Obscenity question revisited
W.Va. pair named in federal
case over Internet porn sales


Source: Charleston Daily Mail



Thursday April 24, 2003; 10:30 AM
The arrest of a Lewisburg couple for selling pornographic movies on the Internet has left some in West Virginia wondering how dirty movies can get before they break the law.

Now, the question is facing a federal judge in Beckley as the Department of Justice prepares to prosecute Michael and Sharon Corbett on obscenity charges. The crime: selling movies depicting bodily functions in a sexual manner.

On Tuesday, Sharon E. Corbett, 28, and Michael J. Corbett, 33, pleaded innocent to five obscenity charges connected to their Internet-based pornography shop.

"At the time that the alleged offenses occurred, my client did not believe that she was doing anything obscene or illegal," said S. Mason Preston, Sharon Corbett's lawyer.

The Quitman, Ga., men who ran the Web site, Joseph Tanner and Randall Rogers, were scheduled to be arraigned on the same charges today before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Beckley.

As the case moves forward, lawyers on both sides may delve into one of the largest gray areas of American law: the definition of obscenity. In a country that values free speech to an extreme, even the most judicious of lawyers have had a difficult time defining what is, and what is not, obscene.

Federal prosecutors say they're confident the DVDs and videotapes being sold on the Corbetts' Web site were so worthless and deviant that they would be considered obscene by any American anywhere.

"In this particular case it's going to be very obvious that what was being sold on girlspooping.com does not match up with community standards anywhere in this country," U.S. Attorney Kasey Warner said. "If anything in this world is obscene and therefore illegal, we are going to argue that this is."

If the Corbetts and their associates take the case to trial, the prosecution could hinge on what Southern West Virginians consider acceptable, according to a Constitutional law specialist and lawyers involved in the case. Under federal obscenity standards, each locale is allowed to determine its own "community standards" for what is acceptable and what is not.

"It's inherently vague under the law," West Virginia University College of Law professor Bob Bastress said.

And it's difficult to tell where West Virginians will fall on the question, Bastress said. The federal charges against the Corbetts and their associates mark one of the state's first obscenity prosecutions in more than a decade.

The state Supreme Court decided its last major obscenity case in 1991. In that decision, the court upheld a state law allowing county commissions to bar stores from selling or displaying obscene materials.

Since President Bush took office two years ago, federal officials have begun to aggressively prosecute people across the country for distributing material they consider obscene.

"This is a cancer on our society, kind of like the embezzlement and corporate fraud," Warner said. "It is a problem in our society and we're putting our attention on it."

Federal authorities began scrutinizing the Corbetts' merchandise in January after postal inspectors learned about their Web site during another obscenity investigation in Kentucky.

The Corbetts' Web site offered a whole lineup of videos and DVDs featuring nude and semi-nude women using the bathroom. The videos sometimes included sex acts as well.

The Internet site was a moneymaker. In two years, it brought in about $175,000 in revenue, according to federal prosecutors. The Corbetts took orders for copies of their movies from their home in Lewisburg, according to court documents.

At least one of the movies, "Pottytime with Brittanie 2," appeared to feature Sharon Corbett performing various acts, according to a criminal complaint written by Postal Inspector Thomas Svitek.

Preston, Sharon Corbett's lawyer, said he and his client would respond to the obscenity charges after seeing the government's evidence. Michael Corbett's lawyer, George Lancaster, didn't return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

If the Corbetts and their webmasters decide to fight the federal charges, a jury will decide whether their merchandise is obscene. Under federal law, the jury would have to judge the movies using a three-pronged test laid out by the Supreme Court 30 years ago.

Under that test, the jury would use community standards to decide whether the movies depict "patently offensive representations" of excretory functions and whether they are made to spark sexual longings. The jury also would have to decide whether the movies have any serious artistic or intellectual value.

Although the Corbetts' Web site says the Internet allows it to serve a community of customers scattered around the world, the federal government can prosecute them for obscenity using the community standards of any locale where the material was accessible, Bastress, the WVU law professor, said.

That leaves Sharon Corbett's lawyer wondering where West Virginians will draw the line.

"There are just no hard and fast standards," Preston said.

"It's not like a simple, ‘Did you sell drugs to the undercover agent?' or, ‘Did you steal money from the bank?' " he said. "It appears from some of the Supreme Court cases that something can be disgusting, something can be revolting but not be obscene. So we'll see where this case goes."
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