The Washington Post reports:
A federal judge dismissed the first obscenity prosecution brought in the nation's capital in a quarter-century on technical grounds Friday, tossing out charges against John A. Stagliano and two companies associated with the adult video producer based in Van Nuys, Calif.Buttman defeats the U.S. federal government.
Acquitting Stagliano, John Stagliano Inc. and Evil Angel Productions Inc. before they began their defense, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon said evidence presented by the Justice Department's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in the four-day trial was "woefully insufficient" to link defendants to the production and distribution of two DVD videos at the heart of the case.
"I hope the government will learn a lesson from its experience," Leon said in a rebuke. He cited a string of "difficult, challenging and novel questions" raised in the case concerning decades-old federal obscenity statutes, the Internet, free speech and criminal defendants' rights.
"I hope that [higher] courts and Congress will give greater guidance to judges in whose courtrooms these cases will be tried," he said.
