RE: Christopher Handley and Loli’s Legality
“ The trial of an American man arrested for ordering loli manga from Japan has ended after he pled guilty; he now faces a possible 15 year sentence, along with a $250,000 fine and the loss of all his precious loli manga.
The man, Iowa resident Christopher Handley, pled guilty to “possessing obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children and mailing obscene material,” charges stemming from postal workers rifling through his package and discovering it contained manga supposedly depicting underage sexual activity.
Today’s big story is the sudden, shocking and downright unjust conclusion to the case of Christopher Handley. His lawyer has convinved him to plead guilty, rather than further challenge the case on the merits of the obcenity charges with the help of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. One source, claiming to be a close family friend to Chris Handley describes the situation and suggests that he was mislead by his lawyer, and says that there may be room for some appeal:
Hello all. I am a close friend of Chris’ family. To shed some light on what happened, I thought I would share what I know. It was his own lawyer that encouraged him to take the plea. His lawyer convinced him that the case could not be won, and that he would be better off to plea to the lesser charge. However, it is my understanding that Chris was mislead in this. From what we were told, the lesser charge was simply the possession and import of obscene materials. He was also told that if he plead out, that he would more than likely not see any time as he has been on probation this whole time and has not been any kind of a threat to society since he had been placed on probation. Many of us that know Chris, are just as disappointed and upset as many of you. It is a miscarriage of justice, and with any luck it can be appealed. Read more here.
So perhaps there is a slim hope for justice to prevail after all. But for now, this development stands as an outrageous and disgusting example of the reach of persecutation and the limits of freedom and liberty. While feminist groups in the UK attempt to thwart the Japanese constitution and undermine the hentai industry by pressuring social groups and the government with moral posturing, the US now sees a precadent that effectively outlaws all loli or shota material, and even hentai that depicts adult-seeming characters in “obscene” sexual engagements. Countries of the world are lining up to take a swing at common sense and the right to freedom of thought by introducing and enforcing harsh measures against “virtual” material. In my country, Australia, the law is already quite clear: any pornography with underage particapents is illegal to import and (perhaps) illegal to possess, regardless of the degree to which they resemble a real human. There is no other way to describe laws like this other than an affront to freedom of expression and an illogical knee-jerk reaction by the ignorant public towards something they find offensive. Unless an action or belief harms or opresses someone else, what right does the government have to tell you not to do it, in the privacy of your own home.
Personal freedoms are out the window when it comes to the moral frenzy of the day, which is presently paedophilia. And of course, because it does not mean anything to them, most people are perfectly willing to accept that drawn lolicon IS child pornography, or that it leads to the consumption of child pornography or worse. This theory has been completely unverified, and lauded by the Supreme Court in the US and yet has been adopted by self-righteous moral crusaders all across the world. And the plainest example of just how stupid these kinds of laws have become is the sheer magnitude of the sentences, both the maximum and minimum, that importing or accessing so-called “virtual child pornography” can incur. Years in prison for a looking at a handful of drawings in your own home? That’s more perverse than anything I’ve seen in a hentai. Modern society is heading in a bad direction very quickly and I’m ashamed and frightened to be a part of it. The sheer selfishness of people who agree with these kinds of laws is astounding, even among the anime fandom. Look back at when Seven Seas licensed Kodomo no Jikan. The uproar over that, spearheaded by a good portion of the pathetic ANN community was a real wake-up call to me. It seems that if something doesn’t infringe on the lifestyle of the majority, it’s perfectly acceptable to have it banned and its supporters lynched, regardless of whether there is any reason to do so. And of course, it’s a vicious cycle; stigma surrounding this topic has become so great that no one in their right mind has the chance to defend it without being utterly destroyed.
This should be a sad day for anime and manga fans all over the world. And don’t think you’re entirely immune just because you don’t look at outright loli porn. Think about how the age of these characters can be established? What portion of anime characters are actually over the 18 and legal, and, more importantly, who gets to decide whether the art style of a hentai is depicting a minor or not? It’s ridiculous that I should even have to ponder these questions because we’re talking about drawings and pictures - it shouldn’t even matter. And if legal precedents like these are set, where will it end,
“What about Kaworu Watashiya’s Kodomo no Jikan?[27] Once you begin to attack pure fantasy, where do you stop? Under current legal interpretation, a drawing of Rin’s fictional panties covering her non-existent genitalia constitutes a prohibited sexual act.
