CHATSWORTH, Calif. - In a decision that is bound to have enormous impact on the Adult entertainment industry, obscenity charges against producer Rob Black and his wife Lizzy Borden of Extreme Associates were thrown out of court today by a federal judge in Pittsburgh. “I’m still speechless,” Black told AVN.com. “All ten counts against us were dismissed.” He said that U.S. District Court Judge Gary Lancaster made the dismissal on the grounds that obscenity laws are unconstitutional. “We find that the federal obscenity statutes place a burden on the exercise of the fundamental rights of liberty, privacy and speech,” wrote Judge Lancaster in his opinion. “I now have made fucking history,” said the jubilant Black. The Extreme Associates case was the first federal obscenity prosecution against a video manufacturer in over a decade. “It makes everything perfect,” he added.
“The business has been going great and all of a sudden my lawyer calls up and said I won.” “This is the greatest news I’ve ever had,” Black said. Black’s laywer, H. Louis Sirkin, told AVN.com, “It’s very gratifying to have been a part of what I think is a historic landmark decision. Even though it’s on the first level, hopefully this will have a catalyst effect across the country on any federal obscenity cases that are currently pending.” Sirkin said it shows the importance of the Bill of Rights, not just the right to free speech but the right to substantive due process. “We have a liberty interest to find sexual entertainment and to find media material that might be stimulating, and we have a right to view that, for whatever purposes we want to use it for,” he said.
Noting that the judge based his decision on the Supreme Court’s Lawrence vs. Texas ruling last year, which struck down a Texas sodomy statute, Sirkin said, “This court has adopted the language of what Justice Scalia had said in his dissenting opinion in Lawrence.” Scalia wrote in part that the decision “called into question” laws against obscenity and various other offenses. In a statement from the Justice Department, U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said, “We are very disappointed by the court’s decision to dismiss the indictment in U.S. v. Extreme Associates, et al. As we set forth in the pleadings we filed in the case, we continue to believe that the federal obscenity statutes are valid and constitutional, including as applied in this case. “We are reviewing the ruling and examining our options, which could include an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.” Internet attorney Lawrence G. Walters, a partner in the firm of Weston, Garrou & DeWitt, called the decision “a tremendous victory for Rob Black, for the Adult industry, and for the First Amendment.” He told AVN.com that before the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas ruling, government had been able to show it had a “compelling interest” in restricting sexual activities. But Lawrence v. Texas said in effect that the government can no longer use “compelling interest” as a rationale for suppressing what adults many do in private. The Black ruling extends this concept to Adult entertainment. In effect, Walters said, “you should be able to see what you’re able to do.” Quoting once again from Judge Lancaster’s opinion: “After Lawrence, the government can no longer rely on the advancement of a moral code, i.e., preventing consenting adults from entertaining lewd or lascivious thoughts, as a legitimate, let alone a compelling state interest.” Walters cautioned that since the case ended in a dismissal, not an acquittal, the government will likely appeal. “You can’t count your chickens too soon,” he said. “But we must have faith that the appellate courts will do the right thing.” Well-known First Amendment attorney Paul Cambria told AVN.com, “I applaud this judge for the decision and, furthermore, his standing up and being counted.” Cambria compared the case to his own successful fight on behalf of Al Goldstein in the 1970s. Then, he said, the government chose not to appeal, stating that by appealing it elevates the case to a higher level, which means that it will have a broader scope. This means, he said, that if it is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, the only aspect of X-rated films that will be illegal will be child porn. “If this case is elevated through a higher court and is dismissed, on up to the Supreme Court and gets dismissed, that will change everything. Everybody will get into the business of making Adult entertainment,” he said. Greg Piccionelli, an Internet and patent attorney with the Los Angeles-based law firm Piccionelli & Sarno, told AVN.com, "This is a banner day for the First Amendment, and the equivalent of Pearl Harbor for the Religious Right. “If the ruling is appealed and ultimately upheld - and I can say with absolute certitude that [this ruling] will be on the front burner for every conservative and religious right-winger in the country - it means that privacy law has evolved. It will alter what is permissible for the government to do, and it will obliterate the notion that community standards trump personal privacy." Regarding an appeal, Sirkin said, “I’m certain the government will explore it. They don’t take losses well. If they appeal it we’re prepared to defend our position. We’ll just take it a step at a time, but it’s a beginning, and it’s a very important beginning.” Asked about the decision’s effect on new federal obscenity indictments, Sirkin said, “I should think it would make [the Justice Department] start to think again about the prosecutions. I think this is a momentum-shifting event. It will hopefully slow them down and cause them to rethink the positions that they’re taking.” Perhaps most importantly, he said, the adult industry “can really feel protected that they are making available to the public that which the public is entitled to receive.”
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