More Handley reactions
A lot of talk everywhere about Christopher Handley’s guilty plea for owning obscene material. As always, go to Brigid for the complete rundown, but a few call-outs.
§ Lawyer Jeff Trexler points out some very important facts, including the fact that because the case did not go to trial, it did not set a precedent. But he’s also frank about the realities:
Local counsel versus the CBLDF. The decision of local counsel to work for a plea bargain was not irrational. In fact, it reflects a sober assessment of the law and the underlying facts. The chance of success on the constitutional claim was slim, perhaps non-existent. Moreover, the manga images in question did not appear to be the sort of thing that an Iowa jury would find to have socially redeeming value. No matter how many manga experts or First Amendment scholars you bring into court, your average midwestern juror is not going to declare “graphic bestiality, including sexual intercourse, between human beings and animals such as pigs, monkeys, and others” to be a reflection of community standards.
Over at Japanator, someone claiming to be a friend of the Handley family is posting,
The list went on and on. The thing of it is, the four comics that started this whole mess, he didn’t even see what pictures were inside of it. At one point, they even tried to claim that he was a child molester (never at ANY time has Chris been inappropriate with a child. NEVER) They stated that they could prove that he had a thing for kids. They never found ANYTHING other than comics and drawings of anime. PERIOD. They claimed that since the females in the drawings had no pubic hair, then they must be minor children. Which is ridiculous. They tried to claim that he was a threat to society. He’s not a threat to anybody. He had told his sister that he was taking the plea for obscene materials, because that he was guilty of. But he was NOT guilty of obscene materials containing children. The “containing children” part was not told to him by his lawyer. I think Chris got screwed three ways to Sunday on this.
But you should take all that with a grain of salt.
After talking to a few people in the know about this case, it is important to stress in all of this is that Handley does not have a history of being any kind of sexual predator; he does not collect erotica, pornography or anything like it. He is a manga collector. As the poster above, whoever it is, points out, he is not a threat to anyone anywhere. He could be any one of us. Hopefully this plea bargain will get him less than 15 years in jail, because that would be a travesty of justice of sickening proportions.
The takeaway? It’s always a good time to support the CBLDF.
05/22/09 at 12:43 pm
Has Val D’orazio pulled a Helen Lovejoy again?
05/22/09 at 12:46 pm
It’s important to remember that “15 years in prison” is the statutory maximum for Handley’s offense, and his actual sentence will most likely be much lower. Federal judges use something called the United States Sentencing Guidelines to calculate an appropriate sentencing range for a defendant. The guidelines calculate the sentencing range based on a number of factors, including the nature of the crime and the criminal history of the defendant. In addition, a defendant can reduce the guideline range by agreeing to plead guilty and admit guilt. The guideline range is considered advisory, but it’s uncommon for judges to deviate wildly from it. Since Handley pled guilty and, I assume, does not have a criminal history, his sentence most likely won’t be anywhere near the statutory maximum.
05/22/09 at 1:23 pm
This might also be a great opportunity for American Manga fans to have a discussion about the more ef’d up aspects of the medium in Japan and what it and isn’t legal and acceptable in the U.S. As the Manga in question is described, I don’t think there’s anyway that stuff is not going to put people in jeopardy of violating obscenity/child porn laws. Unless you want to rely on the indulgence of your local law enforcement, it might be a good idea to start coming up with a list of questionable Manga to avoid.
Mike
05/22/09 at 1:50 pm
“it might be a good idea to start coming up with a list of questionable Manga to avoid.”
Perfect. That way, we’ll know where to start with the fires. Why not just stop by the police station or the local church, mosque, and synagogue and have them review our collections as well, to ensure everybody is comfortable? Also, we should come up with a list of the artists and writers creating this trash, so we can ensure they get the psychiatric help they so clearly need.
05/22/09 at 2:18 pm
It’s unfortunate that Handley purchased material containing graphic bestiality. As Trexler commented, trying to defend such material on its merits is difficult. First Amendment absolutism is a principled stand, but invoking the “slippery slope” threat whenever something odious is attacked eventually becomes ineffective.
SRS
05/22/09 at 2:49 pm
“The takeaway? It’s always a good time to support the CBLDF.”
It’s been a while since I wrote this, and I’ve noticed a few type O’s (get it) but here are my feelings (with all due respect) on that statement…
http://christophermoonlight.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-comic-book-legal-defense-fund.html
I don’t know. Maybe I just get turned off when fear is the motivator. I mean the CBLDF didn’t do Handley much good anyway, and where was the publisher of this manga? I didn’t see them backing Christopher up at all. Doesn’t anybody think they should have taken some responsibility for their content, no matter where in the world they are?
05/22/09 at 3:09 pm
To build on Steven R Stahl’s observation re the slippery slope argument, there’s a trenchant illustration of this in the Ninth Circuit Schales case that I cite in my first post today. The following excerpt should be noted by anyone would concerned with comics & law–the argument that the law at issue in Handley is bad because it would criminalize comics misses the point that obscene comics were already not protected by the First Amendment, at least according to contemporary obscenity jurisprudence established literally decades ago:
“Schales’s parade of horribles that paper dolls, stick fig-
ures, and wooden toys are going to be criminalized by this
statute is illusory. For a work to be obscene it must appeal to
the prurient interest, be patently offensive in light of commu-
nity standards, and lack serious literary, artistic, political, or
scientific value. Miller, 413 U.S. at 24. Obscenity can, of
course, manifest itself in many different types of mediums. In
Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115 (1973), the Supreme
Court stated that when it ‘declared that obscenity is not a form of expression
protected by the First Amendment, no distinction
was made as to the medium of the expression.
Obscenity can, of course, manifest itself in conduct,
in the pictorial representation of conduct, or in the
written and oral description of conduct.’”
05/22/09 at 4:35 pm
The CBLDF is an important organization. So is the ACLU. Even if you don’t like the decisions they make on which subjects to be involved with, the organizations have to be there. The other choice would be to lie in the dirt like whimpering dogs just accepting the fate that others have decreed.
If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
05/22/09 at 4:44 pm
“It’s important to remember that “15 years in prison” is the statutory maximum for Handley’s offense, and his actual sentence will most likely be much lower.”
Yeah, but this guys likes comic books, so let’s make an example out of him!
05/22/09 at 4:46 pm
This gets sadder and sadder. It sounds more like the law just rolling in on itself b/c the potential for this kind of lawsuit could eventually be put into jurors who are more informed than the ‘locals’.
This kind of thing needs a lawyer who can take this to more than just getting Handley’s acquitted, but also raise enough hell for the objective to question the Constitutional rights and how these laws govern. Surely, there’s someone out there willing to fight for freedom of ideas!
Yeah, he took the easy way out (possibly) but if he fought it, there should be some lawyer willing to fight with him. I don’t like what Trexler is saying in that article.
05/22/09 at 5:37 pm
“but invoking the ’slippery slope’ threat whenever something odious is attacked eventually becomes ineffective.”
If it isn’t already ineffective.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just get turned off when fear is the motivator. I mean the CBLDF didn’t do Handley much good anyway, and where was the publisher of this manga? I didn’t see them backing Christopher up at all. Doesn’t anybody think they should have taken some responsibility for their content, no matter where in the world they are?”
How far down the slippery slope is this? Where were lolicon fans during the other controversies in comics fandom - standing up for other comics fans, or going “but that’s not our problem”?
05/22/09 at 6:00 pm
@michael–It’s good to find someone so committed to principle. I’m committed as well, which is why I spend so much time researching and writing these posts to help people develop more effective strategies.
However, there is a slight problem. For the dedicated lawyer’s efforts to have any practical effect there has to be what the law calls a case or controversy.
