Unscrambled Pay TV Is Up for Grabs, Court Rules

State law does not prohibit people from selling or erecting backyard or rooftop antennas to intercept unscrambled pay television signals, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday.

The ruling, while a blow to several pay television operators, applies in a somewhat limited area, affecting only signals transmitted as microwaves that are not scrambled. Piracy of encoded broadcasts, by such methods as altering cable television encoder equipment, remains a state and federal crime, the court said in one of eight opinions issued Thursday.

Deputy Atty. Gen. George Hendrickson said that despite the state court’s ruling, several federal courts have found that piracy of unscrambled signals is against federal law. Although criminal prosecution under the federal law is rare, civil actions against cable pirates are often successful in federal courts.

Convictions Reversed

Thursday’s ruling reversed the convictions of two Sacramento-area electronics dealers, Harold Babylon and Douglas Hyatt, who were fined $630 each for the misdemeanor sale of equipment used to pick up signals of California Satellite Systems, which carried Home Box Office and Ted Turner’s Superstation.

“Any individual equipped with a microwave antenna and a standard amateur tunable down converter--multipurpose devices which have been lawfully marketed for over 20 years--could receive this transmission in intelligible form without any special device or information provided by the sender,” Justice Otto M. Kaus wrote.

The court rejected the Sacramento district attorney’s contention that the California Satellite Systems’ signal was “distorted,” and thus covered by the law against pirating cable television programs. The court noted that the signal was merely sent on a wavelength that differed from the commercial UHF and VHF frequencies. The definition of the term distorted “clearly implies that something must be done to the signal to render it distorted,” the court said.

“To suggest that a transmission is ‘distorted’ merely by virtue of the sender’s use of a particular frequency or frequency band would ignore both the plain and technical meanings of the word distorted, “ the court said.

“It is a victory of sorts,” said Babylon, whose conviction was reversed but who has spent an estimated $20,000 in court costs. “It’s confirmation that I was right in the beginning. I don’t know (whether) the cost was worth the gratification.”

Broadcasters, however, may still turn to the federal courts. California Satellite Systems has brought more than 100 civil suits in U.S. District Court in Sacramento against individuals and sellers of the equipment and has been winning regularly, said lawyer Roger Stewart, who represents the firm. The issue has not yet been decided by U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Everybody thinks the airwaves are free. They are not. The fact that they may not be criminally prosecuted under this state statute has nothing to do with the federal laws,” Stewart said.

Stewart estimated that there are “over a hundred systems in the United States” like California Satellite Systems. They do not bring signals into homes through cables, but rather receive them from satellites and relay them into homes. The system is called Multipoint Distribution Service.

There are similar systems in parts of Los Angeles, San Diego, Lancaster, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara and Oxnard, a recent industry newsletter said.

In other major actions Thursday, the high court:

- Opened the way for suits against foreign manufacturers of defective items, even if the companies do not sell directly to California consumers. The Solano County case involved Asahi Metal Industry of Japan, which sold valves for motorcycle tire tubes to a Taiwan company that assembled the tubes and sold them to California retailer.

Tire Exploded

In a 5-2 decision written by Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, the court allowed a suit against Asahi in a case brought by Gary Zurcher, who was severely injured when the rear tire tube of his motorcycle exploded. His wife was killed. Bird said Asahi could be sued here, “given California’s interest in protecting its consumers,” and because Asahi knew that its valves would ultimately end up in this state. Justices Malcolm Lucas and Stanley Mosk dissented, saying that federal law does not allow such suits in state courts.

- Upheld the conviction of Michael Lougin, an Oakland youth who held up a doughnut shop. The court by a 6-1 margin rejected Lougin’s contention that his defense was damaged because police did not seize from the shop a videotape of the robbery, even though one was available. Instead, police took still photographs of key frames.

The court declined to broadly define the duty of police to gather evidence, except to say, “The record demonstrates that the officers did not act in bad faith or with any intent to deprive defendant of this evidence.” Bird dissented, saying that police should gather such evidence to ensure “that the trial is a bona fide search for the truth.”

- Reversed the rape conviction of Dr. Olufemi Babatunde Ogunmola, a Torrance obstetrician who had been found guilty of raping two women while he was performing pelvic exams. The women were conscious at the time but did not realize until later that a rape occurred, the prosecution contended.

Had Been Acquitted

The prosecutor called as witnesses two other women who said they had been raped in a similar manner by the doctor, although Ogunmola had been acquitted in those cases.

The high court, however, stopped short of saying that all evidence from all criminal cases in which a defendant is acquitted must be excluded from subsequent cases.

The decision was unanimous, though Lucas said he disagreed with state court decisions on which it was based.

- Unanimously reversed the second-degree murder conviction of Dennis Edwards, who was found guilty in San Bernardino after his girlfriend died of a heroin overdose. The court said the judge erred by refusing Edwards’ request to allow jurors to consider whether he was guilty of manslaughter. The court said evidence showed that the heroin was purchased by both Edwards and Victoria Rogers, who died, and that both agreed to use it.