Oregon- A lawsuit has been filed against all the county District Attorneys as well as the Attorney General of Oregon to block enforcement of a new law that restricts the sale of 'sexually explicit' material to people under the age of 18.
Powell's Books (who claims to be the largest independant new and used bookstore in the world) as well as Dark Horse Comics (publisher of Frank Miller graphic novels) as well as many other bookstores claim that the new law would be impossible for these businesses to comply with. 'Powell's has in stock over 2 million volumes constituting over 1 million titles,' Michael Powell said in his affidavit. 'We receive on an average over 5,000 new titles per week. Obviously we cannot read each new title to determine whether there are any sexual explicit portions and if so whether such portions "serve some purpose other than titillation" (even if I knew what that meant).'"
From The Portland Tribune: Portland bookseller Michael Powell and owners of a dozen independent bookstores and community organizations are suing the state attorney general and all 36 county district attorneys to block enforcement of a law forbidding the sale of sexually explicit material to people younger than 18.
Attorneys for the booksellers claim the four-month-old law violates their constitutional right to free speech and criminalizes material that would otherwise not be considered sexually explicit, like textbooks, comics or magazines.
The lawsuit was filed Friday, April 25, in U.S. District Court. No date has been set for a hearing on the issue. The booksellers and organizations are seeking an injunction to block the law. State Attorney General Hardy Myers and the district attorneys have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.
Besides Powell’s Books Inc., other plaintiffs include Dark Horse Comics Inc. of Milwaukie, Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village, St. Johns Booksellers, Twenty Third Avenue Books, the Cascade Aids Project, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Association of American Publishers.
In the lawsuit filed by attorneys P.K. Runkles-Pearson and Michael A. Bamberger, the plaintiffs focus on House Bill 2843 that was signed into law July 31, 2007, by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. The law went into effect Jan. 1 and makes it a crime to provide sexually explicit material to a child through sales or viewing, if the material was meant to “satisfy a sexual desire.”
There are a handful of exemptions in the law for museums, law enforcement or publications. Bookstores are not included in the exemptions and they could be liable if they sell books about sex to minors, even if the material is in a textbook, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims the new law violates the booksellers’ U.S. Constitution First, Fifth and 14th amendment rights to free speech and equal protection. It claims the law is “overly broad” and “promotes self-censorship by creating a chilling effect on the sale, display, exhibition and dissemination of constitutionally protected speech and expression.”
In an affidavit, Michael Powell said his six stores sold books of all types that could be considered sexually explicit under the new law. Those include the sale of books in stores and online on photography, graphic novels and health and wellness titles.
“Powell’s has in stock over 2 million volumes constituting over 1 million titles,” Powell said in his affidavit. “We receive on an average over 5,000 new titles per week. Obviously we cannot read each new title to determine whether there are any sexual explicit portions and if so whether such portions ‘serve some purpose other than titillation’ (even if I knew what that meant).”
Ken Lizzi, Dark Horse Comics’ general counsel and assistant secretary, said in an affidavit that his company store, Things From Another World Inc., often sells graphic novels and comics that could put it in legal jeopardy. The company publishes about three dozen comics or other books each month that might include sexually explicit content, Lizzi said in the affidavit.
“I believe the only way for Dark Horse to ensure compliance under the statute would be to refrain from publishing this material entirely,” He said. “Attempting to determine, book by book, what may fall under the purview of the satute, including whether there are any ‘sexually explicit’ portions and if so whether such portions ‘serve some purpose other than titillation’ (even if I knew what that meant) is totally impractical, unduly burdensome and surely would result in our over-inclusive self-censorship.”
