APnv 05/07 2330 Obscenity SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An Arizona law imposing fines of up to $

APnv 05/07 2330 Obscenity


   SAN  FRANCISCO  (AP) -- An Arizona law imposing fines of up to
$1 million for selling certain  sexually  explicit  material  has
been  upheld  by  a federal appeals court that rejected arguments
the law is too broad and could chill freedom of expression.

   The law seting fines of up to $150,000 for individuals and  $1
million for companies selling some sexually explicit material was
upheld on Thursday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals.

   It  unanimously  affirmed  a July 1984 ruling by U.S. District
Judge Charles Hardy upholding the law.  The court didn't  address
a  1986  amendment  changing  the maximum prison sentence from 18
months to two years.

   The appellate court rejected claims by owners and employees of
several Maricopa County bookstores  and  video  stores  that  the
law's  definitions  were  too  broad and potential fines violated
freedom of expression.

   Arizona's obscenity law defines  an  item  as  obscene  if  it
depicts  sexual  activity  in  a "patently offensive way," if the
average person using contemporary state standards would  find  it
appeals  to  the  "prurient  interest,"  and  if  lacks  "serious
literary, artistic, political or scientific value" when taken  as
a whole.

   The definition is modeled on U.S. Supreme Court decisions, but
the key term "prurient interest" is not defined in the law.

   However, the Arizona Supreme Court, in a 1979 ruling upholding
the law, said to appeal to the prurient interest means "to excite
lustful thoughts, a shameful or morbid interest in sex or nudity,
arouse sexual desires or sexually impure thoughts ..."

   The  Arizona court's definition interprets the law to "exclude
normal, wholesome, healthy desires from the  scope  of  `prurient
interest,"' said  the opinion by Judge Dorothy Nelson.  She noted
a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said the  word  "lustful"
could  be  interpreted  as  referring  to  a  shameful  or morbid
interest in sex.

   Citing that definition, the appeals court rejected  the  store
owners'  arguments  that  the  law  would  allow  convictions for
selling items that  appealed  only  to  "normal,  healthy  sexual
desires."

   Arizona  uses  legal  guidelines  that  prevent  a  judge from
imposing a $1 million fine on a "mom and pop" store, Nelson said.
Only one fine has reached $25,000, with most  under  $7,500,  she
said.

   
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