ST. MARTINVILLE, LA — The owners of two adult video stores in St. Martin Parish have found themselves closer than ever to prison after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their obscenity cases.Emmette Jacob Jr. is the owner of Le Video Store, which has been located on the Breaux Bridge Highway for years. Likewise, Edward Burleigh Jr.’s The Video Palace. Two years ago, both men were charged with obscenity, based on the content of videos purchased from their shops by undercover officers who contend that they crossed the boundary between what is legal and what is obscene.
Although the men’s cases have been on hold while the constitutionality of the Louisiana state obscenity code has been examined, St. Martin Parish Assistant Attorney Cedars says he’s ready to request that the case go to trial, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined the duo’s appeal, an action that Cedars claims shows that “The statute has been held as valid.”
According to Reed Lee, one of the attorneys involved with the case, hopes that the Supremes would review the situation were a “long shot,” especially given how early in the prosecution things are. “They usually wait until there is a fair judgment in a case,” Lee observes.
Jacob and Burleigh had hoped that their attorney’s could get the Court to review their case and conclude that the state’s obscenity law is overbroad and vague, not defining what community’s standards would be used in determining whether their stock was obscene, thus violating free expression rights. Although the plaintiff’s state that they believe the state’s law makes it impossible for adult business owners to know what it legal and what is not, lower courts have so far supported the state law.
Each man faces the possibility of six months to three years in jail if convicted.
