
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 30, 1994                   TAG: 9411300065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

COURT UPHOLDS CHILD-PORN LAW, BUT WITH LIMITS

The Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on distributing child pornography Tuesday, but said the law applies only to people who know the material features a sexual performance by someone under age 18.

Congress did a less than artful - but constitutional - job of writing the law, the court ruled 7-2 as it reinstated a California man's conviction for selling films made by former porn queen Traci Lords when she was 15.

The law had been challenged as one that punished even defendants who did not know the content of the material they distributed.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the court that such an interpretation would create absurd results, making criminals of druggists who hand over an uninspected roll of developed film or Federal Express couriers who deliver a box labeled ``film.''

Instead, the court interpreted the law to require proof that defendants knew the books or films they distributed were child pornography.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Clarence Thomas, dissented, saying the decision put ``in place a relatively toothless child-pornography law that Congress did not enact.''

Like those convicted of statutory rape, people who knowingly deal in pornography should be held liable even if they did not know the performer was underage, Scalia said.

The decision reinstated Los Angeles porn shop owner Rubin Gottesman's conviction for distributing sexually explicit Traci Lords videotapes. Lords was a well-known porn star when it was discovered in 1986 that she had been underage when she made many of her films.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had thrown out Gottesman's conviction, saying the federal law violated his free-speech rights because it required no proof that Gottesman knew Lords was underage.

The law makes it a crime to knowingly transport or ship child pornography. The appeals court said the word ``knowingly'' refers to transporting or shipping, but does not require knowledge that the material involved a sexual depiction of a minor.

But the Supreme Court agreed with the Clinton administration's argument that Congress clearly meant to require proof that a defendant knew the pornography involved a child.

The judge who presided over Gottesman's trial ruled that the government provided such proof in his case.

by CNB