The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a controversial ruling on pornography cases.
The case involves e-mail spam and a federal law dealing with it. Pat Trueman, special counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), tells OneNewsNow about the case. "The two defendants were convicted under the Can-Spam Act, which prohibits individuals from spamming you in your e-mail account," reports Trueman. "But these two individuals were spamming people with hardcore pornography, so there was the additional charge of obscenity." The court upheld the conviction, but also ruled that a national standard -- rather than community standard -- must be used in determining whether something is obscene. Trueman worries that with such a ruling, defense attorneys will now tell jury members they cannot determine whether something is obscene unless that has already been determined. "In other words, the defense attorney wants to say to the jury, 'You can't find my client guilty of violating a national standard because you don't know what the national standard is,'" Trueman determines. According to the ADF attorney, the way these cases have previously been handled has been on the basis of local community standards. But Trueman suggests that if the Ninth Circuit's ruling stands, it could make convictions far more difficult than they currently are. He is hopeful the decision will be appealed.
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