Justices to Rule on Racket Laws in Porn Cases

The Supreme Court today agreed to decide whether states may use anti-racketeering laws to close down adult bookstores, saying it will review a pair of free-speech challenges to such an Indiana law.

Under Indiana’s Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, patterned after the much-used federal RICO Act, law enforcement officials are authorized to seize any property used in a racketeering enterprise.

The law was invoked in March, 1984, against three Ft. Wayne bookstores selling sexually explicit materials, each accused of at least two violations of the state’s obscenity laws.

Law enforcement officials padlocked the stores and seized their inventories.

3 Indianapolis Stores

A short time later, similar legal action was taken against three adult bookstores in Indianapolis.

The three Ft. Wayne bookstores were allowed to reopen in April, 1985, but only one, Ft. Wayne Books, remains in business. It filed the appeal acted on today.

The three Indianapolis bookstores also have gone out of business. Later, two bookstores in Howard County, Ind., were prosecuted under the state law.

An Indiana appeals court ruled in 1985 that applying the state RICO law to those whose only offenses are alleged obscenity law violations impermissibly hinders constitutionally protected freedom of speech.

‘Prior Restraint’

The appeals court said the padlocking of the bookstores represented an impermissible “prior restraint” of materials not yet ruled obscene.

The Indiana Supreme Court last year reversed the appeals court, ruling that applying the RICO law in such a way is valid because the Legislature did not pass it to promote censorship.

In another action, the court cleared the way in a California case for a trial in what may become an important test of the power of cities to control rents and otherwise protect mobile home residents.

The court, without comment, rejected an appeal by Santa Barbara officials aimed at killing a lawsuit by owners of a mobile home park who claim that they are unfairly being deprived of their property’s full value.