Adult Film Producers, Distributors Sue to Upset Anti-Obscenity Laws

A coalition of adult film producers and distributors filed suit Tuesday against the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking to overturn a wide range of federal anti-obscenity statutes they say “exact too high a price” for delivering sex films to an increasingly accepting American public.

In a civil suit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the newly formed Adult Video Assn. is seeking a declaration that the use of federal racketeering laws and tough new sentencing and bail reform statutes in obscenity prosecutions is unconstitutional.

Stepped-up pornography enforcement efforts under U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, the target of the lawsuit, threaten to discourage retail video outlets from delivering even the kind of soft-core adult films that are not illegal under most definitions of obscenity, said Perry Ross, co-chairman of the association.

Rentals More Numerous

The lawsuit comes at a time when rentals of adult-oriented videocassettes have topped 104 million a year--nearly double the number of rentals two years ago. That is an indication, the producers said, that sex films have moved from the red-light district into the living rooms of middle America.

“The government says we’re an $8-billion business. That’s a lot of Americans,” Ross said. “Unfortunately, the silent majority doesn’t watch Channel 11 and Channel 9 on Sunday mornings and throw away their money on their church. The way they speak up is they go to their corner video store and rent their adult film once a week or once a month.”

In Los Angeles County, considered the headquarters of the adult entertainment industry, revenues are up to about $500 million a year. But Ross said production has dropped sharply in the wake of stepped-up enforcement efforts by local authorities, including a move to prosecute pornography producers under state pandering laws.

U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner, whose office has prosecuted a variety of pornography cases, said there is “a significant segment of the public that feels that there ought to be at least some enhanced enforcement of the anti-obscenity statutes.”

‘Special Protection’

With the present lawsuit, Bonner said, “it appears that the pornography industry is seeking some special protection from the enforcement of the law that generally is not accorded to other individuals and businesses that engage in federal criminal violations.”

The lawsuit is aimed at a series of federal criminal statutes directed at the pornography industry--including the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, amended in 1984 to allow federal authorities to forfeit the assets of defendants found to have committed two or more obscenity violations and to seek prison terms of up to 20 years against them.

The 100-member association is also targeting new federal sentencing guidelines, which increase the penalties for obscenity violations, and the 1984 Bail Reform Act, under which, they said, federal prosecutors are seeking to have those charged with obscenity offenses held without bail pending trial.

Because federal laws defining obscenity are so vague--relying on “community standards” and material that would be “patently offensive” to most viewers--adult film distributors and video retailers have no way of knowing which films might be considered obscene, said John Weston, attorney for the association.

‘A Constant Threat’

“Because of the utter inability of any nationwide distributor of sexually oriented materials to obtain a pre-distribution determination that any such presumptively protected materials are in fact constitutionally protected, the potential possibility of prosecution under traditional federal obscenity laws is a constant threat to those who attempt to provide the adult public with constitutionally protected sexually oriented videotapes,” the association asserts in its suit.

The constant threat of prosecution and its attendant severe criminal penalties “will result in such self-censorship that the American public will no longer be able to purchase or rent any . . . sexually oriented videotapes,” the lawsuit states.

Members of the association--including producers, directors, actors, distributors and technicians employed in the adult film industry--are asking the court to rule that use of those statutes in anti-obscenity prosecutions violates constitutional guarantees of free speech, due process and protections against excessive criminal penalties.

The first obscenity prosecution under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute concluded recently in Alexandria, Va., with the conviction of eight operators of neighborhood video stores and the seizure of a warehouse and three vehicles. It is a precedent that the association claims potentially opens all of the assets of a corner video store operator to federal seizure if it is found that he distributed two or more films determined to be obscene.

‘Rather Unlikely’

Bonner said it is “rather unlikely” that his office would file an action against a mainstream video retailer.

“But I do think that it’s a statute that Congress has enacted that could be used against major producers and distributors of hard-core, graphically explicit pornography,” he said.