IP: NYPost Op-Ed on Ohio Man Convicted For "Obscene" Stories

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> X-Sender: freematt () bronze coil com
> Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 11:45:45 -0400
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt () coil com>
> Subject: NYPost Op-Ed on Ohio Man Convicted For "Obscene" Stories
>
> http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/34569.htm
>
>
>
> DON'T LOCK UP THIS PEDOPHILE
>
> By Eric Fettmann
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> July 11, 2001 -- BRIAN Dalton, a 22-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, will 
> spend the next 10 years in prison because he's a sick man with perverse 
> sexual fantasies about children - even though he did nothing more than 
> confess those fantasies to his own private journal.
>
> Dalton's fate is a testament to the growing trend in our society to 
> legislate against thought and an individual's state of mind. One need not 
> be a card-carrying American Civil Liberties Union member to worry about 
> the far-reaching and troubling implications of this case.
>
> What happened to Brian Dalton was born out of society's understandable 
> concern about sexual predators who prey on children; indeed, the 
> prosecutor in the case calls Dalton's sentence a "breakthrough" in the 
> battle against kiddie porn.
>
> But like so many of the "zero tolerance" schemes now afoot to counter 
> perceived problems like kids bringing weapons to school, this one smacks 
> of out-of-control overkill.
>
> Dalton, to be sure, needed to be watched: He was on probation from a 1998 
> conviction involving photos of child porn. So when his probation officer 
> came to check up on him, he took a look through Dalton's hand-written 
> 14-page journal.
>
> There he found material so disturbing that he notified police: Dalton had 
> written about three children, ages 10 and 11, who he said had been placed 
> in a basement cage and sexually tortured. The writing was so graphic that 
> members of the grand jury hearing the case asked the prosecutor reading it 
> to stop after just two pages.
>
> Police at first feared that Dalton had recorded a confession to a most 
> heinous crime. But it turned out that the entire account was fictitious: 
> No children had been tortured or molested, and there was no evidence to 
> suggest that Dalton was planning any such act.
>
> Moreover, Dalton had made no effort to disseminate his writing on the 
> Internet or even show it to anyone else - it remained his own, private, 
> twisted fantasy.
>
> You would think that the legal case would have ended there - or with 
> little more than a judge ordering Dalton to undergo intensive counseling, 
> perhaps even revoking his probation.
>
> Instead, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien brought an indictment 
> against Dalton, charging he "did create, reproduce or publish . . . 
> obscene material that has a minor as one of its participants or potrayed 
> observers." As far as O'Brien was concerned, even without passing his 
> journal on to anyone else, Dalton had committed a felony.
>
> Fearing that a jury might not consider the First Amendment implications, 
> Dalton chose to cut a deal: He pleaded guilty to one count of pandering 
> and was sentenced to seven years in prison, plus another three years when 
> his original probation was revoked. In return, prosecutors dropped a 
> second count that could have brought him 16 years behind bars.
>
> Because he pleaded guilty, Dalton can't appeal either his conviction or 
> the sentence. Which means that higher courts will not get a chance to 
> consider the constititutionality of the law.
>
> It's one thing to safeguard those who most need protection; the 
> vulnerability of children - and the known recidivist rate among pedophiles 
> - mandates that we don't always wait for actual acts to be committed. 
> That's the importance of Megan's Law, which gives local communities the 
> right to be made aware of known sexual predators living in their midst.
>
> There would be no question involved if Dalton had posted his journal on 
> the 'Net - even if he'd simply showed it to a friend. Or if there was 
> evidence of continuing related activity, such as taking part in 
> sex-related Internet chat rooms. But all there was in this case was a 
> twisted mind committing private fantasies to paper - for no one else's 
> viewing but his own.
>
> Sometimes it's possible to be too zealous when it comes to protecting our 
> children. The prosecutor's intentions may have been for the best - and, in 
> the long run, society is likely better off with Dalton behind bars, where 
> any threat that he'll prey on children has been removed.
>
> But the next person charged may not be someone with a prior conviction. 
> And that will be another victory for the thought police.
>
> Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
> receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
> ---
>
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