Judge Rules Two Library Books
Contain Child Porn
San Diego Public Library has formed a staff review committee to reexamine two art books in the wake of an April 19 ruling by a San Diego Superior Court judge that photocopies made by a convicted pedophile of three images in States of Grace by Graham Ovenden and Twenty Five Years As an Artist by David Hamilton are child pornography. The ruling was issued after a one-day bench trial against Charles Davis, who was arrested December 28 for possessing child pornography after a 7-year-old girl accused Davis of molesting her.
The photocopies “are not for art’s sake but for sexual purposes,” Judge William Kennedy asserted, noting that Davis claimed the images kept him from molesting again. Announcing he will appeal the decision, defense attorney Albert Tamayo said that if Judge Kennedy is right “then the librarians are guilty of crimes because they’ve possessed the books and made them available to the public.”
The library should “move slowly and cautiously,” City Attorney Casey Gwinn advised in the April 20 Los Angeles Times, to avoid turning the decision into a “book-banning party.”
Posted April 24, 2000.
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