KAIT-TV reports developments in a case we reported in 2017 — the arrest by Jonesboro police of a couple who made porn films in public settings.
The cops charged Derek Calloway and Leslie Sessions with public display of sexual conduct, obscene films and obscene performance. They are accused of making films in a restaurant, a home improvement store, a park and a state nature center and then marketing them on the Internet. Did anyone actually observe them in the process of this? That wasn’t clear at the time.
The development reported by KAIT is that the attorney for the couple, Randel Miller, has filed a legal argument that the statutes under which the couple has been charged are unconstitutional.
“All three statutes are unconstitutionally overbroad that unnecessarily infringes on defendants’ right to privacy, free expression and constitutes and unwarranted invasion into their personal life,” Miller said in the filing. “An overbroad statute is one that is designed to punish conduct which the state may rightfully punish, but which includes within its sweep constitutionally protected conduct. These obscenity laws are unconstitutional under the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. Defendant also asserts these statutes violate the Arkansas Constitution.”
In the motion, Miller is also asking that all evidence “illegally obtained” be suppressed in the case.
The case is set for trial in Craighead Circuit Court in January.