Then we run square into the first amendment problems.

Mr. ASHBROOK. On that particular point, and I will close with this, because we have a number of witnesses today, but as far as the Califormia situation is concerned, what is your general record of convictions and what is the general record on those convictions as far as appeals are concerned?

Mr. MADDY. There are two cases pending now in regard to the material that I just mentioned, the so-called something more than mere nudity and something less than what has in the past been clearly defined as an explicit sexual act engaged in by a minor.

Those cases are both up on appeal. In terms of prosecutions in general, we have not been successful. The prosecutors have felt that as long as we had the laws we had, which were misdemeanor laws, as long as we did not have any ability to, or they didn't have the ability to trace the material in some way, or go after the distributor in some fashion, with something other than an obscenity statute, they were not going to be successful, so they did not prosecute.

You can go on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and some other areas of our State, and you see it flourishing in all of the bookstores. Mr. ASHBROOK. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Ertel.

Mr. ERTEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Maddy, I have listened to your testimony and I am concerned. It seems to me you are worried about discriminating between "obscenity" and "nudity".

Would it be helpful to the States-I note there are quite a few States that have no legislation-if we set up some sort of commission to try and formulate a statute or a definition which you could work with at the State level to determine where in fact this dividing line is, and to try to make sure it is constitutional?

Mr. MADDY. That would help us. I looked at H.R. 3913, and we didn't have much problem with the definitions of prohibited sexual acts, they ran from A through about H. When you get into any other sexual activity, or get to J, which says "nudity," if such nudity is to be depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification, we start grappling with that.

We came up with obscene nudity, and sexual conduct as defined, in which we tried to say lewd and lascivious showing of sexual parts, all kinds of things.

So we would encourage, if you could, something that would give us a better definition.

Mr. ERTEL. Would you suggest some sort of a study by some of the leading constitutional scholars, especially in the first amendment area, who would draw the guidelines they felt would meet the Supreme Court test?

Mr. MADDY. I think it would be helpful, because we frankly are not, notwithstanding a great deal of assistance by legal scholars in California, we are still as perplexed today as when we began the hearings this year. I am not sure an interim study will solve it. It is a matter of trying to come to grips with it, because we have a great deal of response and activity by our constituents who are asking us to respond to this problem.

If you don't do something, you are in trouble; if you do something that is unconstitutional, you are probably in more trouble, at least our

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committee always felt we wanted to be as constitutionally sound as we could.

Mr. ERTEL. I note that you have quite a group of States which have no legislation, and of course you have the ones that have pending legislation.

Do you have any general idea why those States that have no legislation, who obviously aren't working on it, have not moved in this area at all?

Mr. MADDY. Based on our experience in California, I think if the public becomes aroused in those States, as they did in California, you will find that there will be legislators putting bills in like crazy.

As I said, we had nine this year, and that was because there was a serious move on the part of a great number of people in our State to make others aware of what was going on and to bring about some response from the legislature. The legislature that responded to the survey indicated that they felt that general lewd and lascivious conduct, the statutes that are on the books now, and other statutes they have dealing with children, probably covered the field. I don't think they have been hit yet with the flood of this material like we have. If they are, I can assure you the constituents, the folks will be writing them in a hurry.

Mr. ERTEL. So I guess we can assume from your statement those who have no legislation pending probably haven't felt the problem? Mr. MADDY. The distributors just haven't found them yet.

Mr. ERTEL. One other question I was interested in. The chairman asked you about increased penalties. Would that be effective? Would you consider increased penalties for those who are producing, and selling these materials? If you have imposed increased penalties, won't they react in terms of making a business judgment or decision, and an increased penalty would have to be weighed in a judgment, as to whether or not the penalty is worth it, considering the profits they will make?

Mr. MADDY. Our feeling, our debates in our house were centered around the idea that those who were producing the material, those who were using children in the fashion we saw, either in the movies or magazines or other materials, ought to be hit as hard as they could be hit. We shared the view that not only a possible prison sentence, but a financial penalty, the $50,000, that was part of our penalty, was important, because we found it was a business practice.

