A federal appeals panel has upheld the 20 year sentence of a lolicon found to have received illustrations of underage sex by email, saying that “it is not a required that the minor depicted actually exists”, and so ruling art not to be universally protected free speech.
The court also insisted that purely textual email containing incest related material was not constitutionally protected free speech, and so also upheld his conviction on these grounds.
The man concerned (55), a resident of Richmond, Virginia, is serving a 20 year sentence after being convicted in 2005 of “receiving 20 Japanese cartoons, called anime, illustrating young girls being forced to have sex with men”, which he rather unwisely received using a public computer at the Virginia Employment Commission.
Additionally, he was found to have sent and received incest related emails of a purely textual nature, which were judged to be obscene and therefore not constitutionally protected free speech.
Clouding the issue further, the man apparently also received unambiguously illegal photographs of underage sexual conduct.
All this resulted in a jury convicting him of 74 offences, including receiving obscene materials, receiving obscene visual representations of underage sex, receiving child pornography and sending and receiving obscene emails. His sentence of 20 years was the maximum possible.
The notorious PROTECT Act of 2003, which permits arbitrarily stripping material of its First Amendment protections if it can be judged obscene according to the criteria of the Miller Test, was instrumental in securing these convictions; in fact this represents the first successful conviction under it.
In his appeal against the convictions, he claimed that the illustrations were protected by the First Amendment, as they do not depict real children. He also claimed the PROTECT Act was unconstitutional as textual emails cannot be considered obscene.
The judges would have none of it, holding that the act was made for the protection of imaginary children:
“It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exists.”
One of the three judges did accept his arguments, though this had no impact on the majority ruling. The convictions for the photographs did not come into question.
The man intends to continue elevating the appeal, to the Supreme Court if necessary, in order to get the relevant parts of his conviction quashed.
It is not his first brush with the law: in 1999 he was sentenced to nearly four years for possessing pornography depicting minors, so clearly he is not the most charismatic appellant.
This via AP, brought to my attention in the forums.
The PROTECT Act of late seems to be coming to the fore in relation to cases involving loli manga; there is also the recent case of an Iowa man facing similar convictions, although in his case without any real imagery involved.
Given that so much anime and manga, both mainstream and erotic, revolves around sexual situations involving participants clearly under what US law would regard as a legal age for such depictions to not constitute child pornography, just how much of mainstream anime and manga, to say nothing of actual pornography, will eventually come under the remit of such laws should they go unchecked?
With lower courts and national politicians gleefully stripping both speech and art of Constitutional protections using the evils of underage sex as a lever, we have to wonder whether the Supreme Court will actually rectify matters at some point?









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GOD DAMNIT
GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
indeed
Stupid fat american fucks. Just shows how intelligent they are, going against their own constitution which is supposed to make them the "most free" country in the world. Pure bullshit of course. The only use they have is to serve as soldiers to more civilized countries.
Now if we only can get America, Russia, China, Africa and all the islam dominated countries to start waging nuclear war so they extinct each other. That would be perfect for Europe and Japan.
Lol@20 years btw, I would rather commit suicide than spend 1 year in jail. Of course I would kill as many involved as possible before doing it.
I hate you so much.
As much as I don't really care about the other countries, I'd have to disagree with nuking America since I live here. Though I wouldn't mind moving to Japan.
@Narcissist
I love you.
(No offense NY, San Fransisco, LA, Chicago)
If you want to get on peoples' nerves, you should probably just post LOL JAPAN ROFLL XDDDDD like a fair number of the other users here. It would be less time consuming.
But if America, Russia, and China all ceased to exist, who would Europe bitch about for all their trials and tribulations?! Surely not themselves.
The need to put down another country in order to assert your own cou- *continent's* superiority is a very clear sign of insecurity. Is there something wrong with Europe that you feel you need to compensate for? Blind patriotism is never a good thing, you know.
all countries have their stupid side, this is just another one :P.
Yeah, it's true than all country have their stupid side...
The problem is that america and americans still look stupids wathever the side you look at! :)
Not just a stupid side, but power hungry, these people are out to take all of our rights away, plain and simple. They've made inroads on the Right to Bear Arms by LICENSING any weapons that would be remotely usable for killing/destroying anything more dangerous than wild animals, which I feel the need to point out that the Constitution calls us to fight "all enemies, foreign and domestic", do you think that George Washington and co. thought that we would need a well armed Militia to fight the likes of Osama bin Laden (and yes I'm not forgetting that we haven't made serious attempts at doing something about him)?
