LAKELAND, FL – In the latest move to keep accused webmaster Chris Wilson behind bars, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant his emergency request for bail. Because of this most recent setback, the man with 301 Internet obscenity charges against him will remain in the Polk County Jail until his next trial appearance on February 7, 2006.Wilson is a former police officer whose controversial website contained not only images from the Middle East submitted by active duty military in exchange for access to the site, but also what defense attorneys insist are fairly standard amateur porn images. Although the sometimes disturbing war photos grabbed headlines, he was arrested in October on accusations of distributing obscene materials via the site. Initially freed on $151, 000 bail, Judge J. Dale Durrance revoked his bond and returned him to jail when it was learned that new images had been uploaded to the site. Although Wilson insisted that he was unaware of the uploads and had them immediately removed, Durrance was unmoved, insisting that the situation constituted a violation of Wilson’s pre-trial release agreement.

Emergency appeals on Wilson’s behalf were made late last week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the First Amendment Lawyers Association, and the Free Speech Coalition but the 2nd District Court of Appeals refused. The Florida Supreme Court rejected another emergency motion to reinstate Wilson’s bail, claiming that it did not have jurisdiction. Late on Saturday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the situation but by Sunday had rejected without comment the request to release Wilson. Defense attorney Larry Walters plans to file another motion with the 2nd District Court of Appeals.

The 28-year-old Wilson insists that he has a First Amendment right to allow legal pornographic content to be posted to his site. Gainesville attorney Gary Edinger agrees and has submitted a 19-page amicus brief to the 2nd District Court of Appeals on behalf of the ACLU, FSC, and FALA. “Sexual expression in cyberspace is protected by the First Amendment,” Edinger contends. “It’s unprecedented for government officials to use imprisonment to prevent the distribution of material over the Internet.”

Howard Simon, the executive director for the ACLU of Florida believes that the decision to imprison Wilson is “a classic example of a censorship crusade by local government bureaucrats who are relying on their own subjective definition of obscenity to arrest someone even before any court has found that their Web site is illegal.” Simon verbalizes a question on the mind of many watching this case when he asks “What right do Polk County officials have to decide what people who live in Berlin and London and Hong Kong and New York access in the privacy of their own homes?”

Simon and Edinger’s sentiments are echoed by Michelle, L. Freridge, executive director for the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry that counts 3000 members from all areas of the industry for which it lobbies in the California state capital as well as Washington, DC. “This case is typical of how obscenity law can be misused to censor unpopular speech,” she points out. “We are proud to stand with the ACLU and FALA in support of Chris Wilson and we look forward to an expeditious and positive decision by the Second District Court of Appeal in this matter.”

According to Freridge, whose organization often participates in litigation when other avenues have been unsuccessful, the FSC is particularly concerned about the Wilson case since several procedures required by the U.S. Constitution in cases dealing with expression have not been carried out, effectively punishing Wilson before the legality of his site’s contents have even been determined. Twenty films and 80 still images on the site, none of which involve war imagery in spite of interest from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, are included in the charges against Wilson.

Wilson contends that because his site is hosted overseas, he is not in violation of any Polk County laws, but the state attorney’s office insists that the server location is not the issue. Rather, Wilson’s at-home work location determines jurisdiction. Attorneys defending Wilson point out that their client has moved out of Polk County and has stopped the posting of materials to his site, but to no avail. Likewise, attempts to remove Judge Durrance due to a deteriorating vision condition have been unsuccessful. Video clips from Wilson’s site were played in court via a laptop computer before Durrance issued the order to revoke bail.