This is the big news of the day… The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is offering support to Christopher Handley of Iowa, who is being prosecuted for importing erotic manga from Japan. ICv2 and The Comic Reporter have all the details.
The manga in question have not been named, but it is my understanding that some of them are “lolicon” manga, which are ero manga featuring seemingly underage female characters. The defense has already secured a victory on this front… the presiding judge has ruled that the portion of the PROTECT Act which deals specifically with the depiction of minors cannot be applied to this case. (The Supreme Court earlier this year addressed this issue. While this section survived, the justices were also clear that it can only be applied to fictional imagery when the image is clearly based on or derived from actual identifiable minors, i.e. a tracing or digital composite imagery.)
However, Handley is still on the hook for obscenity related offenses, and this is where the waters become murky. The defense’s best chance is to convince the jury that the manga passes the last of the three-pronged Miller test. But this is an uphill battle, as the jury is asked to decide (in the third portion of the test) whether the work has “serious artistic value,” instead of whether the work was a “serious artistic endeavor.” The spirit of the law really asks for the latter - serious artistic endeavors still routinely produce bad art that nevertheless deserve protection, unfortunately that’s not how the standard is worded. And obscenity laws have a built-in catch 22: if a jury finds the material not obscene, they are in effect saying that the material is regularly consumed in their community… at least, that’s what the prosecution would lead the jury to believe. Now, how many people who own porn would admit that to, say, a prospective employer? Their friends and relatives? In a court of law? The fear and embarrassment factor is so great, juries often completely disregard expert testimony.
Keep an eye on this, folks.
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What a bullshit case. I hope that this can get decent representation.
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This is a little unsettling to hear…
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And what is scary is he is being charged for material ALREADY at his house that they found after a search based upon an unconstitutional part of the PROTECT Act.
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Probably he got screwed because the postal inspector in his small town in Iowa got curious about a package from Japan. The postal inspector even went with the FBI to the guy’s home.
Does anybody understand the motivation? Usually the Feds go after publishers or retailers. Was this politically motivated?
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As someone who loves ero-manga, recently served his first jury duty in a long, tiring 2 day trial, and appreciates a good story of conflict with a person I can side with… I find this very fascinating.
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“Was this politically motivated?”
Possibly – as we’ve seen in Oklahoma, some people like to try and make political names for themselves by going after porn and deviants.
But it could also just as easily be something as simple as this: that some package popped open (possibly “accidentally”) en route, and the people who saw the contents got up in a lather and simply wanted to punish the guy for being a perv, even if he wasn’t doing anything particularly illegal.
Let’s face it: not everyone is willing to let other people exist in peace, especially if they think they’re sickos. Anti-pedo (or heck, anti-porn in general) hysteria justifies persecution for some folks.
I’m an Iowa resident. While I’m not familiar with the city named, I know the state is an odd mix of conservative and liberal viewpoints. We have progressive college cities and the most numbingly conservative rural areas, and without knowing more about the area, I can only say that he could easily get a jury who sympathizes with him, or one that’ll practically lynch him.
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