Deddeh Reopens War on Pornography

Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Chula Vista) reopened his war on pornography Monday, introducing a bill to change the legal meaning of obscenity in California just weeks before an earlier redefinition aimed at increasing prosecutions takes effect.

Deddeh said his new bill would do “one thing and one thing only”--conform California’s obscenity definition to the one adopted in a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that replaced a narrow, decades-old standard that prosecutors say is virtually impossible to use.

The older standard, which remains the law in California until Jan. 1, defines obscenity as material “utterly without redeeming social importance.” Instead, the court permitted states to impose a standard under which material is evaluated as a whole for “serious literary, artistic, political, educational or scientific value.”

Forty-three states have adopted the federal wording. But California legislators--faced with heavy opposition from the Hollywood film industry, civil libertarians and librarians--have repeatedly rejected the so-called “Miller standard.”

The bill Deddeh introduced Monday, the first day of the 1987-88 legislative session, was almost identical to one he introduced in January, 1985. But the amended version that was signed into law by Gov. George Deukmejian last April used the word “significant” instead of “serious.”

Deddeh accepted that tiny word change to win the support of legislators who would not go along with the federal wording. But he said Monday that the “new and untested language” of that measure, which takes effect the beginning of next year, might invite court challenges and appeals over what the wording means.

Critics say the multibillion-dollar smut industry has ties to organized crime and has flourished under the old definition, which has been law in California for 20 years.

Deddeh and other backers of his legislation had hailed Deddeh’s earlier bill as a major victory, one which they predicted would lead to more prosecutions of those who produce, sell and distribute lewd books, movies and other materials.

But Deddeh said that, although the effectiveness of that measure is yet to be shown, he feels that it is important to try again to adopt the Miller standard.

His new bill, he said, “does not plow new ground . . . does not propose new and untested language, and it clearly does not invite witch hunts or censorship or indiscriminate prosecutions.”