Court Blocks Puerto Rico Obscenity Suit : Ruling: Efforts to prosecute some cable TV companies for carrying the Playboy Channel are preempted by federal law.

The Supreme Court today refused to let Puerto Rico prosecute some cable TV systems for carrying the Playboy Channel, rebuffing arguments that a lower court ruling unduly hampered states’ anti-obscenity efforts.

The justices, without comment, let stand rulings that such prosecutions are preempted by federal law.

In another obscenity case today, the court upheld an Illinois law that lets authorities seize the property of businesses convicted at least twice of obscenity violations.

The court rejected the argument of Sequoia Books Inc. that the law operates as a prior restraint on free expression.

At issue in the Puerto Rico case was the effect of the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, which imposes mandatory access obligations on cable operators whose systems have at least 36 active channels.

The law says such operators must make available, on a first-come, first-served basis, a certain number of channels for commercial use by programmers not affiliated with the cable system.

Once an unaffiliated programmer obtains access, the cable operator is prohibited from exercising any editorial control over the programming transmitted on that channel.

But the federal law also states that cable operators cannot be held accountable for any libel, obscenity or false advertising carried on a channel it surrendered under the mandatory access provisions.

In the spring of 1987, a prosecutor in Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice notified cable operators that criminal obscenity charges would be filed against all systems transmitting the Playboy Channel.

Within a few months, all cable systems but one--Teleponce Inc.--had dropped the Playboy Channel, which features so-called adult entertainment.

Playboy Enterprises Inc., which through a wholly owned subsidiary distributed the Playboy Channel, and the Puerto Rico Cable Television Assn., a trade group, then sued the island commonwealth’s Department of Justice.

The suit, invoking a federal civil rights law, accused Puerto Rico officials of unlawfully interfering with free-speech rights.

U.S. District Judge Jaime Pieras Jr. barred authorities from taking any action against any cable operator carrying the Playboy Channel under the federal Cable Act’s mandatory access provisions.

The judge said local obscenity prosecutions of such cable operators were precluded by the federal law.