We were not as concerned, or we felt that the only way we were going to stop it, of course, is at the distribution level, but we have a little bit more concern for the person who perhaps is at the bookstore. he is not producing it, he is distributing it, but again we tried to add some financial penalties, so they could take that into consideration as a business judgment. Because oftentimes it is, as you say, a pure business judgment, and I find in talking to some of those people they of course don't enjoy the material any more than the vast majority of the public.

Mr. ERTEL. Thank you very much.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Railsback.

Mr. RAILSBACK. I kind of get the feeling that there is not a great emphasis on child pornography. I wonder what your experience is as far as the adequacy of State child exploitation laws generally?

In other words, we have had testimony that there have been areas in the country, and I think California was one of them, where there is child prostitution. What is your feeling about the adequacy of State laws generally on that?

Mr. MADDY. We found in California our laws were not, and that is why we added the provisions to the labor code, provisions that attempted to go at the question of exploitation of children, and abuse of children, because we felt they were not adequate. We went after parents. In part of our provisions we make the penalty applicable to those parents or others who have children under their care and custody and control. If they utilize the children, or allow their children to be used, they can be hit with the same penalty.

Mr. RAILSBACK. Such as foster parents, maybe court-appointed foster parents?

Mr. MADDY. We find that in some degree. We made it so that anyone with the care, custody or control, our words were, any parent or guardian.

Mr. RAILSBACK. Would your law extend to even camps, like say church camps, Boy Scout camps, other camps where the director may have control of the children? I am just curious.

Mr. MADDY. That would probably take some court test. but we said any parent or guardian. We left it at that. We would have to put them under some other provision in that case.

Mr. RAILSBACK. The reason I asked the question is there has been some testimony, believe it or not, that there have been instances where people that would normally be regarded in a very favorable light as exercising, you know, very good care, have not always exercised it, and actually in some cases have abused children.

Let me ask you this: Those of us on the Federal level that want to do something constructive and meaningful are having a great deal of difficulty, as has been suggested, by reason of constitutional restrictions. I am wondering if as a legislator either one of you have any ideas where the Federal Government could be particularly helpful and still be very mindful of the constitutional constraints?

Mr. MADDY. Perhaps Mr. Ertel's suggestion that a task force that would attempt to give us some sound definition that would try to encompass some of the activities of children in this material would be helpful. What you could do, and how effective it would be with first amendment problems is to stem the tide of importation of material or exportation, in our case in California, because I know we are a producing State, would be helpful.

Mr. RAILSBACK. Has it been proposed by your group or by any State legislative group that there be some kind of a model uniform child abuse and child pornography statute?

Mr. MADDY. I think what the National Conference of State Legislatures is doing is trying to compile this material, not only for your benefit, but I am sure this comparative chart will now be distributed to those other States that have taken such widely divergent approaches to the problem, and hopefully we will have some standard.

I think we all run into the difficulty of varying definitions of obscenity that exist in the States, and problems with the Supreme Court, as well as our own State supreme courts, so we have to deal within those confines.

Mr. RAILSBACK. May I also just gratuitously suggest that we have had the head of the National District Attorneys Association before us to testify. As I recall, he was the district attorney from Michigan. And he also mentioned to us the great difficulty in prosecuting many of these cases. I think it would perhaps be helpful to you if you could work, or at least touch base with him. He had a lot of good ideas, too. Just one other question. Is there any indication that organized crime is involved in child pornography or child abuse in California?

Mr. MADDY. Our testimony and the testimony that was presented to us did not indicate that they were playing a major role. We found in fact there were a lot of independents that were producing the material in California. Whether or not they are involved in the large sense with organized crime, we couldn't say. We could make no conclusion on that. The attorney general of California did indicate that he felt there was that involvement.

Mr. RAILSBACK. Thank you very much.

Mr. CONYERS. I want to say to you, Assemblyman Maddy, that you have done a very important service, I think, in codifying the state of the States on this subject. We will be looking forward to your success in California. I don't know how long it is going to take before we can tell. I suppose it is really a matter of years before we will really have. a judgment that will be worth anything. But you have been very helpful to the subcommittee.

Mr. MADDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CONYERS. We appreciate your appearance.

The next witness is Larry Parrish, former U.S. Attorney General, from Memphis. Tenn.