If we apply that fact to other manga all of a sudden you can ban a wide range of titles, like the popular series Negima. These laws have the potential to make it more difficult to legally obtain hentai than actual pornography, because anime characters who are of age could be construed as being minors given a certain art style or body type. Hell, in the UK, laws are starting to spring up targeting pornographic featuring real or fictional adults engaged in sexual behaviour deemed offensive, like BDSM. These recent attacks on civil liberties demonstrate poor legal ethics and degrading public hysteria. Sentencing a mild-mannered, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen to years in prison is, as far as I’m concerned, completely unethical on top of irrational.
As you can tell, I have a rather strong opinion on this topic, but for a dryer and more convincing article on the legality of lolicon/shota in the US, this is a must-read:
In conclusion, the author says:
In the meantime, organizations like the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which would have provided expert witnesses at its own expense had the Handley case gone to trial, should be supported through donations and membership. News sites and blogs should loudly criticize government interference with the rights of its citizens to purchase, read and possess the publications they wish. Petitions should be sent to members of Congress objecting to the censorship of art under the guise of protecting children. Moral crusading against comic books and art must be forced into retreat.
For extra information on the Handley case, from someone actually involved, this page and website is also a good resource:
Yeah, even though I’m not into the whole loli thing, this is just ridiculous, and what the hell were the postal workers doing rifling through his mail in the first place?!
Apparently the package was ’suspicioius’. But that’s just one of the many ambiguous things about the case. Did it smell like drugs, or was the postal worker just bored and curious? I guess it doesn’t matter..
my fear goes beyond this case as the writer of this artical points out where does it stop?
this law is applicable to *ANY artform that portrays sexuality and as far as I know it does *not* specify sexuality involveing a minor. mearly works that have “no other merits in the opinon of judge and jury” hum….. so judges are now art critics?
>>so judges are now art critics?
To be fair, that is how legal systems work: evidence is presented to judge, judges or jury and they make a decision based on that evidence. The problem here is that, as Washi says in the post, age is difficult to establish objectively when is comes to anime and manga. The glasses festishest hentai manga ‘Take Me On’ has a mid-twenties year old office woman who looks like she’s fourteen years old (the concept of which is used as an extended joke, but I digress), for example. I have a low opinion of juries at the best of times, but expecting twelve randoms schmucks off the street to wrap their heads around that is like asking to fit an ungreased camel through the eye of a needle. While the average judge can be expected to be of superior reasoning than the average juror, they can also be expected to be both strict and literal. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, then it’s time to apply Donoghue v Stevenson 1932.
Of course, at the end of the day none of it actually looks like a duck and that is an entirely inappropriate case. But the point I’m getting at here is that you’re dealing with a medium which is notoriously ‘fluid’ when it comes to age and appearence. That shouldn’t actually matter, as it’s not real and frankly most lolis only vaguely resemble actual human beings.
I’m not sure how making a judgment based on evidence is in any way comparable to being an art critic :S Deniper has a point in that, in this case, evidence isn’t actually evidence at all until it has been determined by a jury (not a judge) to be “obsene” (assuming you were talking about the obsenity laws, Deniper). That makes it entirely subjective. If the jury find it offensive AND don’t recognise that it has artistic merit, then it becomes obsene and hence open to these absurd penalties, regardless of what the judge wants to say about it.
Also, although the law is almost entirely open-ended (by that I mean it ends wherever the population’s conservative views will take it - theoretically all pornography could be deemed obsene), it’s unlikely that normal hentai, except more extreme varieties, would be deemed obsene. The real problem is definitely the ambiguity of ages of drawn characters. Essentially what laws that ban loli imply is that any drawn pornography may only feature buxom characters with abundant pubic hair and large hips, otherwise they could be construed as being underage, regardless of what’s stated in the manga/whatever. That makes it more restricted than ACTUAL pornography, and is pure idiocy.
>>That makes it entirely subjective. If the jury find it offensive AND don’t recognise that it has artistic merit, then it becomes obsene and hence open to these absurd penalties, regardless of what the judge wants to say about it.
That’s only the case in a trial by jury. In a bench trial (and in the US, the defendant in a criminal trial has the right the waive his right to a jury), the judge plays the role of finder of fact instead of the jury. This is the sort of issue that really doesn’t need a jury, because like you say, this is entirely subjective. It’s subjective even in a bench trial, and frankly there is a non-zero probability of getting a retarded judge, but ideally a judge would be able to look past that subjectivity. This is getting a little away from the actual topic, though.
And you must let me in on the secret of quote boxes.
No, the obsenity laws require the material to be reviewed by a body of your peers to determine that it is not in keeping with community values, and they also determine whether or not it has artistic merits.
Use the tag {blockquote} text {/blockquote}, replacing { with < , and } with >
I know this may seem somewhat superfluous but laaaaaaaame.