Category: Legal

Mike Diana Talks to Richardson Magazine

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In 1997 — in spite of aid from CBLDF — Mike Diana became the first American artist to be convicted of obscenity in the United States. Diana is the controversial creator of the zine Boiled Angel, and his work contains graphic and often shocking depictions of society’s most serious problems: child abuse, date rape, and religious corruption.

Richardson Magazine recently interviewed Diana about his prosecution, conviction, and subsequent punishment. Diana describes his experience and how CBLDF got involved:

The first time I showed up to court to enter my plea I was mobbed with TV and radio reporters as well as two groups of concerned Christian citizens with protest signs. I plead not guilty and then contacted the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for help. They got me a lawyer, Luke Lerot, and after much red tape and attempting and failing to get the case thrown out or moved to Tampa, where we felt we would get a better chance at a fair jury, it was time a year later to go to trial.

I was railroaded in court, the prosecution told the jury I was a suspect in the Gainsville murders even though the real killer was caught and had plead guilty just days before my trial started. They claimed that the art in Boiled Angel was made for killers and would turn people who read it into killers…

You can read the full interview here. (Note: The article contains NSFW images.)

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Dale Cendali Appointed Secretary of CBLDF Board of Directors

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The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Board of Directors has unanimously elected noted litigator Dale Cendali to the office of Secretary. Cendali, who joined the board in 2010, replaces retiring Board Member Louise Nemschoff in the role.

Dale Cendali is a nationally recognized leader in the field of intellectual property. She is a partner in the prestigious law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where she heads the firm’s Copyright, Trademark and Internet Practice Group. She has successfully litigated and tried numerous high profile cases and has argued before the United States Supreme Court. Her clients include myriad prominent individuals and companies who rely on her for her expertise in copyright, trademark, patent, Internet, trade secrets, defamation, false advertising, privacy and contractual matters. She has extensive experience representing clients in the entertainment, consumer products and technology sectors. Managing Intellectual Property Magazine named her trial victory for J.K. Rowling in the well-known “lexicon” fair use case the “Copyright Trial of the Year.”

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Erica Friedman Speaks Out on Canada Customs Case

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Writing exclusively for the CBLDF, Yuricon founder Erica Friedman discusses the CBLDF’s important efforts against Canada Customs.

There is a gap here, in between actions and words, in between discussion of freedom of expression and actual freedom of expression. It is not a small gap – it is a tiger pit. It is a gap that is, right this very second, affecting all of us in the manga community. The gap lies in between our stated right to express ourselves freely and recents actions of authority to strip that right from us.

This issue not a rhetorical one to me. I am about to leave the country to attend a comic event called Girls Love Fest. It is focused entirely on comics with lesbian themes. This is the genre that I have worked on promoting for more than a decade – and for the first time in my life, I am not sure that I can purchase these comics and bring them home with me. Because I cannot be sure that a reasonable person would understand that the comic of two cute girls holding hands, saying they like each other and kissing is not offensive. I cannot presume that the people hired to “protect” us are reasonable at all. Why should they be? These people have been given imprimatur to be unreasonable and suspicious. I want to support these artists, and share their work…but I may not be able to. I certainly have to look at each book more critically and think “what would TSA make of this?”

Full Story

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Judge Hears Arguments in Case Challenging Search of Electronic Devices at Borders

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In the past three years, nearly 12,000 people have had their electronic devices searched when crossing international borders into the United States. These searches are being challenged in Abidor v. Napolitano, a case that could have repercussions for anyone carrying electronic devices when crossing international borders into the United States.

The case sheds light on the border search issues that CBLDF has been tracking and about which we issued an advisory last spring. Abidor v. Napolitano pertains specifically to the search and seizure of Pascal Abidor’s laptop when he traveled by train from Canada to New York. Upon learning that Abidor, an American and French citizen and Islamic Studies graduate student, had traveled in the Middle East, US Customs and Border patrol agents pulled Abidor aside and ordered him to log into his laptop. They proceeded to examine the contents of his laptop, which included images of Islamic militants that Abidor was using for research purposes. Abidor was then handcuffed, placed in a jail cell, and interrogated for several hours by Department of Homeland Security agents. Abidor was released that night, but the DHS held onto his laptop for a further 11 days, returning it only after the ACLU inquired after it on Abidor’s behalf.

On September 10, 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Abidor, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), arguing that DHS’s practice of searching personal electronic devices is unconstitutional, violating both the First and Fourth Amendments. more

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The Alaska Press Reacts to Recent Invalidation of Senate Bill 222

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Sometimes, even the best intentions produce overly-broad laws that cannot be enforced or that violate the First Amendment rights of innocent parties. Last year, Alaska passed Senate Bill 222 with the intent to protect minors, but the language of the law put an unreasonable burden on internet users, including comic book creators and retailers selling at both brick and mortar stores and online.

CBLDF joined the Media Coalition and a variety of plaintiffs from Alaska in challenging the law. Alaska’s KTUU highlighted the Media Coalition’s efforts to refine the language of the law and bring the law into alignment with the First Amendment before its passage. You can read a summary of these efforts here.

Despite the Media Coalition’s efforts, the Alaska Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 222. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline struck down multiple provisions of the law, citing violation of the First Amendment.

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CBLDF Applauds Ruling Invalidating Alaska Censorship Law!

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The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund welcomes today’s decision to bar enforcement of an Alaska criminal statute that the Federal District Court held threatened to reduce all speech on the Internet “to only what is fit for children.” The court permanently barred enforcement of that statute because it violates First Amendment rights of free speech.

