The Justice Department will appeal the dismissal of an obscenity case against Extreme Associates chief Rob Black (Robert Zicari) and his wife, Lizzy Borden (Janet Romano), while a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing provoked in part by that dismissal has been postponed indefinitely.
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said Extreme videos depict violent, brutal, and degrading rape and murder of women, while newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said selling and distributing obscene materials is not protected under the First Amendment.
“The Department of Justice places a premium on the First Amendment right to free speech, but certain activities do not fall within those protections, such as selling or distributing obscene materials,” said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in his own statement. “The Department of Justice remains strongly committed to the investigation and prosecution of adult obscenity cases.”
U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster threw out the Extreme case in late January on the grounds that obscenity laws are unconstitutional, and that people have a right to see adult material in their own homes. Justice said in a statement that if the Lancaster ruling stands, it "would undermine not only the federal obscenity laws, but all laws based on shared views of public morality, such as laws against prostitution, bestiality, and bigamy."
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights had scheduled a new obscenity hearing, "Obscenity Prosecution and the Constitution," for February 16, but the subcommittee postponed that hearing to an unspecified later date. The subcommittee hearing was provoked in large part by the Lancaster ruling in the Extreme case, but it isn't yet known whether the hearing cancellation and the appeal of the Extreme case are somehow connected.
Earlier this week, Free Speech Coalition and the Adult Freedom Foundation each zapped the subcommittee for failing to invite representatives of adult entertainment on and offline to testify to the new hearing.
AFF general counsel Paul Cambria was unavailable for comment before this story went to press, but Free Speech Coalition executive director Michele Freridge told AVNOnline.com the group learned of the hearing cancellation six hours before the hearing would have taken place.
"We heard from the (Senate) staffers we've been talking with that it had been postponed," Freridge said. "To my knowledge, there was no public release on why it was postponed, except that it doesn't have anything to do with the content itself."
She added that written testimony FSC submitted to the subcommittee would have been included in the formal record of the hearing had it taken place as scheduled. "And we're really excited about that," she said, "because federal lobbying is a kind of new thing for us, and it's going to be a boon for the industry, in terms of being able to respond to and provide unbiased testimony and research and education to legislators."
Asked if FSC members or other adult entertainment representatives would be invited to a rescheduled hearing, Freridge said that's what FSC hopes. "We are working with representatives to try to get constitutional experts who are unbiased and who are fair," she said. "Somebody who doesn't have a record of anti-adult entertainment opinions and activities in the past."
