[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 53 (Thursday, May 5, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                THE KNOX CASE AND THE RACIAL JUSTICE ACT

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I remember last fall, in November, this 
body voted 100 to 0 for a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that Senator 
Roth and I put forth. That resolution told the Justice Department that 
when we passed the Child Pornography Act in 1984, what we said in that 
act is what we meant. And we disapproved of the way the new solicitor 
general was enforcing that act that caused a convicted child 
pornographer's case to be remanded back to the circuit court of 
appeals.
  Mr. President, last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the 
Third Circuit heard oral argument for the second time in 3 years in the 
case of Knox versus United States.
  The case concerns the conviction of a Pennsylvania man for possession 
of videos of scantily clad young girls. These videos contained repeated 
closeups of the girls' genital areas. Knox argued that the Child 
Protection Act of 1984 prohibits child pornography only where the child 
is completely nude.
  Forty Members of the Senate and 194 Members of the House, following 
on the 100-to-0 vote of this body, joined in an amicus brief arguing 
that Congress never intended to limit the reach of the statute 
exclusively to nude portrayals. This Justice Department, however, has 
departed from a very consistent interpretation of the statute. It 
argued that the child must either be nude or his or her genitals must 
be discernible through the clothing.
  All of us who filed that amicus brief--nearly 250 Members of this 
Congress--disagree and, of course, this body, on that 100-to-0 vote, 
disagrees. And the court asked the attorney for the Justice Department 
during these arguments many questions about why the Department changed 
its view between 7 years of consistent enforcement of that 1984 act and 
last year, when the solicitor general decided to take a new position to 
the Supreme Court.
  So why did the Department change its view, the circuit judges wanted 
to know, and adopt a view obviously not supported by the statutory 
language.
  Additionally, the Justice Department attorney admitted that the test 
she advocated would lead, ironically, to greater protection of boys who 
were being exploited by child pornographers than girls. Such a view 
obviously makes no sense, and might even be considered discriminatory. 
The Justice Department should have known better than to argue that 
Congress enacted a standard that would produce such nonsensical 
results.
  I am pleased to tell my colleagues that the arguments of the attorney 
who represented the amicus Members of Congress--Edward Warren of 
Kirkland & Ellis--were well received. Mr. Warren relied on the 
statutory language and legislative history to show that Congress 
intended to prohibit materials such as the ones at issue in the Knox 
case. We in this body did not intend to prohibit only hard core child 
pornography, leaving producers with the ability to exploit children in 
any other way without fear of penalty.
  Absent our participation in the case--meaning, if there had not been 
an amicus brief by over 200 Members of Congress--no party would have 
made these arguments to the Court last week. I thank my colleagues that 
joined the brief. I expect that in the near future, the Court will 
issue a decision upholding the conviction and rejecting the Justice 
Department's ill-considered interpretation of the statute.

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