So I have a proposition for you. Move to a small town in a red state and start buying loads of lolicon online, so much so that you attract the attention of the feds. Then, when law enforcement is investigating every minute detail of your life, your family, your friends, your job and your comic shops–and multiple news outlets start publicly branding you as a notorious pedophile–publicly commit to spend all you have to bring in the nation’s best First Amendment lawyers and to pursue your case all the way up to the Supreme Court, even if it means you have to spend fifteen years in jail and pay a $250,000 fine for *each count* on which you’re found guilty.
After you’ve staked your own life on the cause, drop me a line and I’ll do what I can to help.
05/22/09 at 6:09 pm
The “slippery slope” argument is a weak way of defending objectionable material, because the argument doesn’t actually defend the material at issue. Instead, the argument attacks the law that’s the basis for the prosecution. The attorney, in effect, concedes that, yes, his client’s material is worthless, and can be considered obscene by reasonable people, but if you prosecute him, then “x” number of people owning material that the law might apply to will fear for their well-being.
Graphic bestiality that’s created for its own sake is one type of material that reasonable people can agree is obscene and should be prohibited. If a fantasy fan argues that, well, then depiction of sex between a centaur and a human might be illegal too, then one would have to question the context of the material, along with pointing out that a centaur isn’t actually an animal.
SRS
05/22/09 at 6:30 pm
“Graphic bestiality that’s created for its own sake is one type of material that reasonable people can agree is obscene and should be prohibited.”
I see this rhetorical argument again and again — I think it originates with Plato — “that all reasonable men will agree.” It’s rather a nicer construction of the old “When did you stop hitting your wife?” in which there is no way to honestly respond because by definition only “unreasonable” people would disagree with the statement. In this case, I disagree. I might think graphic beastiality is gross, but why should it be prohibited? No one is harmed in its creation, no one is harmed in its consumption, because it is _all in someone’s head_.
And talk about splitting hairs, “the centaur isn’t actually an animal.” So you’d have no problem with graphic demon sex, because demons aren’t animals? But what if they were child demons? Ah, horns of a dilemma.
05/22/09 at 6:55 pm
“The CBLDF is an important organization. So is the ACLU. Even if you don’t like the decisions they make on which subjects to be involved with, the organizations have to be there. The other choice would be to lie in the dirt like whimpering dogs just accepting the fate that others have decreed.”
That’s what they tell me. I remember George Bush telling us if we re-elected him, he’d keep the world safe too. He knew that 911 still freaked (still freaks) the crap out of us every day so we kept him in. Now look at what a happy country we are. Fear. They’re going to have to do better than invoking it in me before I’ll want to give them my money. I’ll tell that to the CBLD, the ACLU, and TV preachers alike. The publishers should be the ones footing the legal bills anyway, I think. They put it out there. If they think it’s their right to do it, than shouldn’t they stand ready to defend those who would catch hell for buying it from them? Is it right that others fight, give money, and suffer, while they continue to put their books out and make money off of them? I’m just asking you to think about these things before you give groups of people you know very little about your complete trust, faith, and hard earned cash. Like I said before, “Give us money and we’ll keep America safe.” didn’t work to well for Christopher Handley, but I’m sure he’ll make a great martyr for them. God bless the poor guy. This is so much bigger than he is.
05/22/09 at 6:59 pm
Quoth Mr. Moonlight: I mean the CBLDF didn’t do Handley much good anyway
The Gordon case shows that the CBLDF is willing to go to the mat and spend tens of thousands of dollars for even a Misdemeanor first amendment issue case.
Handley chose of his own free will to take a plea. It wasn’t as if the CBLDF wasn’t standing behind him or abandoned him. They never got a chance to fully climb in the ring.
05/22/09 at 7:03 pm
First Amendment absolutists have trouble making a practical case for their philosophy, because the “slippery slope” is the only argument they have. Telling the difference between a functional story and a set of images that are intended only to sexually stimulate isn’t difficult. In the case of the centaur, the artist could choose to focus on the human aspects of the creature, or he could choose to focus on the equine aspects, and if the only definable reason the artwork existed was to show a human having sex with a horse, then I wouldn’t object to having that considered an instance of graphic bestiality. People who find material obscene can’t all be dismissed as dimwits.
SRS
05/22/09 at 7:12 pm
But why should the fact that _you_ consider something obscene require that I not experience it? And why should you be the one to dictate how an artist should or should not express themselves? How much of the horse’s rump am I allowed to see before it becomes “obscene” in your opinion? And at what point does it degenerate into MPAA style ludicrousness where we’re counting the number of thrusts into a pie and determining that 3 thrusts is funny, and 4 thrusts is obscene?
So far you really haven’t advanced much of an argument other than people shouldn’t look at things you find icky, and apparently you are absolutely sure that no one (aside from degenerates and unreasonable people) would differ on what you consider to be the ick.
05/22/09 at 7:20 pm
Also, a practical case for free speech absolutism: Speech harms no one and is essential for a functioning, free society, therefore there is no public interest in regulating it. To show why it should be regulated, you need to describe the harm that it can potentially cause.
I understand that seem people believe speech can cause harm because of the environment it creates or the urges it encourages, and while I disagree, those are at least arguments. To simply declare that some things must obviously be regulated without specifying why or to what end seems specious at best.
05/22/09 at 7:48 pm
“…a centaur isn’t actually an animal.”
Neither is a drawing.
“People who find material obscene can’t all be dismissed as dimwits.”
And people who don’t believe a drawing is substantively different from a photograph of the same subject can’t all be dismissed as unreasonable.
05/22/09 at 7:50 pm
Whoops. That last should read “People who believe a drawing…”
05/22/09 at 8:08 pm
“The Gordon case shows that the CBLDF is willing to go to the mat and spend tens of thousands of dollars for even a Misdemeanor first amendment issue case.”
Sure they are. They love the crusade. I just think that they should ask the publishers to foot the bill, instead of using fear to get money out of the stores and the readers who end up with it. From what I’ve read (but there’s more to read than I have time for) Handley’s goose was deep fried in that state. Hey, I could be totally wrong. I realize I’ve been working both sides of this. That’s the downfall of being non-nonpartisan. One day it’ll drive me mad, and I’ll have a split personality. One will molest the other. I’ll just sit in a padded cell, molesting myself, which is what what most of my adversaries accuse me of doing anyway, so at last they’ll be right about something. I hope I wont need the ACLU for making that joke.
05/22/09 at 8:13 pm
Wait, wait, wait. Someone has a photograph of a centaur?
05/22/09 at 8:14 pm
General question… The Miller Test… does that apply to the child pornography law? Should people who own the Aristocrats DVD or a copy of Lolita be concerned?
Hmmm… I see notices on adult comics about models and characters being 18 or older, but no specific 2257 notices.
05/22/09 at 8:58 pm
It wasn’t the CBLDF’s call that Mr. Handley decided to plead guilty. I literally can’t imagine what he’s going through.
@ “People who find material obscene can’t all be dismissed as dimwits..”
I own LOST GIRLS. There’s some other comics-for-grownups in the collection. Graphic beastiality? Noooooooo. But would I want my local community to decide what is or isn’t obscene - to them? Then forbid me to have it? Nooooooooo. I wouldn’t dismiss someone who found LOST GIRLS obscene as a dmimwit, but I also wouldn’t want someone to make that choice for me.
The CBLDF is an important organization for many reasons. Most comics creators & retailers that I know are not big-shot types & they’d be devastated personally & financially by dealing with this sort of legal issue. Without the Fund they’d have no resources to help them out.
I’m sorry for Mr. Handley, & yet also weirdly relieved this case is less likely to be used as a precedent.
05/22/09 at 9:54 pm
@Torsten That’s the strategic shift that the obscenity regulators made–framing the statute in terms of obscenity & Miller. This gets past previous constitutional objections, since obscene material is not protected. Creating a separate statute for obscene material with children serves a political purpose & provides a basis for enhanced sentencing.
