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Kicking Butt... John Stagliano to be prosecuted for obscenity

24th November
2008

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John Stagliano argues in court against obscenity law

See article from avn.com

Evil Angel Productions owner John Stagliano will have his first formal chance to get the charges against him dismissed on Tuesday, Nov. 25, when his attorney Allan B. Gelbard will mount a multi-faceted attack on the government's contention that two DVDs sent by Evil Angel to FBI agents in the District of Columbia, and one trailer downloaded there, are obscene.

Gelbard's introduction to his Motion sets out the major arguments he will use before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon

Initially, all charges based on the downloading of the Internet trailer from the Evil Angel website are constitutionally impermissible as any finding of obscenity requires the work(s) must be 'taken as a whole' and evaluated based on 'contemporary community standards', Gelbard summarizes: Both terms have been found unconstitutionally vague as applied to Internet speech. Additionally, their cumulative effect, in combination with the government's ability to 'forum shop' the prosecution, further exacerbates the due process violation.

...Read full article

26th February
2010

Update:

Vaguely Constitutional...

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TheJoySpot

John Stagliano fails to convince court that obscenity laws are unconstitutional

Based on article from courthousenews.com

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., refused to dismiss a case against pornography producers who were charged with trafficking hard-core porn films across state lines and displaying illicit movie trailers online.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rejected their claim that federal obscenity laws are unconstitutional.

John Stagliano and Evil Angel Productions Inc. claimed that federal laws criminalizing the interstate trafficking of obscenity were unconstitutional. They argued that the law barring a Web site from displaying obscene materials was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, because made online material subject to the community standards of the most conservative jurisdictions in the country.

But Judge Leon said the law was confined to a very narrow legal definition of obscenity. He said he is certain that online material will be judged as a whole and not individually according to obscenity laws, quashing filmmakers concerns that the trailer would be taken out of context.

Federal obscenity statutes require items to be judged in context of surrounding work. The government will have to show that the trailer is obscene in the context of the Web page, Leon said.

He also rejected their claim of a right to sexual privacy, saying such a right does not cover the distribution of obscene materials. He said the producers' case pales in comparison and does not even remotely approach the sexual privacy cases concerning homosexual rights and rights to obtain birth control. However you look at it, obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment, Leon concluded.

Update: Trial Set

26th March 2010. See article from xbiz.com

A federal judge has set a July 7 trial date for the obscenity case against John Stagliano and his two production companies, Evil Angel Productions Inc. and John Stagliano Inc.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, at a status conference in Washington at 3 p.m., set the trial date one month and one day after he rejected Stagliano's claim that federal obscenity laws are unconstitutional.

Leon said last month that obscene material is not protected by the 1st Amendment: Having considered the defendants' overbreath of arguments, I am not convinced that such strong medicine is warranted in this case. Nor am I convinced that the federal obscenity statutes are unconstitutionally vague as applied to Internet speech.