Court Revives Suit Attacking Use of Pandering Laws Against Porn Films

A federal appeals court Tuesday reinstated a civil rights lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles traffic officer-turned-call girl challenging the use of prostitution and pandering laws against pornographic film makers.

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said there was room for First Amendment challenges to prosecutions under the statutes but said the federal courts should first allow the California Supreme Court to rule on the question.

The decision reinstates a lawsuit filed by Norma Jean Almodovar, a former civilian traffic control officer later convicted of prostitution, and film maker R. N. Bullard, who sought to make a movie graphically depicting “safe sex” practices, but said they feared they would be prosecuted.

Recent Crackdown

The suit challenges a recent crackdown against Los Angeles-area adult film makers and actors under state pandering and prostitution laws, which local law enforcement authorities say apply to the production of sexually explicit films because they make it illegal to receive money in exchange for sex.

The appeals court did not rule on the merits of the suit, under which Almodovar and Bullard are seeking to bar future prosecutions, but the plaintiffs’ lawyer claimed a measure of victory in the court’s pronouncement that the pandering and prostitution statutes are “susceptible” to a much narrower interpretation.

“Certainly, the requirement that sex be exchanged for money to constitute prostitution might be limited so as not to include performance before a camera,” Judge Dorothy W. Nelson wrote for the court.

Pandering Conviction

However, the court said the state Supreme Court should decide on how broadly to interpret the statutes before the federal courts intervene.

In a case now pending before the Supreme Court, Los Angeles film maker Harold Freeman is challenging his pandering conviction for hiring actresses to perform sex acts in one of his films.

“If the California Supreme Court decides that the Legislature did not intend the prostitution statute to apply to films, Almodovar will have obtained all the relief she seeks without a federal decision on her constitutional claims,” the appeals court said.

At the same time, by reversing a district judge’s earlier dismissal of the case, the court left open the possibility that Almodovar and Bullard could challenge the statutes in federal court should the Supreme Court uphold the conviction.

“I think it’s very good for us,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Stanley Fleishman, said of the ruling.

‘Something to Our Argument’

“We were claiming that the use of the pandering and prostitution laws was improper, and while the 9th Circuit obviously didn’t attempt to answer the question, they certainly suggested that there’s something to our argument, and that the statutes may have been used in an over-broad fashion,” Fleishman said.

Deputy City Atty. Jack L. Brown, representing the Los Angeles Police Department, who with the district attorney’s office was a defendant in the suit, said city and county officials have argued that use of the pandering and prostitution statutes does not violate film makers’ First Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment can’t operate to shield acts which otherwise are criminal, just because you’re filming something,” Brown said.