Speaking of sentencing, it’s an issue that adult video industry has faced squarely for years vis a vis trial management. Check out this guide, for example, which has an opening quite relevant for the Handley plea. It’s just safe for work legal analysis, in case anyone’s concerned: http://www.adultindustryupdate.com/archives/Sentencing%20Article%2011-04.pdf
As for 2257 & adult comics, I’m not familiar with such comics’ content. Are these typically visual depictions of actual sexual conduct? If so, there may be an issue.
05/22/09 at 11:33 pm
“Wait, wait, wait. Someone has a photograph of a centaur?”
Yes I do, Tom. Hop in my car and we’ll take a ride back to my house. I’ll show it to you there. You don’t need to tell your parents. We won’t be gone long. Tell me, have you ever had wine out of a Pepse can?
05/23/09 at 1:26 am
Steven-
I get where you’re coming from, but I think the fundamental difference is that your premise is somewhat false. The slippery slope is not all that First Amendment “absolutists” have, and it’s not even the basis of the argument. The basis of the argument is that, as they stand, obscenity laws are vague. They rely on the idea that the “community” will police itself and somehow always be fair and able to distinguish what is “truly” obscene from what is not.
There is ample evidence that this is not the case. And while it may seem odd to have to defend work that it seems “obvious” is obscene and wrong and without value…it’s not. Because the same ideas are applied to works that are not without value, but because value is something that is often a matter of individual interpretation, such vague ideas of value and obscenity can then (and are) applied to works as varying as Losts Girls, to Hentai Manga, to Fun Home. In many communities homosexuality is viewed as obscene. Many books and films and art depicting it have been banned over the years by this very same criteria. Because the line of what we culturally view as obscene shifts.
So while the line between porn or obscenity and art may seem obvious, it isn’t always. And it’s why even things that are distasteful to the individual should be up to the individual to decide for themselves.
I mean, no one is defending actual child pornography or bestiality. What we’re talking about is thought policing and the line between doing something and depicting something in a fictional or non-photo based image. That line seems really important to me, however gross I may personally find an individual work. Many people would use the same words to describe Fun Home, or a Judy Blume book. Which would, I think, seem ridiculous to most people in this thread. But wouldn’t to others.
05/23/09 at 8:38 am
“This might also be a great opportunity for American Manga fans to have a discussion about the more ef’d up aspects of the medium in Japan and what it and isn’t legal and acceptable in the U.S.”
Check out this link, to a blog by a Canadian living in Japan:
http://www.gottsu-iiyan.ca/gib/index.php/2009/03/27/you-say-anime-i-say-motion-comic
“…Worse than the use of words like anime and manga, are the common category terms. Some of those terms that have no business being used by anyone who would agree that Japanese society is wrong for continuing to openly marginalize and demean women, doing little to protect innocent children from sexual predators, and giving homosexuals no rights other than to provide entertainment by parading flamboyantly around on television like traveling circus performers.
I’m talking about shonen-ai, yaoi, yuri, lolicon, hentai and all those other words non-Japanese toss around as if they didn’t really mean what they mean. I don’t see anyone writing about those things using their English equivalents. I wonder why?
“Seriously, I want to know why the hell some things are okay only if referred to in Japanese! I wonder if people even really know what they are talking about, or if they would talk about that stuff in English outside their fan communities. Do any of you self-proclaimed otaku have any idea what that really means in Japan and the stigma that’s attached to it?
But that’s a whole other topic…
“I think it’s the misuse of the larger terms like manga and anime that leads to insular communities using all kind of foreign terms like kids using secret codes in a tree house and they end up totally detached from reality without even noticing. That image is getting attached to everything out of Japan and it’s a shame, for both Japan and the normal fans of Japanese entertainment.
“Maybe things like the recognition that Hayao Miyazaki and studio Ghibli are (finally!) getting, and Kunio Kato’s Oscar win will start to help change that and open up doors for other creators, and minds as to what Japan is really about. At least I hope so, because it’s about time we all stopped letting people who think pouring teriyaki sauce on chicken makes it Japanese, and cartoons about little girls seducing their teachers is normal after-school entertainment, from deciding what is representative of Japan and what isn’t…”
05/23/09 at 9:26 am
Artistry isn’t all about testing the limits of acceptability and doing whatever it takes to elicit some sort of reaction. There has to be some intellectual content to justify the “art” label, and obscene material doesn’t have such content. Groaning in disgust and/or thinking “What an (expletive deleted)” isn’t an intellectual reaction.
If the work in question does have intellectual content that can be described readily, it can be defended against criticism on that basis, and the “slippery slope” argument won’t be needed, or even relevant. If the artist runs into trouble in a local community and faces prosecution, he’ll have to deal with the situation and trust that the appeals process, if nothing else, will rectify the problem. Testing limits entails risks.
Raising hypothetical doubts about what’s obscene and what isn’t defies common sense and social values. The boundaries between “obscene” and “not obscene” are more clear-cut than absolutists would care to admit. Before an artist produces something, asking himself “Can this be defended against criticism?” should eliminate concerns about being prosecuted for producing obscene material.
SRS
05/23/09 at 10:32 am
“Before an artist produces something, asking himself “Can this be defended against criticism?” should eliminate concerns about being prosecuted for producing obscene material.”
I think this statement encapsulates the difference between your thinking and mine as I do not believe an artist has any obligation to defend the very existence of their work, regardless of any arbitrary social or legal framework which might attempt to impose that requirement.
05/23/09 at 10:56 am
Christopher Moonlight says: I just think that they should ask the publishers to foot the bill, instead of using fear to get money out of the stores and the readers who end up with it. .
Sir, do you know *anything* about the CBLDF other than a few vague details? Publishers have almost never stepped up to the plate — most only do it when one of their creators is sued.
Many publishers are small and can’t afford to pony up that kind of cash.
The CBLDF started because of “if not us, then who?” Yes, I agree that it would be wonderful if more publishers would stand up and directly support the retailers and customers in cases like this, but I’m not going to hold my breath and wait for somebody else to swoop in and save the day. If not us, who?
As for fearmongering, I don’t think the CBLDF has ever used unfounded fears to solicit donations. And frankly, the reality of what I’ve seen is scary enough to convince me to give substantially to the CBLDF.
Moreover, the CBLDF has a “corporate membership” program and there are several publishers who have dontated tens of thousands of dollars — not just to defend their own stuff — but in support of the nobler ideal of free speech itself; the CBLDF is active in reaching out to corporations for support.
I would like to kindly invite you to examine the facts of the matter before you spout any more calumny about the CBLDF.
05/23/09 at 12:34 pm
chris7crows Says:
“…I do not believe an artist has any obligation to defend the very existence of their work, regardless of any arbitrary social or legal framework which might attempt to impose that requirement. ”
As an artist. I both agree and disagree with you.
There’s the “artist” who just wants to do what they want to do for the sake of art.
The “fine artist”
That’s all nice and fine. Let them.
Even let them have gallery shows that are open to people who might find it art.
But then there are “professional artists” who put their work into print and get it out to hundreds, thousands, and maybe even millions of readers.
Those artists NEED to consider their impact on society as they have a much wider demographic.
The same way we tell athletes they need to be role models…
We as creators DO have a responsibility to our fans, society, etc.
If you know your book is going to be distributed worldwide…and you choose to do child porn…be ready for some repercussions.
I don’t’ think calling it “art” or calling yourself an “artist” gives you carte blanche to do whatever the hell you feel. Despite how it may hurt or offend others.
We do have responsibilities.
05/23/09 at 1:12 pm
Publishers have almost never stepped up to the plate — most only do it when one of their creators is sued.