Mr. Parrish was involved in the investigation and prosecution of major nationwide offenses involving violation of the Federal obscenity law. He is presently in private law practice, and remains a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice.

TESTIMONY OF LARRY E. PARRISH, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S.

ATTORNEY, MEMPHIS, TENN.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Parrish, we have 44 pages of your thoughtful preparation on this subject. It will be incorporated into the record. I don't know how to suggest that you pick out the high spots, because you cover, frankly, a large amount of very pertinent information. But anyway, do the best you can.

Mr. PARRISH. I think I have eliminated probably three-quarters of what is written here, if I may just highlight what is presented.

I am going to read it, because I think that will be faster than if I try to do it extemporaneously.

Mr. Chairman and other distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary: I find it difficult to express fully the honor which I feel as a result of your invitation to appear before you to address one of the few subjects that I know a little about.

I hope that the privilege which you have extended me to share my thoughts with you will be time well spent for us both.

I share with you the pressure of having more things to be done than can possibly be accomplished in the time given. Thus, I will seek here

to orally highlight the subjects which I have covered in my prepared materials, and which have been supplied to you beforehand.

First, I feel compelled to take a minute to set the record straight as to my personal philosophies.

In the first place, I am very much against censorship of all thoughts and ideas. I very earnestly feel that human sexuality is of divine inspiration and a thing necessary to the fulfillment of human personality.

Mr. CONYERS. Pardon me, forgive me for interrupting you. I wanted to try to suggest that you could possibly pick out a few points. I have some questions that can probably get you right into the part of your material that would get us right on the dime.

Mr. PARRISH. That is fine. I would rather proceed that way.

Mr. CONYERS. I would appreciate that. Thank you very much. Your entire statement will be incorporated in the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Parrish follows:]

STATEMENT OF LARRY E. PARRISH

Mr. Chairman and other distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary, I find it difficult to express fully the honor which I feel as a result of your invitation to appear before you to address one of the few subjects that I know a little about. I hope that the privilege which you have extended me to share my thoughts with you will be time well spent for us both. I share with you the pressure of having more things to be done than can possibly be accomplished in the time given. Thus, I will seek here to orally highlight the subjects which I have covered in my prepared materials and which have been supplied to you beforehand.

First, I feel compelled to take a minute to set the record straight as to my personal philosophies. I have found this necessary ever since a few years back when I was having an initial interview with an ex-convict who was about to assume a role in an undercover capacity as a part of an investigation which I was coordinating. I began to explain what would be expected of him and ask him certain questions. Very abruptly, he stopped me and said, “Mr. Parrish, ain't no need in us going no further lessen you understand where I'm coming from. Ain't nothin I say worth knowing unless you knows what makes me say it." The wisdom of that advice I have tried to retain. So you will know where "I'm coming from," let me share a few thoughts concerning my background.

In the first place, I am very much against censorship of all thoughts and ideas. That is true even of the thoughts and ideas which I think are abominable, deletrious, evil and sordid. Second, I am very pro-sexuality. I very earnestly feel that human sexuality is of divine inspiration and a thing necesary to the fulfillment of human personality. In addition, I am distressed that multiplied millions of persons in the United States are experiencing extreme difficulties emotionally and physically because of an ungodly over-restrictiveness concerning human sexuality.

I am a born-again Christian having practiced my faith for 25 years or more, and I am now and have continuously been for, at least, the past ten years an active participant in non-denominational evangelical churches. Nevertheless, I can say, as one who loves the church and the Christ of the church, that very sincere and well meaning congregations of believers throughout the history of the United States, and today, have and do fail to meet their responsibilities in imparting healthy and divine attitudes concerning human sexuality. I say this with regret, but persons with these attitudes, I feel, must bear a large portion of the responsibility for the current wave of human degradation being spread abroad in the form of obscene materials.

False information about sexuality is just as devastating whether it comes from misguided Puritanism or malicious libertinism. But I am quite heartened by the upsurge of enlightment that I am perceiving across the nation in this area of most vital human concern.

Having said all of that, some explanation is in order as to why I feel that laws should be passed and enforced which severely restrict the proliferation of ob