New Arraignment Set for Gordon Lee

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has announced a date of May 19 for the new arraignment of comics retailer Gordon Lee, of Rome, Georgia. The case came to the CBLDF in early 2005, stemming from a 2004 incident where a copy of Alternative Comics #2 featuring a brief scene of non-sexual male nudity, accidentally found its way into the hands of a minor during a local merchants' Halloween promotion. Since that time, with the help of counsel Alan Begner and Paul Cadle, five of seven counts have been dropped. Lee was to go to trial starting April 3 when the charges were dropped and new files were charged to reflect fact the prosecutorial team had supossedly just learned -- that the book in question when to a six-year-old sibling of the nine-year-old, not just the nine-year-old. At that point, the case had to find a new date on the judge's calendar; mid-May was about the earliest court officials mentioned as a possibility.

The CBLDF reports spending $60,000 thus far in Lee's defense, with costs to increase as the new trial grows near. The case has been the subject of a small amount of controversy in the comics field, with some fans feeling that Lee's retailing error in allowing the comic to be distributed shoudl disqualify him from support, with the Fund and its supporters pointing out this is not only a harsh, unreasonable standard, the issue of relative retailer merit is way, way beside the point when a pernicious law or set of laws needs to be defended against.
 
posted 2:03 am PST | Permalink
 

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