That was my point.
“Many publishers are small and can’t afford to pony up that kind of cash.”
Then maybe they should think a little harder about how their content will effect the public who carries and buys it. Not having any money does not absolve you from your responsibilities to those who git into trouble for what you publish.
05/23/09 at 1:44 pm
I should note at this point that it is in my nature to play Devil’s advocate from time to time, even if I do agree with something I’m saying. I’ll never say when that is, because then people don’t pay the questions any heed. I remember when the CBLDF began. I watched a lot of people buy into them, because they were afraid. Not everyone did for that reason, but a lot. I have always resented people who try to influence with fear and suspicion. Innocent people have been burned as witches and jailed as communists so that others can have their power, while their supporters can sleep a little more sound in their beds. Is that the case here? I don’t know. I really don’t, but I suspect it is on both sides of this ugly little game. So, I raise these questions, not to tell you to not support one side or the other, but just to ask you to really think about why you are doing so. To tell you the truth, I see these guys the some way I see politicians, when they talk. It’s all about who’s in power. As my good friend Dave Grave once said, “You can vote one way, and get hit over the head with a red hammer, vote another, and get hit in the head with a blue hammer, and every once in a while you get the choice of a designer yellow hammer. Me, I’m just tired of getting hit in the head with hammers.”
…and that’s me.
05/23/09 at 3:43 pm
@Scott:
I agree with you in the sense that an artist needs to keep in mind the market they are pursuing _if_ they are engaging in commercial publication, and I don’t believe that free speech implies an obligation on the behalf of any publisher. Publishers are and should be free to select and distribute whatever material they feel best serves their market.
But that’s separate from the actual act of creation by an individual, which I don’t think should be restricted nor do I think it is in the best interests of society to do so. As an example, while I wouldn’t necessarily be interested in buying copies of Mike Diana’s “Boiled Angel” — and wouldn’t fault a publisher who chose not to distribute it — that’s a far cry from saying that Diana shouldn’t be allowed to create it in the first place.
05/23/09 at 4:18 pm
So, has Christopher Moonlight decided that the CBLDF is obscene?
05/23/09 at 4:19 pm
And such logic as “The publishers never donate, so you shouldn’t either” is just improper logic.
05/23/09 at 4:46 pm
@chris7crows…
That makes sense.
I totally agree.
05/23/09 at 11:36 pm
No Alan, that’s wrong on both counts. Please, take the time to read my posts again.
05/23/09 at 11:48 pm
I think there comes a point in discussions like these where I just get to worn down by them. Where others would become more angry and/or passionate, I just feel kind of tired and sad. Besides, I’ve said mostly everything I have to say on the matter (which seems to open to greater interpretation than I would have ever anticipated) and I have to much of a conflicted nature myself to carry on. SO, I’m respectfully bowing out of this stream. God bless you and keep you all, and buy you a Mercedes-Bez, and merry Christmas, and good night.
05/24/09 at 10:58 am
“The CBLDF is an important organization. So is the ACLU. Even if you don’t like the decisions they make on which subjects to be involved with, the organizations have to be there. The other choice would be to lie in the dirt like whimpering dogs just accepting the fate that others have decreed.
“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
Not standing for the CBLDF and/or ACLU doesn’t mean not standing for something. It’s easy to stand for something else instead of the CBLDF and/or ACLU. Someone can even stand for free speech without standing for them (ever heard of Reporters Without Borders?).
05/24/09 at 11:42 am
[…] For the two people out there who have not heard, Christopher Handley, the manga collector whose imported comics were intercepted by customs agents, has plead guilty to owning obscene material. Many links and analysis available here. After talking to a few people in the know about this case, it is important to stress in all of this is that Handley does not have a history of being any kind of sexual predator; he does not collect erotica, pornography or anything like it. He is a manga collector. As the poster above, whoever it is, points out, he is not a threat to anyone anywhere. He could be any one of us. Hopefully this plea bargain will get him less than 15 years in jail, because that would be a travesty of justice of sickening proportions. […]
05/24/09 at 2:16 pm
The material Mr. Handley owned was obscene by most reasonable standards (including my own), but so what? I would say that his community has a legal right to prevent him displaying his obscene reading material in a public space (like on the sidewalk, public park or even in his own home if he puts in clear view of an open window), but if no actual persons were harmed in the making of his pornography/erotica of choice, then the state has absolutely no cause to charge him with any crime whatsoever because he hasn’t committed one. Even if the material in question does contain something as vile as drawings/descriptions of underage fornication (an issue most definitely in dispute), it still shouldn’t be illegal.
I’ve never smoked marijuana in my life and generally think that drug-taking of any sort is terrible, no-good rotten thing.
Yet I don’t think drug use of any kind should be illegal.
We are all masters of our own lives and are free under the constitution (on free speech, free association and privacy grounds) to live as we see fit so long as we do not violate the rights of others in the process.
05/24/09 at 4:24 pm
I remember when the CBLDF began. I watched a lot of people buy into them, because they were afraid. Not everyone did for that reason, but a lot. I have always resented people who try to influence with fear and suspicion. Innocent people have been burned as witches and jailed as communists so that others can have their power, while their supporters can sleep a little more sound in their beds. Is that the case here?
So, let me get this straight — you’re comparing the CBLDF to people who orchestrate witchhunts? CBLDF, the organization devoted to protecting artists from precisely the type of witchhunts you’re talking about?
Also, if you’re making it your job to play devil’s advocate in the middle of a heated discussion, I don’t think you get to complain about how it wears you down and makes you feel “tired and sad.” Or you can, but it makes you laughable.
05/24/09 at 5:14 pm
“I don’t think you get to complain about how it wears you down and makes you feel “tired and sad.” Or you can, but it makes you laughable.”
When people get mean and twist what I have to say, to make their own arguments more sound, that’s when I get “tired and sad.” Devil advocate can played in a civil and fair fashion, but there are some here who just don’t play that way. That’s why I’m bowing out. That doesn’t however mean I’m not still reading, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take pot shots while you think my back is turned. You’ll notice that I have not done that to anyone here. That’s how I show my respect for others (and many of you here do have great respect from me) who’s opinions I do not always agree with.
05/24/09 at 9:25 pm
I felt pretty confident that your “Goodbye, cruel comments section!” post was largely theatrical, and that you were probably still sitting there pushing F5 to see if anyone reacted to you. Good to know that I was right!
Be sure to let us all know when you’re going to pretend to leave again, as this will contribute significantly to our discussion of the Handley case.
05/25/09 at 12:08 am
I think someone’s got a crush on me.
05/25/09 at 4:09 am
Anybody on this comment thread lived in Iowa?
No?
Then you’re not remotely qualified to comment on things involving a jury of peers in Southern Iowa.
05/25/09 at 8:36 am
Has anyone seen the images in question? The prosecutors saw the pics and they thought they were obscene. The grand jury saw the pics and they thought they were obscene. Handley and his lawyers have seen the pics and evidently they believed that they could not argue that they were not obscene, otherwise they wouldn’t have accepted a deal.
I’m not saying that the pics were obscene. I haven’t seen them so I cannot really say one way or another. That’s my point. Why doesn’t the CBLDF post the images on their website so we can see for ourselves if in fact they are only lines on paper?
05/25/09 at 11:04 am
There’s commercial art, which Handley purchased, presumably, and non-commercial art. If one considers commercial art as potentially viewable by the public, then it’s subject to regulations and laws that one’s own doodling wouldn’t be.
The artistic validity of LOST GIRLS isn’t an issue with me, as my links in the previous Handley thread indicate. There’s an abundance of intellectual content in the work that separates it from mere drawings that seek, for example, to make minors sexually attractive.
