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Shock and Awful: DOJ Announces New Internet Bust 4/1/2003 "Shock and Awful." It's the feeling anyone whose sensitivities are still intact would have after seeing the images involved in the second federal prosecution of Internet obscenity. Even more shocking is that anyone could earn $70,000 in three months from individuals who want to see sex scenes with defecation and urination.
On March 27, 2003, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrests of Michael J. Corbett and Sharon E. Corbett of Lewisburg, West Virginia, on charges of using the U.S. mail to deliver obscene videotapes and DVDs. A criminal complaint has been filed in the federal district court in Beckley, West Virginia, charging violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1461.
According to the complaint, the Corbetts operate an Internet Web site offering "a total of 53 video tapes and DVDs, 40 minutes to 2 hours in length, depicting graphic and sexually explicit scenes of defecation and urination."
"Graphic" doesn't suffice. After receiving the press release from the DOJ, I checked the Web site to see if it was still operating. And then I gagged. And I've seen this type of porn before. Anticipating the usual suspects who will try to wrap the First Amendment around this refuse makes the blood boil. The only "community standards" where this stuff might be acceptable is Hell.
According to the complaint, "the Corbetts mailed six to 30 parcels per day, five days per week, to locations throughout the United States and in foreign countries. Bank records of the Corbetts, doing business as MJC, indicate that in one three-month period alone, the Corbetts earned approximately $70,000 in customer receipts from their videotape distribution business."
"This type of material has a coarsening and desensitizing effect on our society, and can lead some to commit other degrading, and sometimes violent, sexual offenses against others," said Deputy Assistant Attorney General John G. Malcolm, who oversees the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). "The Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute those who pander obscenity in our society." Really.
We've been waiting and waiting … and the too-little too-late prosecutions are proving the premise. How else do we explain how people who purchased this material became so coarsened and desensitized that such disgusting and deviant imagery appeals to them? It's the addiction process—what those who treat porn addicts tell us—the less deviant porn that used to titillate and gratify no longer does. And because hard-core porn has been allowed to inundate the Internet for so long, more people are becoming desensitized and addicted at a much faster pace. And what about the kids? This Web site has free teaser images within a few mouse clicks of any child online.
The first Internet conviction for obscenity last December involved one video depicting rape, torture and mutilation. This one is in the toilet. The prosecution bar is far too high. Pornographers are evil but that doesn't mean they're stupid. The industry will react to what's prosecuted and no more.
The bar is far above what the Supreme Court said is prosecutable. The Court gave "a few plain examples" in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973):
Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated. Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals. Sex and nudity may not be exploited without limit by films or pictures exhibited or sold in places of public accommodation any more than live sex and nudity can be exhibited or sold without limit in such public places. At a minimum, prurient, patently offensive depiction or description of sexual conduct must have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value to merit First Amendment protection. Id at 25-26.
The DOJ for over ten years has said it is focusing on the most "obscene" pornography—child pornography. Child porn is the worst of porn, but the most effective way to eradicate it is to vigorously prosecute hard-core adult porn. Stopping greater crimes is the result of targeting lesser crimes.
The strategy Rudy Gulliani used as mayor of New York City, which resulted in a drastic reduction in the crime rate, is a great model. New York's finest went after the lowest categories of street crime: panhandling, prostitution, pick-pocketing, littering and sleeping on the streets. Criminals got the message loud and clear: If they're not going to tolerate misdemeanors, they sure aren't going to tolerate murder, rape and robbery. The murder rate dropped 50 percent.
The Corbetts were arrested March 26, and search warrants were executed in Lewisburg, West Virginia, and Quitman, Georgia. The arrests and searches were conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, with the assistance of the FBI, the West Virginia State Police, and the Quitman, Georgia, Police Department.
The prosecution is being handled by the CEOS, headed by section chief Andrew Oosterbaan, and the office of U.S. Attorney Kasey Warner of the southern district of West Virginia.
If you live in the southern district of West Virginia, you should pray that the Corbetts plead guilty. Otherwise, you might end up on their jury and you'll have to judge each video "taken as a whole." Trust me—you won't want to do that but others will have to.
Come on DOJ. Go after the big guys and include some of the "few plain examples." We're rooting for you. It's time to make the porn industry's fears a reality. It's time to send a message to the white collars on Wall Street who think selling porn is a good way to improve the bottom line.
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