Springfield, MO- A McDonald County video store owner accused of selling obscene material won an appeal last week.
Jurors found Robert Crump Jr. guilty last year of three counts of second degree obscenity promotion. He received two years of unsupervised probation.
Appellate judges reversed his conviction and ordered a new trial.
According to court documents, Crump sold adult movies and other materials at Midnight Video. A prosecutor asked the Southwest Missouri Drug Task Force to investigate alleged violations at the store.
An investigator had informants buy adult movies at the store on three occasions from April 2004 to January 2005.
Crump’s attorney argued on appeal that a probable cause statement failed to state any facts describing the movies’ contents.
The state agreed with the attorney’s request for a new trial. “... Neither party wants to cause this Honorable Court to be required to review the six hours of sexually explicit ‘adult’ material” in the case, the state said.
