Patrick A. Trueman: “Obscenity: Do nothing in the face of evil, evil prevails”
By Patrick A. Trueman
Special Counsel to the Alliance Defense Fund
____________
Tony Gonzalez reports at NewsVirginian:
A jury found Krial and his company guilty of two counts of misdemeanor obscenity in August, nearly one year after undercover police officers purchased sexually explicit DVDs from the store. Krial received a $1,000 fine and no jail time, The store received a $1,500 fine. The defense team asked Circuit Court Judge Thomas H. Wood for and was granted a motion to set aside the verdict and not enter a judgment for 60 days.
The article further indicates that the guilty verdict in this Staunton, VA obscenity case is being appealed. A lighter sentence was imposed, because misdemeanor charges were brought. But, under applicable Virginia laws, subsequent offenses could result in felony charges. It is probable that the fear of new and enhanced charges has kept the store closed since the verdict was handed down.
There is a very important lesson in this case and that lesson is this: if you do nothing in the face of evil, evil prevails. The Staunton prosecutor, Ray Robertson, took on the two top pornography industry defense lawyers in prosecuting the owner of the porn shop that opened in his town. Ray was not deterred. The law was on his side and the jury responded despite all that the porn lawyers threw at the case. Concerned citizens should contact their local and federal prosecutors and encourage them to do what Ray did. I have observed over my 22 years of work against pornography that nearly every obscenity case is won, whether the case is brought on the state or federal level. The only problem is getting prosecutors to indict.
What we need to do is find the Ray Robertsons in the country. Not every prosecutor will do what Ray did, but we need to keep asking and we need to keep demanding that obscenity laws be enforced. Some prosecutors will respond favorably. For those that do, help is available. ADF has an obscenity prosecution manual. There are briefs and motions available from other successful cases. I am sure that Ray Robertson would share all his legal work and his insights and knowledge. We need to be earnest about this. We cannot let the pornography industry continue to ruin our country.
Toward the end of the Administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to the end of the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Patrick Trueman served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Criminal Division.
Visit: www.communitydefense.org