You know how some porners talk about taking their cases to the US Supreme Court? Bad idea these days if the Chris Wilson situation is any indication.
LAKELAND, Florida -- The U.S. Supreme Court gave Christopher Wilson, who is accused of operating a pornography Web site, coal in his stocking instead of the Christmas present he was hoping for -- release from the Polk County Jail.
On Sunday, the clerk of the Supreme Court told Wilson's lawyer that the court had rejected an emergency request filed by e-mail Saturday. That request asked for a reversal of the 10th Judicial Circuit Court's decision to revoke Wilson's bail.
"A stay was not granted on an emergency basis," Wilson's lawyer, Lawrence Walters, said Sunday.
The struggle will now return this week to state courts where the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland will consider a motion to release Wilson. Last week, the 2nd DCA rejected an emergency petition to free Wilson pending a full hearing.
Wilson, a lifelong Lakeland resident, was arrested at his apartment Oct. 7 by Polk County Sheriff's Office deputies on 301 misdemeanor obscenity charges and one felony charge. Wilson had been running a Web site in which he allowed users to post pictures of their nude wives or girlfriends.
Wilson was released on bail, moved out of the county, and continued running his Web site.
On Dec. 16, his bail was revoked after a hearing in which Deputy Charles Gates showed Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance new pictures and videos that the Sheriff's Office claimed were obscene.
Assistant State Attorney Brad Copley said a condition of Wilson's bail was that he not break the law while awaiting trial. The State Attorney's Office claimed in the motion to revoke Wilson's bail that the new pictures were obscene, and therefore he had broken the law.
Wilson's lawyer, Walters, said his firm had never encountered a filing like that in its history.
He said it represented punishment prior to the trial, and that the pictures Wilson had In the Supreme Court filing, Walters asked that the nation's highest court determine whether "pre-trial bail revocation of persons for alleged obscenity offenses involving images only of adults, prior to any final determination of obscenity, has too severe a chilling effect on expression to be allowed by the First Amendment . . ."
He was not given any reason for the Supreme Court's decision not to consider his motion.
The ACLU has also filed briefs in the case asking that the 2nd DCA reverse Durrance's decision.
