United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc.

Rubin Gottesman owned and operated X-Citement Video, Inc. (defendant), a pornography retailer. The news had recently reported that Traci Lords had been repeatedly filmed performing pornographic acts before she turned 18 years of age. An undercover police officer asked Gottesman for videos starring Traci Lords. Gottesman sold the police officer several dozen films that showed Lords engaging in pornographic acts while she was a minor. Gottesman was charged with distributing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252, which is part of the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act (the act). At trial, evidence showed that Gottesman knew that Lords was a minor at the time the videos were filmed. Gottesman was convicted. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the act was unconstitutional on its face. The Ninth Circuit recognized that the First Amendment protected the right to distribute adult pornography, which meant pornography distribution could be prohibited only if the distributor knew the material contained a minor. The Ninth Circuit held that under the act’s most natural reading, the act did not require knowledge that a minor was in the film. Rather, someone could violate the act by knowingly distributing a video even if the person did not know that the video contained pornographic material or that anyone in the film was a minor. Applying this natural interpretation, the Ninth Circuit struck down the act for violating the First Amendment and vacated Gottesman’s conviction. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.