The lawyer defending a Plainville, Kansas, grade-school principal against nine counts of receiving and possessing child pornography is arguing that if his client is guilty, then people who borrow from public libraries the works of Jock Sturges and David Hamilton should also be prosecuted. To prove the point, defense attorney Dan Monnat subpoenaed three library directors to bring their library copies of books into court that feature Sturges and Hamilton’s controversial studies of naked children.
Monnat told American Libraries that the directors of the Wichita Public Library, the Washburn University Library in Topeka, and the University of Kansas Art and Architecture Library in Lawrence appeared on October 30 at a hearing on whether to dismiss the case. The decision by U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown is pending.
The former principal of the Plainville (Kans.) Elementary School, Scott was arrested after a school secretary inadvertently discovered in Scott’s desk an envelope of photos depicting young girls performing sex acts. None of the children are Plainville students, school officials have testified.
Posted November 6, 2000.