Court: Porn not limited to images
 

Court: Porn not limited to images

April 26, 2007
By YANCEY ROY


ALBANY -- Reversing earlier rulings, the state's highest court Thursday ruled prosecutors can charge someone with disseminating indecent materials to minors over the Internet even when the materials are limited to words, not pictures.

In a 5-2 decision, the Court of Appeals said that the crucial word at the heart of the case, "depict,'' does not only mean images. A lower court had dismissed the charges against Jeffrey Kozlow, who was arrested as part of a Westchester County sting operation in 2004, because his e-mails contained graphic language but no images.

The high court said, in effect, the lower court was being too technical.

"Nowhere in the history of the statute do we find evidence of such narrow intent,'' Judge Eugene Pigott Jr. wrote for the majority. "On the contrary, it is clear that the legislators intended to criminalize the activities of adults who engage minors in sexually infused communication.

"Moreover, the Legislature was surely aware that a sexually explicit text may be used as a means of seduction just as effectively as a sexual image,'' Pigott continued. "They could not have thought that this process was limited to the transmission of pornographic images. Indeed, the logic of communication dictates just the opposite -- that images alone would not enable the sender to entice a minor to a meeting.''

Kozlow's win at the mid-level had prompted the Legislature earlier this year to pass a bill to make clear that "words'' as well as images fall under the state's indecency law. Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed the measure last month. That law could not, however, apply retroactively to Kozlow?s case.

According to court documents, Kozlow was a 41-year-old Manhattan attorney snared in an Internet sting in 2004 run by the Westchester County district attorney's office. For several months, Kozlow sent e-mails to what he thought was a 14-year-old boy, graphically describing sexual acts. At one point, he allegedly sent a photograph of himself fully clothed. Investigators arranged to meet Kozlow at a newsstand in Grand Central Terminal, where he was arrested.

Westchester County Court convicted Kozlow of five counts of attempted dissemination of indecent materials to a minor. He was sentenced to five years probation.

But the Appellate Division, a mid-level court, reversed the decision. The court said that prosecutors failed to establish that Kozlow had "depict(ed)'' sexual material since the messages "contained no visual sexual images.''

Two judges on the Court of Appeals agreed that prosecutors should have been held to that strict standard. If lawmakers wanted words to be covered by the law, they should have said so, specifically, said Judges Robert Smith and Theodore Jones.

"The primary meaning of `depict' in every dictionary I have consulted, is to represent by a picture,'' Smith wrote. ``As all these dictionaries say, `depict' can also be used as a synonym for `describe,' but if the Legislature intended to reach both pictures and words the obvious way to do so was to say `depicts or describes.'''

Further, in two previous cases, lawyers for the state argued that the statute referred only to images, not words, Smith said.

Kozlow?s case now goes back to the mid-level Appellate Division. It can weigh the facts of the case -- that is, whether there is enough evidence to convict him -- but not the validity of the charges.

http://www.uticaod.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../NEWS/70426011

The legal stuff is pretty wild, saying "depict" means words and/or images.

This is not from a case where ONLY words on the internet were involved though. But it sure does set a standard in NY state with what you COULD be charged with, even if you just use sexually explicit words I guess.

Oh shit....

hmmm, wonder what effect this could have with other current proceedings

Oh snap, there goes my ASCII porn art concept...those bastadsss

WTF? I am so fucking sick of this country... Seriously.

Gotta love lawyers.

I second that!

Thank god for this ruling, for a minute there I was afraid that 1984 would never come!

Good....:thumbsup

Now I can claim to run a "porn site " with text only ....

so you are telling me you never heard of
Tropic of Cancer
or
Lady Chatterly's Lover
they are books written years ago and considered obscene and pornographic at the time they were published.
you young ones have a lot to learn.

:winkwink: Was about to post almost the same thing :pimp

BTW.. and incidental clippet from history - as soon as the printing press was invented - there was a "surge" in.... "literary works" of an obscene nature :1orglaugh

so, we are two old farts who actually went to school and can read and write?
:thumbsup

Well... I wouldn't go that far :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

But obviously have more clue than the kindergarten here :winkwink: :thumbsup

But obviously have more clue than the kindergarten here

they can be amusing at times.

Quick story! :) - Relates to the Penguin Books/Lady Chatterley's Lover case...

In that case the lead prosecution counsel made an ass of himself and asked the jury (in all seriousness) - "Would you allow your manservant to read this book?" :winkwink:

Decades later, I happened to be defending an adult-related case (was kinda minor) and sitting chatting with defense counsel before the case started - when it turns out, - the same idiot who did the LCL prosecution had been promoted to a judge and he ended up the judge on our case - wonderful :1orglaugh

Fortunately we won that case, but would hate to think of the sentence if the jury returned a guilty verdict - probably the death sentence :winkwink:

I could see the judge sure did not "approve", but was so... well, funny.. the jury also got the joke and returned a good verdict.

Well.. it's GFY :winkwink:

“people will think they can say what they want…” Civil Rights Activist on MSNBC about Imus’s statements.

children, children, settle down. If free "speech" includes pictures, are you really silly enough to think it wouldn't work in reverse?
Also, please stop pretending that this case is about text. its about luring children via speach, pictures or text.
the end.

I get a kick out of these kids who think porn was invented right after the inception of the internet.

my father owned an adult bookstore and we lived upstairs in the second floor apartment. the only way to get out to the street was through the store, so I saw plenty of porn everyday. no big deal. and there were plenty of books as well as magazines. I found out when I was old enough to read the good stuff was the books not the magazines. if the old man ever caught me he would have beat the crap out of me. learned to read fast.

Excellent! :winkwink: :thumbsup

Hehe ... So basically as part of your education, there was this motivation to expand your literary knowledge and were reared on a nice healthy dose of porn :1orglaugh Nice motivator *lol*

Was always amused by the law unit handling this stuff - every Thursday afternoon (there was little else to do) - they made a point of raiding a warehouse to check if there were any "naughty novels" shipped in :1orglaugh (Hell... and they were "text" :winkwink: ) Made no difference - biz carried on as normal and they made the afternoon coffee before they left.