I don’t consider artwork that does nothing except to elicit visceral responses defensible, if the purpose is illegal. It’s just too easy to do, and illegality too easy to avoid. Doing something just to get a reaction from an audience isn’t justification in itself for doing it. If that’s the artist’s only justification — getting a reaction — then he deserves whatever happens to him. Laws can’t be written to protect fools from the consequences of their own actions.
The CBLDF has a useful purpose, I think, but I also think that it shouldn’t have to defend fools who invite trouble. Artists don’t live in cultural vacuums
I believe in the right to privacy, but I don‘t think the principle can be applied to Handley‘s case or to any case involving commercial art. No action can reasonably be taken against someone whose artwork, however much one might be offended by it, is truly private, any more than his diary entries can be censored. Showing the artwork to others, though, invites reactions.
BTW, although I don’t care for scatological humor or some other mechanisms of eliciting visceral responses, I wouldn’t dream of making such humor illegal. Here’s some analysis.
SRS
05/25/09 at 1:37 pm
I think someone’s got a crush on me.
Is it the centaur? Oh, I hope it’s the centaur.
05/25/09 at 3:06 pm
Why doesn’t the CBLDF post the images on their website so we can see for ourselves if in fact they are only lines on paper?
If the mere possession of this material was enough to convince Christopher Handley to cop a plea, I’m just as happy not to have it on my hard drive, thanks. Not to mention the trouble the CBLDF would be opening themselves up to for distribution.
What I find curious is that this material hasn’t been widely identified. I’ve searched through some news stories, yet I can’t find what manga Handley ordered from Japan that was in the package that started all of this. What manga titles were seized from Handley’s house? There are a lot of manga collectors who would probably be curious to know if they own anything that got Handley into legal problems.
05/25/09 at 5:03 pm
If the mere possession of this material was enough to convince Christopher Handley to cop a plea, I’m just as happy not to have it on my hard drive, thanks. Not to mention the trouble the CBLDF would be opening themselves up to for distribution.
They could easily pixelate or blur out the most obscene part, the way others do when they want to show similar material. It would just be a lot easier to understand this if we could actually see what got Handley into trouble.
05/25/09 at 8:54 pm
Doesn’t Akira have a couple of pages of fairly explicit scenes of children having sex? Heck what about Gantz. I’m just waiting for Newsarama or CBR to report on Dark Horse being raided. A wide variety of Manga out there has at least a page or two that could easily be considered obscene.
05/26/09 at 2:54 am
Scott: “The “fine artist” That’s all nice and fine. Let them. Even let them have gallery shows that are open to people who might find it art. But then there are “professional artists” who put their work into print and get it out to hundreds, thousands, and maybe even millions of readers.”
That’s kind of an arbitrary distinction from where I’m standing. I walk by a half dozen art galleries on the way to work and have been offended by some truly obscene landscapes hung in the windows. Galleries frequently make catalogues or artbooks based around their exhibits–are those to be disallowed? Are cameras going to be confiscated at the door to the gallery so nobody can post a photo of a potentially offensive work online where hundreds to millions can see it?
Once a piece of work is in circulation, whether it be in a gallery or a book, it has the potential to reach people who don’t want it and won’t like it. In this particular case, if the individual claiming friendship with the defendant is to be believed, those people actually got between the person who created the work and the individual who wanted to see and presumably judge the offending images for himself.
“If you know your book is going to be distributed worldwide…and you choose to do child porn…be ready for some repercussions.”
Fair enough, and who knows, maybe the artist was ready for some blowback, even legal blowback. But in this instance, it’s a reader who’s in jeopardy for a work of fiction that would presumably have been part of a private collection if things had followed the usual course of buying and selling entertainment.
“I don’t’ think calling it “art” or calling yourself an “artist” gives you carte blanche to do whatever the hell you feel. Despite how it may hurt or offend others.”
If it directly hurts someone, then by all means an artist must bear the responsibility for the repercussions of their art. But offending? Really? Because there’s an awful lot of people who’ve got some jail time coming if that’s the line that can’t be crossed.
Steven: “If that’s the artist’s only justification — getting a reaction — then he deserves whatever happens to him.”
If anyone’s going to take the hit in this case (and seeing as we’re talking about works of fiction, I don’t believe anyone should be subject to legal action), I think it should be the publisher and possibly the artist. Neither of whom, to the best of my knowledge, has had any action taken against them for supplying the allegedly obscene material.
“Doing something just to get a reaction from an audience isn’t justification in itself for doing it.”
It isn’t? I kind of thought getting a reaction, visceral or otherwise, from an audience was the raison d’etre for every piece of artwork that’s ever been seen by someone other than its creator.
Rick: “Handley and his lawyers have seen the pics and evidently they believed that they could not argue that they were not obscene, otherwise they wouldn’t have accepted a deal.”
That’s not necessarily (I’d go far as to say not even likely to be) true. At some point, someone decided the possibility they wouldn’t be able to convince a jury of Iowans to accept their premise and the potential repercussions of that failure would have a greater impact on Handley than the damage that’d be done by accepting a plea bargain. That doesn’t imply that an argument couldn’t be made, and while I as a creator and a reader wish they had made the stand, I can’t fault Handley for not wanting to leave his fate in the hands of twelve strangers.
“Why doesn’t the CBLDF post the images on their website so we can see for ourselves if in fact they are only lines on paper?”
In addition to the legal concerns Doug mentioned above, I suspect the CBLDF and a lot of the other people who know the details of the case don’t want to be perceived as promoting the work in question. Given the circumstances, I’m fairly confident I and almost everyone on this thread would find it abhorrent, but that’s not the issue–whether an adult individual has the right to read and look at the fictional material they choose is.
Todd: “Anybody on this comment thread lived in Iowa?”
I’ve never killed anyone, but I still feel qualified to say murder is wrong.
05/26/09 at 8:30 am
Andrew Foley wrote: “Given the circumstances, I’m fairly confident I and almost everyone on this thread would find it abhorrent, but that’s not the issue–whether an adult individual has the right to read and look at the fictional material they choose is.”
But would we find it obscene? That’s the issue in this case. Whether or not Christopher Handley is guilty of mailing obscenity. The courts have ruled time and time again that the First Amendment does not protect obscenity, especially sending obscenity through the U.S. Mail. If he had not involved the U.S. Postal system, this would not even be an issue.
Since he’s pleaded guilty, it’s really moot at this point.
05/26/09 at 11:10 am
I submit that it’s not possible to depict child-involved bestiality in a way that is sexually stimulating, but not obscene.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to allow the existence of obscene art without creating a libertarian society. The “slippery slope” argument is weak. The right to privacy doesn’t extend to the possession of obscene material. An armchair psychologist can argue that such material allows pedophiles and the like to sate their urges safely, but it’s also possible that allowing that strengthens the urge in some people. News accounts have repeatedly described people acting on the fantasy of having a sex slave.
As for an artist’s justification: Any rational artist who produces offensive material has to consider the possibility that people will find it offensive, and provide an explanation that doubters will accept. He can’t tell people “If you don’t like it, don’t view it again” after they’ve already been offended.
SRS
05/26/09 at 6:55 pm
“But would we find it obscene? That’s the issue in this case.”
That may be an issue for you; for me, the issue is that someone’s facing jail time for attempting to read a fictional work. Whether that work qualifies as obscene by the arbitrary standards of whatever community geography’s landed one in, while obviously relevant to Mr. Handley, means very little to me.
Maybe the whole discussion is good, maybe it lets everyone know where they draw the line. Personally, I think shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre ought to be illegal, and recording the crowd trampling someone to death in the rush to get out of the theatre ought to be as well if you knew it was going to happen. In this case, a guy’s facing years in prison for reading a comic about a fictitious person shouting “Fire” in a fictitious theatre full of fictitious people.