While the licensing is a far cry from the all out ban Japan has had for centuries, and the gun bans in various parts of the EU and Australia, it is one of the few things that still make America great. Oh lets not forget that Felons automatically have their gun rights stripped from them, and nowhere in the Constitution does it give a provision for such a thing. Why would they, when they themselves were "criminals", rebelling against England.
BY THE WAY, not really disagreeing with Americans look stupid from either side of the coin, but you find that everywhere as Artefact has made allusions to in previous posts on other articles.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
By the way sorry for the long posts, some reason when I don't just type lulz, it turns into an essay of sorts.
Der Wille zur Macht, needs to be said on a prominently Japanese media news sight, hope I need not remind anyone here of the Xenosaga series, but just in case, there you go.
Actually, America is by far the most enlightened nation in these matters, and one I have a great deal of respect for (though of course it still flawed). Lesser nations do not have even the semblance of a supreme court to protect against the excesses of the state...
Too true, too true.
Artefact, you can't be serious?
The American legal system is a joke... and what is a lesser nation? One that isn't as fat or scared as America?
You need your head checked buddy, too much American propaganda for you.
What is a lesser nation?
One where the populace don't even think to question the actions of the state, and where liberties are given away even more profligately than they are in the US. There are many such places.
And legal systems have always been thus - it has not generally proven an obstacle to progress except where they are taken over by moralists.
Artefact has a point.
Our legal system may suck, but it's by far preferable to a kangaroo court you might find in some places.
BTW... no judicial system in existence is ever perfect. That's because it's RUN BY PEOPLE. Humans are fallible creatures, and their works show it.
I think the Supreme Court will rule against this verdict.... in the case where no actual children were harmed in the pornography, and that Freedom of Expression IS a valid point of contention.
If the Supreme Court denies the defendant's appeal though, they wouldn't have enough cell space for all the 'pedophiles' who have lolicon material XD.
if someday it happen, remember, that NATO is "Military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America." and that japan have american military bases. so if you wish destruction of Russia and America, be sure, it s gonna be world's most horrible conflict in history. and no one gonna survive it.
This whole thread just shows the difference between ignorant and knowledgeable people. Everyone made some kind of good point. Of course none of these points can be perfectly clear. Like Miroku said, its ran by people. If such a system were perfect anywhere, then everyone would have the same point of view. Has anyone noticed the difference between the facts brought to the table (such as what Artefact said), and the bashing/trolling here? Don't bash any nation unless you can back up your statements without stating the obvious. Why is it that we are different countries? If things worked out perfectly, it would be one nation (world) together. Dammit I sound like a fucking hippy... But you get my point.
If every nation capable of engaging nuclear war decided to use their weapons, the entirety of humanity would eventually(but inevitably) die out. SO to those that propose such an action remember this,if it does happen, the earth will die.
He knows we need it...
Narcissist, you should have already committed suicide. Do us all a favor and end put an end to your misery.
Do you not know what a narcissist is lol? How could I commit suicide when I deem myself a superior being compared to you?
I always write exactly what I think. No trolling here, like Mr. Anonymous which strangly enough all have the blue version of the standard avatar. I thought it was programmed to change color and shape after each post...Do I smell a one-man show?
And yet again, regarding the country/continent superiority...does people have zero common knowledge these days, since the matter of narcissism seems to yet again be unknow. Ah I forgot, uneducated anon with blue avatar... lulz
Now let us walk towards a bright future with Europe as the stronghold for humanity once again, colonizing the lesser people, and Sweden as heads of European Union the second half of 2009. Btw, why the hell did we let in the damn Czech in EU lol? Must be some kind of serious mistake.
Sweden as heads of European Union? Surely, you have no idea what kind of people that is in charge of Sweden right now, I would rather have my dog become "da head".
Also, taxes would sky-rocket... 95% of everything you own would be completely gone before you even owned it.
Thanks for not refuting my point and relying on an ad hominem response. I expected as much. Have fun being "superior."
The avatars changing for each new post is incorrect, or the system is not working, because I've posted only a couple of times in this long ass strand, and it's been the blue design, just like the others. Perhaps it means we're all on the west coast, or it's just totally meaningless.
Looks like it's the number of comments.
Not sure whether to phase it out and simply go with Gravatar and anon... the results aren't too impressive.
@Narcissist - You're either butthurt over America, tsundere, or both.
