Court Opinion

ID: 9653129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:39:22.886837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:56.521535
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Child abuse is a problem of great social import and one which demands society’s best attention. The issue is not whether one is for or against child abuse. I believe all responsible people are against child abuse and all can agree that child pornography is a form of child abuse. I write today being fully aware that the words I write may be unpopular with some engaged in the crusade against child abuse, but with the sincere hope and belief that one day those same people and their children will say thanks for defending the constitutional safeguards which I shall address.
The principal opinion makes a number of critical leaps in its analysis that I believe are unwarranted under current law. In an effort to aid the battle against the evils of child abuse, the principal opinion improperly holds that the challenged language in the statute “does not suffer from imper-missive First Amendment substantial over-breadth.” In reaching this conclusion, the principal opinion fails to address adequately the extent to which the First Amendment permits state regulation of nude depictions of children.
The State seeks to prohibit photographing or filming a child less than seventeen years old engaged in a prohibited sexual act, and the challenged sexual act is “nudity, if such nudity is to be depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification of any individual who may view such depictions.” The issue in this case is not, as the principal opinion suggests, whether this language is substantially overbroad but rather whether the State has properly and adequately defined the category of child pornography which it seeks .to prohibit.1
In New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982), the United States Supreme Court held that child pornography was a category of expression not protected by the First Amendment. While the contours of this unprotected category were not expressly defined in Ferber, a careful reading of the case suggests “that the Court intended the constitutional definition of child pornography to be coextensive with New York’s statutory definition.” 2 Schauer, “Codifying The First Amendment: New York v. Ferber,” 1982 Sup.Ct.Rev. 285, 294, n. 49. The Court, however, cautioned:
*287There are, of course, limits on the category of child pornography which, like obscenity is unprotected by the First Amendment. As with all legislation in this sensitive area, the conduct to be prohibited must be adequately defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed. Here the nature of the harm to be combated requires that the state offense be limited to works that visually depict sexual conduct by children below a specified age. The category of “sexual conduct” proscribed must also be suitably limited and described.
Id. at 764,102 S.Ct. at 3358. In short, child pornography is that which “portray[s] sexual acts or lewd exhibitions of genitalia by children.” Id. at 753, 102 S.Ct. at 3352. It might be noted that the word “lewd” has a recognized meaning, which is comparable to other sexual acts. See United States v. Nemuras, 567 F.Supp. 87, 89 (D.Md.1983), aff'd 740 F.2d 286.
The challenged statutory language is neither suitably limited nor described so as to fall within the realm of child pornography. It is clear that the Court in Ferber required that the type of sexual act or conduct by the child be adequately defined. Here, the statute prohibits photographing or filming “nudity.” Nudity is not the type of sexual act or conduct which the Court in Ferber held unprotected.3 See Schauer, supra, at 295. Indeed, nudity without the additional requirement of “lewd” exhibition does not even amount to sexual conduct. It might be thought that the scienter element adds a limiting construction on the word “nudity,” but such is not the case. After the fact determinations of pornographic intent may not substitute for an adequate and suitable description of the type of acts by the child which cannot be photographed or filmed. This makes all the more sense when one realizes that the harm to a child may be the same whether one taking the pictures does so for a purient or puritanical purpose.
Because the challenged language, under the construction given to it by the principal opinion, cannot be considered within the realm of child pornography, the state may not regulate the activity consistent with the First Amendment. If the state may not prohibit the dissemination of nonporno-graphic material, then it may not indirectly stop the dissemination by prohibiting production. It is not enough to say, as the principal opinion does, that “the statute is distinctly conduct, as contrasted with speech,” and that there is a distinction between production and dissemination. See generally Note, supra, at 310, n. 89, 311, n. 90. Such reasoning would have allowed a statute prohibiting James Joyce from writing Ulysses or prohibiting the filming of “Last Tango In Paris” or prohibiting Raphael from painting his madonnas with child.
I believe that the challenged language, which is not sufficient to define child pornography, is inconsistent with the First Amendment.

. It might be noted that before the Court in New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982) reached the question of overbreadth in Part III of its opinion, it first decided in Part II that child pornography, appropriately defined, was not a category protected by the First Amendment. The overbreadth challenge was then undertaken in order to determine whether otherwise valid First Amendment expressions would be forbidden. I do not believe that we should reach the overbreadth argument because by not properly defining child pornography the statutory language at issue always prohibits activity protected by the First Amendment.

. Section 263.3 of the New York statute provides ‘"sexual conduct’ means actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of genitals.” New York v. Ferber, supra, at 751, 102 S.Ct. at 3351.

. The rationale is that the legislature must adequately define that type of sexual conduct which harms the child and nudity is not such conduct. See generally Note, “Protection of Children From Use In Pornography: Toward Constitutional and Enforceable Legislation,” 12 U.Mich. J.L.Ref. 295, 321-23, 334 (1979).