A drawing of a wholly imaginary person or animal is not a person or animal. Any law that doesn’t bother to distinguish between the two is deeply flawed, IMO.
“The “slippery slope” argument is weak.”
You keep saying that, and I’m sure you believe it, but you’ve failed to convince me that it’s true. When someone can be imprisoned for possessing wholly fictional material, the slippery slope isn’t something that *could* happen; you’re halfway down the hill already.
“Any rational artist who produces offensive material has to consider the possibility that people will find it offensive, and provide an explanation that doubters will accept.”
Why should artists be held to that much higher a standard than your average politician, message board troll, or enhanced interrogator?
And with that, I’m backing out of active participation in this discussion. At this stage I reckon pretty much everyone knows where they stand and isn’t going to be swayed by any further arguments I might try and make.
05/27/09 at 5:08 am
What I don’t get is why obscene material isn’t protected under the First Amendment. Especially since obscenity isn’t an absolute. Something should be put through to change the protection to exclude ONLY HARMFUL material and thus a prosecutor would have to prove that someone was actually harmed as a result of this material being FORCED upon them. Community standards is merely code for “not in my backyard” and since we’re a country of individuals with rights and opinions, the rights and opinions of those who DO NOT find something to be obscene should be respected. Those who disagree reserve their right to LOOK AWAY in order to avoid being offended. Certain types of people in this country take their disdain for others who aren’t like them to the next level of doing away with those people and the things they do and that’s just plain wrong. I freely look down on some people and the choices they make, but I would never be so bold as to tell them that they’re not allowed to be who they are and make their choices when there is no present danger to others as a result.
We live in a country where people will stand around and watch a man beat a woman because they “don’t want to get involved in people’s personal problems” but break out the torches when a guy wants to get off to some unusual material which poses no threat to anyone. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for letting shit go at one time or another and this “obscenity” bullshit is a prime example. It’s going to be a different story when something you enjoy comes into question and no one is ready to stand behind you.
“Todd Allen Says:
Anybody on this comment thread lived in Iowa?
No?
Then you’re not remotely qualified to comment on things involving a jury of peers in Southern Iowa”
Yeah, and if you don’t live in Alabama, keep your opinions about black people to yourselves too! Lynchings are perfectly reasonable expressions about our opinions on the topic of race.
Nice try, but no.
“Why doesn’t the CBLDF post the images on their website so we can see for ourselves if in fact they are only lines on paper? ”
Probably because they would be charged with the same and probably a few new violations of the law as the guy in question. How is that not obvious?
“They could easily pixelate or blur out the most obscene part”–there’s that word again. What’s the obscene part? Horse cock? or the IDEA of ENJOYING horse cock? (that’s just an example… I don’t know that there was any horse cock involved.) and again, why should another person be forced to live up to MY views on what’s permissable in the privacy of their own brain/home? It’s not like this guy was plastering posters of it on the side of buildings or securing pages of it under windshield wipers on cars in parking lots.
Rottman: “That’s the issue in this case. Whether or not Christopher Handley is guilty of mailing obscenity.”
Is it? I admit that I’m not well informed about the charges against Mr. Handley in this case (only the vagaries… like the word obscenity), but is there a specific law he’s accused of violating that’s specific to “mailing” obscene things that is separate from simply possessing it?
“The courts have ruled time and time again that the First Amendment does not protect obscenity, especially sending obscenity through the U.S. Mail.”
According to what I’ve read so far, the courts have ruled that the First Amendment doesn’t protect “obscenity” in any form. The involvement of the Postal Service is irrelevant. aside from one major point….
“If he had not involved the U.S. Postal system, this would not even be an issue.”
Sounds to me like the issue is the invasion of privacy BY the US Postal Service. If what you say is true, then it’s not the fact that he received and/or sent obscene material via the US MAIL that is the real issue but rather the fact that the Postal Service opened his mail and he went to jail as a result. He’s not the frickin’ Unabomber. It’s just FICTIONAL MATERIAL of an unusual nature. When did the damn mailman become the Morality Police? “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and all that. No one should be allowed to judge another in any matter that does not result in harm inflicted on another human being through no fault of their own. The only addition to that is ensuring public safety (speed limits, etc), and good luck convincing me that public safety is threated by pictures and words which are kept behind closed doors (or inside sealed boxes, mr mailman). If the guy was reading this stuff on a park bench and showing everyone who walked by, then by all means prosecute him for something…otherwise, mind your own damn business.
(loosely quoted) I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend until my dying breath your right to say it.
Do any of you realize how many laws still exist that are outright stupid? ENFORCIBLE laws!!! They may not be enforced, but the important distinction is that they CAN BE. Laws should not simply be ignored. They need to be rendered unconstitutional by whatever legal maneuvering and jargon is available. It’ll take smarter folks than the lot of us to do so, but when lawyers on a case like this basically think they can’t win and enter a plea instead nothing is solved and the status quo is preserved. The status quo is heavily faulted and the last thing it needs is preservation. How many people think the average person can even understand most laws that are on the books? I’ve tried reading law books, and I’ve wanted to drop one on my head after an hour which due to it’s immense size would have likely killed me. Prop 8 in California is a perfect example. If even one person voted the wrong way (regardless of which way that would be) because they didn’t quite understand what they were either voting FOR or voting AGAINST then this is a problem which needs to be solved. It would be great if we could all understand the laws which govern us after a cursory glance, but then we wouldn’t need lawyers. It’s just never going to happen and steps need to be taken to make the law at least somewhat more understandable BEFORE people either vote on it or violate it. Until then, the qualification of “a jury of your peers” is a joke because half of them probably don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” in the first place so how is ANYONE supposed to know what is or is NOT legal and illegal.
Shit like this really pisses me off. If I were smarter and more courageous, I would make challenging the law my life’s work. As it is, I’m just another schmuck on the internet who is likely to be criticized and labeled or just plain ignored.
Good night, and good luck.
05/27/09 at 9:00 am
Steven S wrote:
“An armchair psychologist can argue that such material allows pedophiles and the like to sate their urges safely, but it’s also possible that allowing that strengthens the urge in some people. News accounts have repeatedly described people acting on the fantasy of having a sex slave.”
And once again, here’s the famous “monkey see monkey do” argument, crafted, like most Werthamite arguments, to make it seem like the potential good effects (controlling perversion) are just so much moonshine while the potential bad effects (encouraging perverts to act on their perversions) are supported by hard scientific research.
Please. “Woulda coulda mighta” is not scientific research. There is no scientific research that can prove what might be happening as a result of a given stimulus. Science can only PROVE what HAS happened.
I might sympathize somewhat with the problems inherent in setting the boundaries that all cultures need. But whatever those problems are, they’re not going to be solved by quasi-scientific doomsayings.
05/27/09 at 9:03 am
Vox Populi wrote:
Yes. Though I was never able to find a copy of the original indictments against Handley, I was able to find an 18 page document submitted to the court by the prosecution in response to a motion filed by the defense. It explains the case in some detail and contains excerpts from the original indictments handed down by the grand jury.
http://tinyurl.com/p5ovsj
One of the most interesting things (to me at least) in the document is the following found on page 4:
“Stanley” refers to Stanley v. Georgia.
And on page seven:
What got Handley into trouble was not the mere possession of obscene material, but the interstate transportation of obscene material. Count five of the original indictment was specifically using the U.S. Mail.
05/27/09 at 9:35 am
The legal definition of obscenity includes: A thing must be completely devoid of scientific, political, educational, or social value.
That’s not easy to establish if the artist had any intention of producing actual art. If not even one academician can be found to find some sort of statement in the work– Using the “slippery slope” argument to connect obscene material to non-obscene material is a desperate tactic at best because it relies entirely on hypotheticals. And, since it’s been established that images and text are treated differently, finding images to connect the images at issue to would be even more difficult.
