Free-speech advocates filed a federal appeals-court brief Monday in an effort to overturn a law that makes it a crime to publish or transmit images that purport to portray children involved in sexual acts.
Arguing that "sexually explicit, non-obscene speech is protected by the First Amendment," William Bennett Turner, a noted First Amendment attorney, filed a brief with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the constitutionality of the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act.
US District Court Judge Samuel Conti in August ruled to uphold the law that criminalizes images that appear to be of children in sexually explicit poses.
The images are illegal "even if they are adults that look young or are computer-generated images," Turner noted. His friend-of-the-court brief was filed on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the Periodical & Book Association of America, and Feminists For Free Expression, in support of the principal plaintiff in the case, the Free Speech Coalition.
The brief argues that the basis for Conti's decision, which takes into consideration the secondary effects of images that appear to be of children, is not constitutional. "Even if no children are involved in the production of sexually explicit materials, the devastating ... effect that such materials have on society and the well-being of children merits the regulation of such images," Conti wrote in his August decision.
Turner responded in his brief: "The secondary effects rationale is extremely hazardous to free speech, because it has no limits and can justify any kind of speech restriction. The government and others who wish to suppress or restrict certain speech can always think up undesirable 'secondary effects' believed to follow from the content of speech at issue."
