Supreme Court Victory!

posted on 7:26 AM | permalink

Supreme Court rules 7-2 in US vs. WIlliams

by Justin Hart

On Monday morning the Lighted Candle Society was participating in a conference about obscenity laws in the United States. Every major pro-family / anti-pornography group was present at the event.

Before I got up to speak I checked the Supreme Court wire and gleefully told the gathered leaders that the Court had ruled 7-2 sustaining current federal anti-child pornography laws and holding that that these laws do not impinge on the first amendment rights. This is a huge decision and affirms, once more, that obscene materials are not covered under the Constitution.


Let's set the stage so you understand the whole story point by point.

• In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down two provisions in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 finding significant abridgment of freedom of speech.
• In 2003, Congress passed the PROTECT act which included a pandering and solicitation provision against child pornography.
• In 2004, Michael Williams signed into an Internet chat room and struck up a conversation with "Lisa n Miami" (who was in fact a Secret Service agent). Williams posted a note indicating: "“Dad of toddler has ‘good’ pics of her an [sic] me for swap
  of your toddler pics, or live cam.” Williams, went on to say he had photographs of men molesting his 4-year-old daughter and demanded pictures from the agent. Williams then got all upset when the agent didn't respond and posted publicly: “HERE ROOM; I CAN PUT UPLINK CUZ IM FOR REAL—SHE CANT.” He then posted a link to actual child porn.
  
• With that evidence agents obtained an search warrant, seized two hard drives and found at least 22 images of real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Apparently, some of it was sadomasochistic.
• Williams pled guilty to one count of pandering and one count of possessing child pornography under the PROTECT act but reserved the right to challenge the constitutionality of the pandering conviction.
  
• The District Court rejected his challenge and sentenced Williams to 10 years in prison.
  
• The Eleventh Circuit reversed the pandering conviction holding that the statute was both "overbroad and impermissibly vague"

Next let me review for you the amicus brief which the Lighted Candle Society submitted to the Supreme Court supporting the PROTECT act. We argued three points:

• The Eleventh Circuit court misunderstood the market for child pornography. pandering material that is not child pornography as if it is - is a key form of currency in the barter-based child pornography marketplace. Prohibiting pandering is an important part of fighting child pornography.
• Pandering is not a form a non-commercial speech and not entitled to full First Amendment protection.
• Lastly, we argued that scientific evidence indicates that viewing child pornography is not a form of speech any more than is the use of drugs or the services of a prostitute.

The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, upheld the PROTECT act provision dealing with child pornography. In their decision the judges cited numerous references which we provided in our brief.

We are thrilled to have played even a minor role in this victory!

Here are some highlights from the decision:

• Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, kicks it off with our favorite fact on the books: "We have long held that obscene speech—sexually explicit material that violates fundamental notions of decency—is not protected by the First Amendment."
• The opinion of the court is no less striking: "invalidating a law that in some of its applications is perfectly constitutional—particularly a law directed at conduct so antisocial that it has been made criminal—has obvious harmful effects. In order to maintain an appropriate balance, we have vigorously enforced the requirement that a statute’s overbreadth be substantial." In short, the law does not substantially infringe on freedom of speech.
• One important part of the act is qualified in this assessment: "The statute penalizes speech that accompanies or seeks to induce a transfer of child pornography—via reproduction or physical delivery—from one person to another." In other words, our fight against child pornography is rightly focused on stopping the actual market producing and consuming this vile.
• In case there was any doubt: "In sum, we hold that offers to provide or requests to
  obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the First Amendment."
• Then we get this smackdown of the 11th circuit:

The Eleventh Circuit believed it a constitutional diffi-
culty that no child pornography need exist to trigger the
statute. In its view, the fact that the statute could punish
a “braggart, exaggerator, or outright liar” rendered it
unconstitutional. 444 F. 3d, at 1298. That seems to us a
strange constitutional calculus. Although we have held
that the government can ban both fraudulent offers, see,
e.g., Illinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates,
Inc., 538 U. S. 600, 611–612 (2003), and offers to provide
illegal products, the Eleventh Circuit would forbid the
government from punishing fraudulent offers to provide
illegal products. We see no logic in that position; if any-
thing, such statements are doubly excluded from the First Amendment.

• The Justices also seemed to take our arguments to heart: "There is no First Amendment exception from the general principle of criminal law that a person attempting to commit a crime need not be exonerated because he has a mistaken view of the facts. "
• The Justices conclude:
  

Child pornography harms and debases the most de-
nseless of our citizens. Both the State and Federal
Governments have sought to suppress it for many years,
only to find it proliferating through the new medium of the
Internet. This Court held unconstitutional Congress’s
previous attempt to meet this new threat, and Congress
responded with a carefully crafted attempt to eliminate
the First Amendment problems we identified. As far as
the provision at issue in this case is concerned, that effort
was successful.

You can read the entire opinion below:


US. vs. Williams - Supreme Court Decision - Get more documents

Labels: child pornography, supreme court