Setting out to produce or consume commercial pornography without knowing the risks involved is unwise.
SRS
05/27/09 at 9:54 am
@Steven:
I’m still struck by the fact that you haven’t really engaged the positive argument I made for free speech far above: What benefit to society can come from restricting speech? You keep saying that “slippery slope” arguments are weak in some fashion, but offer no defense for why you believe obscenity should be defined as it is, and why having been classified as obscene, that material — assuming no non-consenting adults were involved in its production — should be subject to prosecution. What possible harm can come from so-called obscene material?
05/27/09 at 9:56 am
(Amend above to be “non-consenting individuals” just so intent is clear.)
05/27/09 at 10:30 am
You seem to be assuming that the benefits of a libertarian society are self-evident. They’re not. The social reality is that there are enough people who find trafficking in obscene material outrageously offensive to criminalize the trafficking. One can dispute the basis for taking offense, but arguing that public morality should be based on libertarianism is, IMO, just a waste of time.
Wikipedia’s description of lolicon provides evidence that the material is eroticization of young girls. I view that as bad behavior, and combining bestiality with lolicon is, IMO, obscene behavior. My standard of morality doesn’t allow its existence.
SRS
05/27/09 at 10:49 am
Steven:
Does Nabokov’s LOLITA qualify as lolicon?
How about that R. Crumb strip about family incest? I think either Crumb or one of his associates said it was his “most often busted” work, so does its frequent bustworthiness prove the existence of the “slippery slope” for you?
05/27/09 at 11:04 am
@Stephen:
“My standard of morality doesn’t allow its existence.”
Yes, but as I’ve been saying, why should your morality trump mine? If you don’t like it, don’t read it. I don’t consider the fact that you might be offended by something you’ve never seen reason enough to legislate taste.
And I’m not sure where this lolicon-beastiality genre that you seem to have invented has come from, but I’d wager you’ve given someone, somewhere in Japan an idea for their next magnum opus (”centauricon”?).
05/27/09 at 11:20 am
You want to radically alter public morality. I don’t, and you’ve given me no reason to want to. Trexler’s Blog@ entry referred to bestiality in the lolicon Handley acquired.
Incest is a social taboo, but depiction of it isn’t considered obscene — and Crumb’s “Joe Blow” story in ZAP #4 apparently had no elements of child pornography. This description doesn’t provide any reason to connect “Joe Blow” to the Handley case.
SRS
05/27/09 at 12:01 pm
But the Wiki article to which you link does chronicle the history of obscenity busts I mentioned. Even if said busts didn’t result in convictions. *perhaps* because incest wasn’t literally illegal, the case of JOE BLOW still demonstrates the “slippery slope” effect.
05/27/09 at 3:16 pm
“Does Nabokov’s LOLITA qualify as lolicon?”
“Lolicon” is short for “Lolita complex.”
“And I’m not sure where this lolicon-beastiality genre that you seem to have invented has come from”
From the case itself: “including books containing visual representations of the sexual abuse of children, specifically Japanese manga drawings of minor females being sexually abused by adult males and animals.”
05/29/09 at 4:31 pm
I’m curious about something.
In all the years it has been in operation, has the CBLDF ever gotten ANYONE off from a legal charge?
Ever?
Seems to me that all they do is solicit donations to meddle (or have minimal involvement, but just enough for them to claim they are in the loop) in cases that always end up with the defendant getting reamed, and then the CBLDF uses THAT travesty to solicit even MORE donation money.
Would YOU want an agency that has a ZERO PER CENT record of success involved in a case where YOU may end up in the slammer for years?
Sounds to me that money should be WITHHELD from the CBLDF until they’ve proven that they know what the Hell they’re doing besides promoting themselves and mooching for money (especially that pretentios git Gaiman, who’s obviously talking out his ass on this subject).
05/29/09 at 6:20 pm
Gordon Lee
05/30/09 at 6:29 am
“Steven R. Stahl Says:
05/27/09 at 11:20 am
Yes, but as I’ve been saying, why should your morality trump mine?
You want to radically alter public morality. ”
Can the public have morals? Was a sampling of the public taken to ensure what exactly the public has to say about it? When someone cites “public opinion” or “community standards” they typically just assume what those opinions and standards would be and proceed accordingly. Even if you asked a random person to look at those comics and then asked them if they thought it was “obscene”, they would probably say yes without thinking of the ramifications of that statement. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you get to tell other people that they can’t enjoy it. This country has a bad habit of legislating morality. Lynchings seemed to suit the morals of the assembled public just fine at one time too. Doesn’t the public include manga-philes and other sorts that don’t really have a problem with this kind of stuff existing? Wouldn’t that change the supposed public morality if the public isn’t a bunch of prudes that can be easily manipulated into looking down on others and turning this guy from a person into just a pervert that should be locked away for what amounts to bad taste?
“arguing that public morality should be based on libertarianism is, IMO, just a waste of time.”
why should the public be allowed to have morals? I believe morals are a personal thing. Public morality just sounds like a mob of people who all agree on at least one thing which is usually how bad things start happening. No matter what it’s based on, I’m against public morality.
““Defendant is not charged in counts one through four with mere private possession of obscene materials. Defendant is charged in count one with receipt of obscene materials that were transported in interstate commerce and in counts two through four with possession of obscene materials that had been transported in interstate commerce. While mere possession of obscene materials within the privacy of an individual’s own home is a right protected by the Fourth amendment”
wait… so you can have it but you can’t receive or send it? That is just plain dumb. Are customs officials and bible shippers afraid that porn will rub up against something and turn it to porn by touch or something? How can a person have it if they can’t RECEIVE IT?! (other than making it, obviously)
So, guns and drugs (and Mexicans, too) cross over the Mexican-American border with ease, but some guy gets a gross comic book and it’s game over? I don’t know about you (and your public morality), but I think that says a lot about how stupid we are–as people and as a country. The hypocrisy of the American Public knows no bounds.
If anyone here thinks it’s a good thing that this guy is going to jail for this, please explain.
(Thank You to Rick Rottman for those quoted passages.)
05/30/09 at 9:12 am
Vox Populi wrote:
I think this is because the Fourth Amendment trumps laws against obscenity. And it’s not just simple porn. Porn is really no big thing. Porn is protected speech under the First Amendment. Obscenity is not. Pornography is not obscenity, at least not legally. Some people might believe that an X-rated movie is obscene, but legally speaking, unless it fails all three steps of the Miller test, it’s not obscenity.
People actually being prosecuted for obscenity in this country is really quite rare. Much of that is due to the fact that it’s difficult for something to meet all three steps of the Miller test.
Vox Populi wrote:
Nobody knows Chris Handley is going to jail. Personally, I’d be really surprised if he got more than probation. Then again, I haven’t seen any of the books involved in this case. Most people haven’t. They’ve been described as being regular Lolicon manga. If that’s true, why at the very least, haven’t the titles of the seven books been identified? Evidently quite a few people here in the U.S. enjoy Lolicon manga. Maybe they should get a heads-up that there’s some specific titles of Lolicon manga that could get them into trouble.
Then again, the books weren’t available here in the U.S. so maybe, just maybe, they weren’t regular Lolicon manga books after all.
05/31/09 at 6:29 pm
“Porn is protected speech under the First Amendment. Obscenity is not.”
