raveneye

Just when I thought the U.S. had become more puritan than the Puritans themselves, we have this court decision (appended below).

I really hope this does not get overturned on appeal. State standards really have become irrelevant in the age of the internet. We're a global village now.

In any case, it sure is refreshing to see individual liberties being upheld in the U.S. for a change.



Court Strikes Down Federal Obscenity Statute

In U.S. v. Extreme Associates, Inc., Judge Lancaster of the Western District of Pennsylvania struck down the federal law criminalizing obscenity as applied to a distributor of internet pornography:

"We find that the federal obscenity statutes burden an individual's fundamental right to possess, read, observe, and think about what he chooses in the privacy of his own home by completely banning the distribution of obscene materials"

In reaching its holding, the court relied heavily on the Supreme Court's holding in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared state anti-sodomy statutes unconstitutional. The court in Extreme Associates construed Lawrence broadly, holding that in the wake of Lawrence "public morality is not a legitimate state interest sufficient to justify infringing on adult, private, consentual, sexual conduct, even if that conduct is deemed offensive to the general public's sense of morality."

The government argued, in part, that "entertaining lewd and lustful thoughts stimulated by viewing material that appeals to one's purient interests . . . . is immoral conduct even when done by consenting adults in private." The court, however was unmoved by this Comstockian argument, declaring that after Lawrence, "upholding the public sense of morality is not even a legitimate state interest."

UPDATE 1/23/05, 2:44pm, by Ian: Professor Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy argues that this case is inconsistent with existing doctrine, and will likely be overturned on appeal.upheld upheld