Ruling Backs Wider Scope of Child Porn Law

Rebuffing efforts by the Justice Department to enforce a new, more lenient definition of child pornography, a federal appeals court ruled in a Pennsylvania case Thursday that the possession of photographs depicting scantily clad children is a crime.

“We hold that . . . non-nude visual depictions can qualify as lascivious exhibitions” and therefore can be deemed illegal child pornography, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said. The ruling reinstates the conviction of Stephen Knox, a Pennsylvania man who bought several videos of girls 10 to 17 posed in bathing suits, leotards and underwear.

The ruling was a setback for the Administration’s lawyers, who last fall urged the high court to throw out Knox’s conviction, arguing that child pornography laws govern only depictions of nudity.

Critics of the Administration’s position hailed the decision.

“They have totally rejected the Justice Department’s weakened interpretation of the law,” said Patrick Trueman, the former head of an anti-pornography unit in the George Bush Administration and a vocal critic of the new policy.

Lawyers for Knox said, however, that they will appeal again to the Supreme Court.

“I’m frankly disappointed. They (the appellate judges) had to torture the meaning of words to get to this result,” said Lawrence Stanley, a New York lawyer who represented Knox.

Agreeing that the decision constituted a rejection of the Administration’s view, Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern said: “I can’t prejudge what we’ll say in the future (if the case reaches the high court again). The 3rd Circuit opinion may very well be persuasive.”

The Knox case became a cause celebre among conservative groups last fall after it reached the Supreme Court on an appeal. Rather than defend the prosecution, U.S. Solicitor General Drew S. Days III urged the high court to throw out Knox’s conviction, arguing that videos which do not contain a “visual depiction of genitals” are not illegal.

Conservatives were infuriated at the change, which they perceived as a weakening of child pornography statutes.

At Days’ recommendation, the high court sent the case back for reconsideration by the federal appeals court in Philadelphia.