If you are referring to what I posted...The former cop's son was murdered there.

Peter,

Since Jesus is the manager of the store, he is responcible for the over all store, good or bad.

If the book was a) visible from outside of the "Adult" only section AND b) the book shown nudity then Jesus was correctly convicted. If the book was a) not visible from outside of the "Adult" only section OR b) the book shown no nudity if it could have been seen from outside of the "Adult" section then Jesus shouldn't not have been convicted. Until you know where or how it was displayed, how can you say that the conviction was correct or not?

By the way, is the conviction a felony or misdemeaner?

Flying Pig, the cop who bought the item FOUND IT ON HIS OWN! Plus, Castillo made sure Demon Beast Invasion #2 was out of the reach of kids.

Does that every store that display Penthouse or any mag of that type should be closed down? Boy oh boy, you and Pat O'Neill should find a island somewhere and run your own banana republic, without bothering us.

That would possibly be true, if Jesus were charged with "displaying nudity to minors". However, the question at hand is obscenity, which is different than nudity, and as I understand it the law at hand does not differentiate its display to minors.

Scout99,

One more time. The conviction wasn't about selling the book but DISPLAYING it.

The question that I asked wasn't did the police office find it ON HIS OWN. The question is was a) the book visible from outside of the "Adult" area and b) did the book when it was displayed show nudity? If the answer is yes to both then the conviction is correct. If the answer is no to anyone of the two parts then the conviction was incorrect.

Take ANY pron magazine as an example. The retailer is responcible for the display of the magazine. There is no nudity on the covers. Why? Because the retailer would be charged with obsenity laws for DISPLAYING the magazine. If it wasn't the case, why wouldn't Penthouse and Playboy have nudity on the covers?

If you don't know how the book was displayed, you can't say if the conviction was correct or not.

In most jurisdictions, the guy who makes the sale is the guy who gets arrested, so it doesn't really matter whether Jesus was the manager or not. Sometimes, they arrest the manager, too.

It may not seem fair (it may not be fair), but the reasoning is the same as when cops arrest a UPS driver for speeding -- he's the one actually doing the deed.

(BTW, I think Peter is right and Pat's wrong -- I'm just pointing out that Jesus's job title is nearly incidental to his being arrested.)

Well, heck, Pat, you've got all the answers. Having adult comics segregated and labeled as a means of protecting themselves from prosecution is a waste of time for a retailer because that'll just lure the kid in. Much better to have the comics not labeled at all...so they can be derelict in their responsibilities and be prosecuted. Better still, they should carry only comics that are absolutely 100% only going to appeal to kids under the age of eleven...so they can lose all their customers from teens on up to stores with a wider, more diverse range of titles. Anything except be able to conduct business without fear of being molested by eager politicos. Because then they'll be nice and pragmatic. That works.

So your experience in retail enables you to speak with authority on every store in America. Shape, size, floor space, placement of the register, placement of mirrors, and the fact that no kids were purchasing adult comic books or were even involved in the bust and that the law doesn't distnguish between displaying adult material and display adult material in the format of comics--but the prosecutor and jury did, thereby insulting our medium--all of that doesn't factor in to your analysis of the situation.

Yes, Pat. I see kids hanging out in our local Borders all the time. All the time. Now why don't you ask me why I'm not concerned about the kids in the knickerbockers, shirt-tailed young ones, peeking in the comic book store windows after school.

PAD

Otto,

Jesus'conviction was for DISPLAYING THE BOOK not selling the book. If Jesus is the one responcible for displaying the book then Jesus is responcible for the good or bad.

If UPS has a vehicle that is know to be have a vehicle that has no brake lights but allows it be on the road (a violation of the law) and that vehicle gets in a traffic accident then UPS is responcible for the accident. In other words, a) UPS knows vehicle has no brake lights and b) allows the vehicle to be on the road then UPS is responcible for the accident.

Would you be yelling and screaming for UPS because the driver that hit the UPS vehicle from behind should have know that it was stopping?

Do we actually know what the jury was thinking in this case? Were there post-case interviews? Because otherwise, we don't know whether their judgment was made on the basis of the medium, store location, and perceived customer age, or merely on the nature of the content.

In an obscenity case, a jury is generally an ill-educated group facing a fuzzy law. That's just one of many problems with obscenity law...

According to record, yes. However, this begs the question as to why the officer bothered to purchase it at all, rather than arrest Jesus on the spot, not disturbing the visual evidence regarding how visible the book was?

If the book was visible from outside the room, and the cover was flagrantly obscene, couldn't he have made the arrest without the purchase?