Kansas City, Missouri [Kansascity.com]- Courts in Johnson and Wyandotte counties plan to begin selecting grand juries today in one group’s crusade to rid Kansas City area businesses of pornography.

In the next several weeks, the jurors will decide what is and what isn’t obscene, setting standards for their Kansas communities. And if similar juries in the state are any indication, jurors might be asked to watch adult videos, review adult toys, or even take field trips to businesses in question.

“We don’t know yet what they’re going to want to see,” said Jerome Gorman, district attorney of Wyandotte County. “… Each community has to answer for itself what it will tolerate.”

In mid-May, the local chapter of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, led by Phillip Cosby, delivered petitions to six county prosecutors in the Kansas City area. Those petitions sought grand jury investigations of 32 businesses — including strip clubs, sex shops and video rental stores in Kansas and Missouri — for promotion of obscenity.

The grand jury investigations could lead to indictments against the businesses.

While Kansas law requires a grand jury to be seated if enough signatures are collected, the public can’t call for one in Missouri. But in just two months, Cosby said, he’s had some success with Missouri prosecutors.

In Platte County, the only targeted business stopped selling the merchandise under question after it was contacted by the office of prosecuting attorney Eric Zahnd.

Some, though, still aren’t buying Cosby’s campaign.

“I don’t think there’s much credibility in what they’re doing,” said Steve Wolverton, owner of Hollywood at Home in Overland Park, which carries a small percentage of adult magazines and videos. “I think it’s a First Amendment issue, an issue of privacy.”

In Wyandotte County, Gorman doesn’t know of another grand jury seated in at least 40 years, probably longer. Jurors there will be given some information compiled by Kansas City, Kan., police and could even be presented other cases.

“We are seriously considering that at this point,” Gorman said. “At the very least to test the grand jury system, because we’re not familiar with it.”

In Johnson County, officials with the district attorney’s office would say only that the grand jury process is expected to begin today. They wouldn’t say whether authorities have already done an investigation into the five Johnson County businesses targeted in the anti-porn petitions.

Once grand juries are seated, proceedings are secret, said Brian Burgess, spokesman for District Attorney Phill Kline.

“One good thing about a grand jury is you have a lot of people focused on a specific issue,” Burgess said. “It’s tough to draw the line sometimes, and with multiple people looking at this, it will be obvious what side of the line it falls.”

Nearly four years ago, Cosby got riled after an adult bookstore replaced an old Stuckey’s restaurant in Dickinson County, not far from his Abilene, Kan., home at the time.

A grand jury handed down 29 grand jury indictments against the Lion’s Den. Those indictments, however, were later thrown out on a technicality.

Other campaigns targeted businesses in Saline, Sedgwick and Shawnee counties.

In the four Missouri counties, prosecutors have dealt with the petitions differently. All sent a letter to the businesses targeted by Cosby’s group, reminding them they need to comply with Missouri’s obscenity law.

Beyond that, Zahnd said World’s Liquor in Platte County was cooperative and an attorney for the owner said the store would do whatever it needed to do to comply. When an undercover sheriff’s deputy went in the store to see if the questionable merchandise was in stock, it wasn’t.

In Jackson County, where 20 of the 32 businesses are located, prosecuting attorney James Kanatzar hasn’t progressed past sending the letter to businesses. Cosby said he’s scheduled to meet with Kanatzar soon.

Van Buckley, a spokesman for Kanatzar, said the prosecutor didn’t have any comment at this time.

Petitions provided by Cosby’s group targeting two businesses in Clay County are now in the hands of a grand jury there.

Jim Roberts, a spokesman for the Clay County prosecuting attorney’s office, said: “We’re telling them (grand jurors) that this issue was raised in our community, we’re passing it on to you, and do whatever you want to do.”