LAKELAND, FL – The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, along with the Free Speech Coalition and the First Amendment Lawyers Association, yesterday asked a Florida appeals court to release Chris Wilson, the Lakeland-based webmaster of NowThatsFuckedUp.com. Wilson was charged in October with over 300 counts of obscenity in connection with content on his amateur adult site.“Sexual expression in cyberspace is protected by the First Amendment,” said Gainesville attorney Gary Edinger, who submitted the amicus curiae brief on behalf of the three organizations. “It’s unprecedented for government officials to use imprisonment to prevent the distribution of material over the internet.”
In the brief filed yesterday, the three organizations asked the Second District Court of Appeal to reverse a ruling by Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance, which authorized the Polk County Sheriff’s Office to revoke Wilson’s bail because there was “probable cause” to believe that pictures on Wilson’s website were obscene.
Obscenity is generally considered an issue of fact to be determined by a jury, and legal experts have noted that revoking bail in obscenity cases is extremely rare.
“This kind of post arrest punishment, before there’s even a finding of obscenity on the initial charges, is unheard of in legal circles,” Wilson’s attorney, Lawrence Walters, told YNOT last month, when the State Attorney’s office first requested that a judge revoke Wilson’s bail.
“The Wilson situation is of profound concern to the FSC because the Constitution of the United States expressly requires careful procedures before a court can say that expression exceeds constitutional protection,” The Free Speech Coalition stated in a press release. “In this case, those procedures appear to be seriously lacking.”
Wilson’s site originally hit the news several months ago, when officials in the U.S. military discovered that soldiers overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq were sending Wilson grisly war images in exchange for free access the amateur adult site operated by Wilson. Wilson, who operated the site from his Lakeland home, says he posted the violent war photos on the site as a way to help spark debate about U.S. politics and foreign policy.
Wilson was arrested by Polk County Sheriff’s Offices on October 7th, not for posting the violent images, but on obscenity charges for the amateur photos submitted by members and users of Wilson’s site.
Wilson was released on $151,000 bond, and while awaiting trial, moved to Orange County, Florida, where he continued operating the Netherlands-based site. The State Attorney’s Office subsequently filed a motion revoke Wilson’s bail for operating the site outside of Polk County, which officials argued was a violation of the conditions of his release. A judge ruled in agreement with the On December 16th, he is currently being held without bond in the Polk County Jail.
“This is a classic example of a censorship crusade by local government bureaucrats who are relying on their own subjective definition of obscenity to arrest someone even before any court has found that this website is illegal,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. “What right do Polk County officials have to decide what people who live in Berlin and London and Hong Kong and New York access in the privacy of their own homes?”
“This case is typical of how obscenity law can be misused to censor unpopular speech,” said Michelle L. Freridge, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition. “We are proud to stand with the ACLU and FALA in support of Chris Wilson, and we look forward to an expeditious and positive decision by the Second District Court of Appeal in this matter.”
