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Police & court headlines
State to review ruling on sexually oriented material
Thursday, September 27, 2007
DAYTON — Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's office will review a federal judge's decision that struck down a state law restricting the dissemination of sexually oriented material via the Internet.
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The staff was still determining what options were available and no decision had been made on an appeal, Ted Hart, deputy director of communications for Dann's office, said Wednesday.
The law, passed in 2002, never went into effect. U.S. Senior District Judge Walter H. Rice halted its enforcement with a temporary restraining order after a lawsuit was filed by numerous organizations representing booksellers, book publishers, music and video retailers and newspapers.
Rice struck down the law on Monday, stating it was overbroad.
The law attempted to prohibit people from sending communications "harmful to minors" via the Internet if the sender knows or should know the recipient is a minor.
Rice found the law violated the First Amendment because it was too broadly written and could have ensnared adults having sexually frank discussions with other adults in chat rooms. In those cases, there is no way to ensure that minors are not part of the conversation, Rice found.
He also said the law violated the First Amendment by failing to target only people who intended to disseminate sexually oriented material to children with the intent of luring children into sexual activity, which was the ostensible purpose of the law.
