Have you heard of the Christopher Handley case? There is so much meat to this story of how Intellectual Freedom and the protection of children plays out that I almost don't know where to begin.
Handley is a manga collector and by the intpretetion of those involved he has a huge personal library. At some point, US customs officials intercepted a package of manga from Japan depicting sexual acts with minors. The context to the case is that Handley is not a pedophile; he owns no child pornography and the materials in question were a small part of a very large collection.
Last week, after some months of investigation, Handley pled guilty to, “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” He faces up to 15 years for the charge.
Some questions brought to light by NPR about the case include that notion that no child was actually harmed here. The Wired article below does a good job talking about the intention of the statute used to go after pedophiles, not book collectors.
I have not seen the images. I am torn. Does the argument that the existence of this material is a violation to the rights of a child hold weight? Does it have stand-alone artistic purposes or does it solely satisfy a prurient interest? I read on some blogs that though we don't know what images/books are in question, other avid collectors following the case have put together clues.
Can I defend that? In theory, yes, but if saw that image out of context, I might not be able to say it doesn't harm children, just by existing. I feel a bit coward in hiding behind the fact that I can't see it to judge it myself, but I think that is the point of the fuzziness involved in upholding Intellectual Freedom. Every case is unique and we have been given solid guides to identifying porn. I stand behind the prurient interest and artistic merit clauses and without the image in hand can't say where the work falls.
A co-worker set me to thinking about the case. We have been discussing our own library's treatment of Phoebe Gloeckner's A Child's Life and the similarities and differences are remarkable. Stay tuned.
Department of Justice news release, "Iowa Man Pleads Guilty to Possessing Obscene Visual Representations of the Sexual Abuse of Children."
Publisher's Weekly PWBeat blog post, "Handley Case Update."
Wired article, "US Manga Obscenity Conviction Roils Comics World."
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Wow, this case is so interesting. I think the following law used in this case needs to be revised: "Title 18, United States Code, Section 1466A(b)(1), which prohibits the possession of any type of visual depiction, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct that is obscene." I understand photographs of children being illegal, but "drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting?" So does that mean if you yourself were to draw a picture of a minor in a sexually explicit act, that would be illegal? To me, that's one step away from making it illegal for a person to even think about such things. This may sound extreme, but what if drawings of minors in sexually explicit acts actually help people who are interested in that from not trying to access photographs of it, which would be truly wrong as that would actually be hurting the minors involved. Also, as a commenter on the Wired article pointed out, such materials are popular and common in Asia.
ReplyDeleteI found an article on the same case for my blog posting. The part that gets me, is that he plead guilty at the advice of his lawyer because they did not feel that a jury in his area of the country (Southern Iowa) would acquit him. The man is not necessarily confessing to being a child pornography collector, he just doesn't have confidence that he could convince others of his innocence. Another point, is how were they discovered in the first place? It has not been stated if they were found through a routine random inspection or not. And, how is it to be determined if a figure in a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting is a minor?
ReplyDeleteI also mentioned this on Abby's blog, but check out the case of Mike Diana, whose drawings in a low-distribution underground comic earned him an obscenity conviction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_diana
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