The CBLDF participated as a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by Alaska booksellers, librarians, a photographer, and other First Amendment and media organizations through the Media Coalition. Chief U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline held that Senate Bill 222, which could have made anyone who operates a website criminally liable for posting material deemed “harmful to minors,” would have chilled free expression. “There are no reasonable technological means that enable a speaker on the Internet to ascertain the actual age of persons who access their communications,” the Court held. “Individuals who fear the possibility of a minor receiving speech intended for an adult may refrain from exercising their right to free speech at all – an unacceptable result.” [more…]


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Supreme Court Protects First Amendment Rights for Entertainment & New Media in Brown v. EMA Decision

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“California’s effort to regulate violent video games is the latest episode in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors.”
—Justice Antonin Scalia in the majority opinion on Brown v. EMA

CBLDF is delighted to be celebrating the resounding victory in Brown v. EMA that came with yesterday’s 7-2 Supreme Court decision, a victory that dismantles the same pseudoscience that fueled the attacks on comic books in the 1950s.

Brown v. EMA (formerly Schwarzenegger v. EMA) pertains to a California law that restricted the sale of violent video games to anyone under age 18, citing that violence is harmful to minors. Previous decisions in the case ruled the law unconstitutional under the First Amendment. California appealed these decisions to the Supreme Court.

CBLDF filed an amicus brief on the case, arguing that the law was unconstitutional and a response akin to the moral panic that fomented around comic books during the 1950s. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion both referenced the CBLDF amicus brief and called to mind past concerns over comic books:

Many in the late 1940s and early 1950s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate….But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed.

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CBLDF General Counsel Robert Corn-Revere Weighs in on Brown v. EMA Decision

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Supreme Court Invalidates California Law Restricting Violent Video Games

(This article also available in MS Word and PDF.)

By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court held that a California law restricting the sale or rental of “violent” video games violates the First Amendment. Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion for the Court, reasoning that the state legislature could not create new categories of speech that are unprotected by the Constitution, and that the California law failed to survive strict First Amendment scrutiny. The Supreme Court decision applies broadly to all media and not just to video games.

The Court drew upon the history of comic book censorship in reaching its conclusion. Citing the amicus brief filed by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, it noted the crusade against comics led by Dr. Frederic Wertham and observed that it was inconsistent with our constitutional traditions. The Court traced the history of censorship that targeted various media directed toward the young and held that restricting depictions of violence could not be justified under established principles of First Amendment law.

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CBLDF Cheers Free Speech Victory in Brown v. EMA!

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The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund applauds today’s Supreme Court decision to affirm the First Amendment rights of creators, readers and retailers by denying states the ability to create new restrictions on violent content in Brown v. EMA. In a 7-2 decision, the high court struck down a California law that would have banned the sale and rental of violent video games to minors and would have made violence a new category of unprotected speech.

The CBLDF was active in opposing the law and filed its own amicus brief, arguing that the California law was unconstitutional by citing a history of moral panics, most notably the anti-comics fervor that nearly dismantled the comics industry in the 1950s. The arguments presented in CBLDF’s brief were part of the discussion in oral arguments and cited in the Court’s majority decision.
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BREAKING — CBLDF Cheers Free Speech Victory in Brown v. EMA!

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UPDATED — The U.S. Supreme Court has just issued its decision in Brown v. EMA, striking down the California law that attempted to ban the sale and display of violent video games to minors in a 7-2 decision.

The majority decision, written by Justice Scalia, affirms that video games are protected by the First Amendment, and that the statute is invalid.

The Court writes:

The most basic principle—that government lacks the power to restrict expression because of its message, ideas,subject matter, or content, Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U. S. 564, 573—is subject to a few limited exceptions for historically unprotected speech, such as obscenity, incitement, and fighting words. But a legislature cannot create new categories of unprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs and then punishing it if it fails the test.

The court goes on to call the law’s aims “unprecedented and mistaken.”

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was active in opposing the law, filing its own Amicus Brief arguing that the California law was unconstitutional by citing a history of moral panics, most notably the anti-comics fervor that nearly dismantled the comics industry in the 1950s. The arguments presented in CBLDF’s brief were a significant portion of the discussion in oral arguments, and public discussion of this case.

UPDATE 1: The CBLDF’s arguments were also cited in the majority decision:

Many in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate. See Note, Regulation of Comic Books, 68 Harv. L. Rev. 489, 490 (1955). But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed. Brief for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as Amicus Curiae 11–15.5 And, of course, after comic books came television and music lyrics.

The court more explicitly cites the comics industry’s history put forward in the brief with the footnote:

The crusade against comic books was led by a psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “as long asthe crime comic books industry exists in its present forms there are nosecure homes.” Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books): Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, 83d Cong., 2dSess., 84 (1954). Wertham’s objections extended even to Supermancomics, which he described as “particularly injurious to the ethical development of children.” Id., at 86. Wertham’s crusade did convince the New York Legislature to pass a ban on the sale of certain comic books to minors, but it was vetoed by Governor Thomas Dewey on the ground that it was unconstitutional given our opinion in Winters, supra. See People v. Bookcase, Inc., 14 N. Y. 2d 409, 412–413, 201 N. E. 2d 14, 15–16 (1964).

CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein says, “We’re extremely pleased that the Court’s decision preserves the First Amendment rights of the users and creators of video games, and that they resisted California’s desire to establish new categories of unprotected speech. We’re also gratified that our discussion of the comics industry’s painful experience with moral panic and legislative meddling helped inform the positive outcome we see this morning.”

More news and analysis on this case will be presented throughout the day.

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