Petitions ask for grand juries on indecency question

Petitions ask for grand juries on indecency question

A simultaneous effort to fight sexually-oriented businesses in six jurisdictions, including counties in Kansas and Missouri, kicked off today. The head of a national pro-family group will join at least 75 pastors and other representatives from over 130 Catholic and Protestant fellowships in the metro Kansas City area at a Thursday news conference announcing the start of a grand jury petition process targeting adult bookstores, strip clubs and other adult-oriented businesses in the region.

Petitions with signatures of over 20,000 registered voters will be given to the pastors and group representatives to take back to prosecutors in Wyandotte and Johnson Counties in Kansas and Platte, Clay, Jackson and Cass Counties in Missouri.

The petitioners are asking for grand jury investigations to use the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court test for obscenity against 32 identified businesses in the two-state region, an approach that campaign leader and pro-family activist Phil Cosby has successfully tried in legal jurisdictions in Topeka and Wichita, Kansas. "But it must be defined by community," he insists.

"That community looks at the evidence in the courtroom," Cosby explains, "and if that community says, 'This is obscene,' then the First Amendment protection of erotic speech is lifted, and it's subject to the fines and penalties of that state."

The anti-pornography activist, who helped coordinate the campaign, says the test established in 1973 by U.S. Supreme Court precedent allows use of a "community standard" for obscenity, which is not constitutionally protected speech. He says he will be handing back to the 75 church pastors and representatives their six county packets, "and they in turn will go and file them with their courthouse, which will begin the process of grand juries being impaneled to examine the evidence of obscenity."

This marks the first time a simultaneous, multi-county petition has been made. Cosby, who heads the Kansas City office of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, says it is another tool that is being added to tactics such as state legislation and local zoning ordinances, which are used to help regulate sex industries in the state.