I still don’t really see what the big difference is except that obscenity is vague. Pornography is the explicit depiction of sexual subject matter, especially with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer. Prurient pertains to arousing or appealing to sexual desire. If obscenity merely appeals to the prurient interest, then pornography fits. It doesn’t really matter what kind of pornography it is. Laws dealing with obscenity don’t really have any beneficial application and should be removed. Also, where does morbid curiosity play into this? People look at things they think are gross and horrible all the time simply to be grossed out and horrified. Artistic renditions of underage bestiality can be considered one of those things which a person could be morbidly curious about and also fit something that most people dislike. There’s no accounting for that, and there shouldn’t have to be because obscenity laws are archaic. Simply possessing something shouldn’t be a crime. You don’t get charged with murder for having a gun. That doesn’t apply with this particular case if the mere possession of the item was not what he was being prosecute for, but it does reflect the miller test and the defintion of obscenity in general. Why can’t customs destroy the material and fine you for it to pay their salaries instead of trying to put you in jail? If they’re going to open stuff, then every citizen should be provided a list of items which cannot be imported which needs to include ISBN numbers and other such easy-to-identify markings and classifications. Just saying you can’t ship obscene material is bullshit and open to the interpretation of the person opening the package.
RR: “Nobody knows Chris Handley is going to jail. Personally, I’d be really surprised if he got more than probation.”
News Report: “He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.”
Even if he got probation, he still received a sentence he didn’t deserve. Appeal and cite inadequate counsel, and hope Browenstein gets him a good First Amendment lawyer.
“Maybe they should get a heads-up that there’s some specific titles of Lolicon manga that could get them into trouble. ”
Absolutely, but that would spoil the fun of all the cops who would rather chase down comic book readers than murderers.
Wiki: “Critics of obscenity law argue that defining what is obscene is paradoxical, arbitrary, and subjective. They state that lack of definition of obscenity in the statutes, coupled with the existence of hypothetical entities and standards as ultimate arbiters within the Miller Test (hypothetical “reasonable persons” and “contemporary community standards”) proves that federal obscenity laws are in fact not defined, and thus unenforceable and legally dubious”
This is pretty much where I stand as well. Who can tell me what the “average person” thinks? When anyone tries to speak for another, people on this website go insane. Is the “average person” classification even something that can still be seriously considered in light of the 24-hour news cycle? Senators meeting up for gay sex in airports, church pastors soliciting prostitutes and using illegal drugs while preaching the opposite, presidents going to war with bad info, and doctors who work at abortion clinics shot WHILE ATTENDING CHURCH SERVICES (oh so close to irony). The “average person” is only irrefutably two things–human and flawed. The average person has no room to speak ill of another, so obscenity laws should be removed or at the very least neutered.
Outrage and disgust is one thing, but criminality is the issue here. I find nothing criminal in looking at gross and disgusting stuff as long as said stuff is consensual. Since drawings have no will of their own, case dismissed.
06/1/09 at 12:49 am
This is addressed to “The Beat”:
Was there any connection mentioned that the CBLDF was responsible for this dismissal?
06/2/09 at 11:52 am
So many blogs talking about this, and yet not one of them actually has a clue as to what is really going on, so I’ll just make one article and copypasta it around to set the record straight.
I actually know Chris Handley personally, and I’ll spell it out for you as I see it from my perspective:
1. Chris has never been a fighter. He lives with his VERY domineering born-again christian mother at her house with his younger but much larger (and very neanderthal) brother. It’s become a survival instinct for him to just let whatever is confronting him to simply surrender to it and get it over with. It’s easy to see why he was such a voracious collector of manga. It was his escape route from his RL surroundings.
2. As far as I could tell, the most pervy thing Chris was into was “furry” comics. He’s not into kiddie porn at all.
3. Why the publishers of this manga (or at least the company he ordered the books from) has never offered any help or even one single penny for defense is disgusting to me. So long as there are irresponsible publishers/retailers putting out crap just for the shock value and letting the suckers at the other end face the cops, the CBLDF will be useless to stop these kinds of arrests.
4. IMO, this has been going on for three grinding years and Chris just wanted to get this nightmare over with (and I’m sure his mother pressured him to plead guilty as well). Sorry CBLDF and Mr. Gaiman (you pretentious HACK), but Chris DOESN’T want to be burned at the stake just so you can use him as your latest poster boy to solicit donation$ at the next Comic-Con. It was HIS ass at risk of going to Federal prison, not your’s, so don’t you dare look down on him for his guilty plea. Go find another patsy to exploit, you vultures!
06/2/09 at 12:05 pm
MiHi:
Thanks for posting…but I’m baffled by your attitude that the CBLDF had nothing to do with the Gordon Lee case when they hired his lawyers and helped prepare his appeals.
06/2/09 at 12:10 pm
I have yet to see any legal comment that the CBLDF’s presentations to the court were the elements responsible for Mr. Lee’s case being dropped.
Till then, one may as well say that Lisa Simpson’s Magic Rock had as much to do with the victory than the CBLDF.
06/2/09 at 12:35 pm
The Wikipedia entry on the Gordon Lee case includes this:
One can argue that prosecutorial misconduct and blunders were responsible for the dismissal of the case, not the excellence of the defense, but without the funding provided by the CBLDF, the case probably wouldn’t have been prolonged to the points where the mistrial was declared, followed by the dismissal.
SRS
06/2/09 at 12:45 pm
I’m not so certain that the CBLDF was as involved in the Handley case as some people believe. If you read the 13-page plea agreement, you will see that it was signed by Charles Handley on April 16. His lawyer then signed the agreement on April 21. It was then later signed by Craig Peyton Gaumer, Assistant United States Attorney, on May 20 and then filed with the court that same day.
According to the CBLDF press release, they didn’t know about the plea agreement until they read about it like everyone else in the DoJ’s press release. I originally thought that was probably because events transpired too quickly for them to be informed.
Now that doesn’t appear to be the case.
06/2/09 at 1:35 pm
The CBLDF had nothing to do with Handley’s defense, aside from consulting.
MiHi, if CBLDF paid for Lee’s lawyers is that then “elements responsible for Mr. Lee’s case being dropped?” I would think having a lawyer might have helped a wee bit.
06/2/09 at 3:40 pm
I’m sure the CBLDF’s legal counsel would have encouraged Chris to fight on to the bitter end, even if it was not in Chris’ best interest. More likely they would have preferred to drag this through the system without a care whether or not Chris literally ended up as a FEDERAL convict, just like John Gotti or Eric Rudolph.
If anything, if Chris did get sentenced to the full 15 years it would have made the CBLDF’s day, thinking off all that phat $$$ they would no doubt be getting in from terrified fanboys at the next Comic-Con International. That group is a fear racket, plain & simple.
As I stated before, it was Chris’ own life on the line. Not Neil Gaiman’s, or anyone else’s. If the case really was that bleak for him and it looked like the only way he could escape was to plead guilty and get a suspended sentence, then I applaud him for it. If the LDF wanted to be as involved as they claim they were, then they would have offered more than a pathetic couple thousand dollars and a few Comic Books Guys to offer testimony.
He never asked to be a victim of the legal system, and he certainly didn’t ask to be some pawn in some group’s racket.
06/3/09 at 12:46 am
Ok so the guy bought and got shipped some erotic manga. There are porn sites that have bestiality as a forerunner for the site. Are people that download videos of it on there computer going to get snetenced and tried and what-not? And they went through his mail? What kind of shit is that? Isnt mail supposed to be PRIVATE? This is a bunch of crap. If he went to japan and bought it directly and took it home to the U.S. would he still be tried? No, I dont think so. You can buy books with bestiality in them and not only that but refrences to sex with a minor. Lolita for exapmle. And he isnt being chaged with that becasue its a manga trend for females to have little or no pubic hair. This case should be thrown out because there are places online that you can see any of the things that this man is being punished fr looking at and its only drawn! The stuff Im talking about is performed by REAL PEOPLE!
06/7/09 at 1:51 pm
“And they went through his mail? What kind of shit is that? Isnt mail supposed to be PRIVATE?”
Not if it crosses international borders it isn’t. Same as when you have to open up your suitcases at the Customs section of the airport.