I vote tsundere. "It's not like I like you or anything America, you can go nuke yourself for all I care, I just had some extra trade goods, that's all."
that's kind of sad and retarded, its unfortunate that some people actually believe that kind of bravado. honestly anyone with that kind of feeling to a single nation or continent is outright ignorant and brainwashed. its very depressing when someone cant support the world as a whole that they begin to feel their own little rock is far more important than the rest of the rocks floating out in the ocean.
@Narcissist
1000/10
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
>HURR DURR MAH PART OF THE WORLD IS THE BEST EVERYWHERE ELSE CAN CHOKE ON A DICK.
>HURR THE GOVERNMENT OF A COUNTRY IS ALWAYS A TRUE REPRESENTATION OF ITS PEOPLE.
"Stupid fat american fucks. Just shows how intelligent they are, going against their own constitution which is supposed to make them the “most free” country in the world"
Yes, yes ad hominem because it makes you right.
Please enlighten me as to where you heard the phrase "most free".
A government trying to gain as much power as possible is natural. It is up to the people to make sure that this does not happen and right now we the American people are doing a suck-ass job at it.
>Now let us walk towards a bright future with Europe as the stronghold for humanity once again
OH GOD, REALLY ARE YOU SERIOUS? GOD I HAVEN'T LOL'D SO HARD IN MY LIFE!
Enjoy your shithole of a continent with Muslims taking over.
Also it's amazing how obvious of an underage little faggot you are. You really had me going until the >BAWW I WOULD COMMIT SUICIDE comment.
I don't believe you live in Europe anyway enjoy America you little shit.
Sucessful troll is sucessful, etc.
That was an impressive ownage.
The ownage is so good that I even put my name on it~
America is a sick country, focused on Japanese lolicon magazines, which hurt no one anywhere on earth, not a single child anywhere, yet give lots of innocent pleasure to many men. Let's be honest -- it is that pleasure that the legislators are trying to stop.
Yes, that's what this is all about. 20 years of feminist maniac American sickness aimed at cutting all men's pleasure to nothing, so that they can dominate people everywhere and all we are left with are wierd pseudo-women like Angelina Tatoo Jolie. Disgusting hag is what she is. Sick.
This guy was stupid to download these pictures on a government computer. But people should rise up and hold a huge middle finger to the damned US Feminists and their anti-child-porn mania, which has gone way, way overboard. When it gets so far that even simple drawings are considered unprotected speech, yet websites and TV shows full of dirt and hate can go on untouched, then the American value system must be stopped.
America is not the country it once was, when honor and values mattered. Sex was for the bedroom, and what didn't hurt anybody was left alone where it should be. It should not be for the legislative agenda of American Feminazi's bent on cutting men's penises off in hatred and anger. This guy was an idiot, but the bigger question of America's Leftist value system and the rest of the world is something we all should be worried about.
I read this article while listening to the sad version of "row row fight the power".
I nearly shed a manly tear.
“It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exists.”
my imaginary friend just did his imaginary friends imaginary sister's friend... yes now send my imaginary friend to jail plz..
To imaginary jail.
I loled at this comment
I SENT HIM USING MY IMAGINATION
A Travesty of Imaginary Justice! :o
His Imaginary Rights must be observed first and foremost.
well i happen to pretend im a lawyer sometimes i believe im qualified to defend him.
IMAGINATION H4X! BANHAMMER!!!
I agree with sentencing him for the children pornographic photographs he possessed, but having written material on "obscene" topics such as incest and such is going a bit too far... I mean, especially since it's in the form of e-mails (unless he was relaying such compositions to minors/children and such).
As for the manga/anime/art thing... Idk, kinda going too far, protecting "imaginary" children, don't you think? Next thing you know, we'll be protecting "imaginary people" from getting "murdered" and all people who play fps will be potentially charged with "virtual murder"... hehehe funny though.
What's scary is, this might one day, become true. Soon, you'll need a licence to kill for gaming.
Another stupidity.......
YOU PHAIL
that could be considered as human right violation because someone just frisking the collection lol
maybe the act can die now
hmmm, thought-crime anybody?
Double speak
prozium fueled tetra grammatron clerics to the rescue!
zÆRo is damn right. 1984 is happening now right, people.
I am not joking at all. The illegal wiretaps are just the tip of the iceberg.
If the Obama can't appoint a couple Supreme Court Justices during his term(s), then civil liberties in America are so so so so so so so fucked.
The email obscenity charge is every bit as horrific as the illustration/animation obscenity charge, especially since text=speech.
This is extremely bad.
We can only pray that the Supreme Court will eventually uphold common sense and constitutional rights.