THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410150001
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Can a community establish a standard of obscenity? The courts have said yes. After all, to forbid a community from having a standard on obscenity is to force on all its citizens the standard of anything goes.
Can testimony from citizens of a community be used in the establishment of that standard? The Supreme Court of Virginia has said yes.
Is selecting a handful of unnamed citizens to view merchandise about which other citizens have complained a way to establish testimony for the prosecution of citizens who sell it?
Yes.
Is an anonymous panel of white, mostly churchgoing citizens selected by a deputy commonwealth's attorney in a city of 63 percent non-churchgoers and 20 percent non-whites the best way?
No, as the office of the Virginia Beach commonwealth's attorney has discovered in trying to prosecute six Beach store owners who stocked merchandise that offended some citizens.
There's a way to establish a community standard on obscenity which is less vulnerable than secret panels to the host of criticisms arising in Virginia Beach. It's called a trial, preferably by jury.
Trials take place openly. Jury panels are more likely than church membership lists to reflect a cross-section of a community - though the implicit suggestion that tolerance of obscenity or intolerance of censorship depends on religion and race is right repugnant.
Citizens who see far more important public-safety pursuits for the commonwealth's attorney than prosecution for selling sexual aids can work to defeat him in the next election. Likewise for citizens who object to any community standard on obscenity on grounds of censorship.
Legal verdicts don't come in the court of public opinion, whether measured by citizen panels or scientific polls. They must come in a court of law, by judge or jury. However useful for guidance in deciding whom to prosecute for crossing that nebulous line between pornography and obscenity, or for evidence in presenting a particular case, skip the secret panels of middlewomen and men. The real guidance on obscenity standards, the real evidence of crossing that line, should come from a court. by CNB