Conditions of Release: Don't Watch Pornographic Movies

Conditions of Release: Don't Watch Pornographic Movies

Pornography--Law and legislation

American Civil Liberties Union

After a man views a pornographic movie, he rapes his wife and is charged with sexual assault. A judge rules that he can be released on bail only if he agrees not to possess or watch pornography.

"Conditions of Release: Don't Watch Pornographic Movies ,” Rutland (VT) Daily Herald , November 30, 1993.

HIST 298, University of Mary Washington

1993-11-30

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English

Lebanon, NH

CHELSEA – A judge is drawing fire because she ruled that a man charged with rape could be released from jail only if he agreed not to possess or view pornography.

Civil liberties advocates said they were troubled by Judge Mary Miles Teachout’s ruling.

“It’s a first for me,” said Vermont Law School Professor Michael A. Mello.

Teachout decided that David C. Green could be released on bail while awaiting trial but only on the condition that he stay away from pornography.

Green, 22, is accused of repeatedly raping his wife, who had told him he wanted a divorce, on Oct. 21.

“He told me that earlier in the day he had rented a movie and had masturbated while watching the movie,” Green’s wife wrote in an affidavit submitted to police. Neither the affidavit nor other police records indicated the content of the movie.

Green of Lebanon, N.H., was arrested and charged with five counts of aggravated sexual assault and one of kidnapping. He is being held in the Southeast Regional Correctional Facility in Woodstock, unable to make bail.

Critics of the release conditions Teachout set questioned whether the judge should be linking the alleged crime with a movie.

“Take it out of the realm of sex,” suggested Vermont American Civil Liberties Union executive director Leslie Williams. “What if you rob a bank after watching a movie about robbing a bank? It’s assuming a connection that I’m not sure is justified.”

Mello, who teaches criminal law, said judges had the right to impose a number of release conditions as long as they can be “rationally related to the offense” and do not violate the constitution.

“I think it’s unconstitutional,” Mello said of Teachout’s order.

David Putter, chairman of the Vermont ACLU’s legal panel, said the problem with the order was that it was essentially unenforceable because it’s so broad. Vermont has no legal definition of pornography, he said.

“The state can’t prohibit speech unless it clearly defines the prohibited speech and that speech falls within a lawful definition of obscenity,” Putter said. “If (Teachout) has not specified what particular guidelines govern, then the order would be a violation not only of the First Amendment but of the Vermont Constitution as well.”

Mello said Teachout’s order involved the “suppression of ideas… it infringes on the marketplace of ideas. It has a potentially chilling effect.” That is what sets apart from typical conditions of release, such as prohibiting drinking alcohol or barring contact with certain people, he said.

Williams, who is not a lawyer, said the argument could be put in simpler terms. “This is unreasonable,” she said. “To forbid someone to read something or look at something is going a little too far.”

[Pull quote]: “What if you rob a bank after watching a movie about robbing a bank? It’s assuming a connection that I’m not sure is justified.”

Newspaper

Bales, Jack

Williams, Megan