill., was fined $2,000 for renting two obscene videos, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported (Oct. 9, 1998). The verdict gave Belleville assistant city attorney Patrick M. Flynn an unbroken string of court victories over 25 years in enforcing the city's obscenity ordinance, the paper reported.
In closing arguments in the Family Video case, Flynn told the jury it was their duty to rule the videos obscene, and that it meant nothing that the store kept its adult videos in a separate room. "You will decide what sort of community we live in, and will live in. You're speaking for all the communities in the state of Illinois," he said.
Flynn said that the city would continue its obscenity enforcement policy.
MIM note: Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Catholic Bishop of Belleville, wrote a letter in his diocesan newspaper supporting the 1998 WRAP Campaign.
The Supreme Court of Nebraska reinstated an obscenity conviction against Scott Harrold, who had produced an obscene program for showing on a local cable TV public access channel. The May 7 ruling tossed out an appellate court decision overturing the conviction on the grounds that the tape was not obscene "taken as a whole."
Scott Harrold's videotape contained 14 minutes of "Crotchy" the clown babbling at the camera, followed by one and a half minutes of a scene alleged to be obscene. The manager of the cable franchise referred the matter to the police, who arrested Harrold on obscenity charges. A jury convicted Harrold on the charges, but the appeals court reversed the conviction.
Morality in Media, along with the National Law Center for Children and Families and retired U.S. Senator Jim Exon, joined in filing an amicus brief with the Nebraska Supreme Court in support of the Nebraska Attorney General's appeal.
(Adjust this letter to your local circumstances)
Dear __________________:
The 12th annual White Ribbon Against Pornography campaign will take place in our community and communities around the country during Pornography Awareness Week, from to encorage vigorous enforcement of state and federal obscenity laws. The campaign is sponsored by the national interfaith organization, Morality in Media.
Since enforcement of obscenity laws is based on "contemporary community standards," I wish to express my firm opposition to the dissemination of obscene materials in our community. These materials depict, in explicit detail, every form of promiscuous, degrading, perverse and violent sexual behavior imaginable.
A driving force behind the decline in morality is the flood of obscene materials pouring into communities nationwide. This has happened because obscenity laws have been largely unenforced.
Since obscenity is not a First Amendment right, and since the state obscenity law was passed to protect public safety, public health, and public morality, I (we) urge you to vigorously enforce this law!
(If appropriate: I [we] will call to arrange a meeting with you to present our concerns about certain businesses here that we believe should be investigated for possible obscenity violations.)
(If appropriate: [Governor _________or Mayor ___________or both] has/have issued (a) formal proclamation(s) declaring to be Pornography Awareness Week.)
Sincerely,
_______________________
(Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia)
Dear________________:
I'm writing to ask that you do what you can to support the enactment of an effective state obscenity law. Our state is one of only ten states without such a law.
Citizens in our community and communities around the country will be highlighting the need for effective obscenity law enforcement during the 12th annual White Ribbon Against Pornography campaign during Pornography Awareness Week, from The campaign is sponsored by the national interfaith organization, Morality in Media.
Harms associated with the distribution and consumption of obscenity include the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, neighborhood deterioration, rape, sexual abuse of children, the corruption of youth, and the break-up of marriages.
I have no doubt that you are as alarmed as most Americans by this cancer on society. Unlike most Americans, however, you are in a position to do something about it directly. As the Supreme Court wrote, "there is 'a right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent society.'"
(If appropriate: [Governor ____________ or Mayor ___________ or both] has/have issued (a) formal proclamation(s) declaring to be Pornography Awareness Week.)
Sincerely,
_____________________
** NOTE: Some states without a state obscenity law (Maine, New Mexico, and South Dakota) do allow local control of obscenity.
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