Justice Out Of Balance
by Paul Petersen

District Attorney Declines to Prosecute!

Naked Children...filmed without the permission of the State or their parents.

Naked children, hired under false pretenses, absent the protection of the mandated Studio Teachers who are charged by the State of California with "guarding the health, safety and morals of minors." Naked children in the company of scores of adults who stood silent, who had forgotten that kids are more important than even their precious jobs in the entertainment industry.

Couldn't happen, you say? It did. In California, home of the most progressive child labor laws in the country. The evidence is on film. Poor Gil Garcetti. He just can't bring himself to believe his lyin' eyes. The film didn't matter. The plain language of California Penal Codes (Sections 311.2 & 311.4) prohibiting the coercion, intimidation or solicitation of minors in displays of nudity didn't seem to register with this poor excuse for a District Attorney. Clearly the politician in the DA just couldn't bring himself to reprimand the very business he will depend on for future political donations. Oh, you'll hear that nothing obscene went on, but that ignores the law's blunt statement that obscenity is not the issue. Minors, says the Law, cannot be used in such a fashion.

Minors may not, in Law, give their personal permission for any such acts because they do not have the maturity to make such a decision. If their parents hold them out as available for such acts they are guilty of pandering. The State may not give permission. No studio teacher, producer, studio or other agency may permit a minor to be naked in the company of adults, nor may they be filmed.

But Hollywood doesn't think so, and we all know, don't we, that Hollywood has the best interests of children and this country at heart? Full frontal nudity...of children. This is the New Hollywood. Rules are for others. This is Art.

Well, is it? Does the Industry claim on Freedom of Expression include the right to use children to act out its fantasies? Is it Art when dinosaurs romp all over movie screens and Nike's and soap are sold on television? Is the fourteen year old star of "Apt Pupil," Brad Renfro, an artist? Was Brad Renfro an "artist"when he participated in a filmed scene involving oral copulation with a 30-ish actress last year in Ohio in the movie, "Telling Lies In America?"

Look around at your country, my friends. Who is driving this cultural decline if not Hollywood? Have we slipped so far that children are now to be the instruments of our demise as a moral beacon for the world? What does it mean to be a minor these days? Fourteen year olds blow away Christians in the act of praying without remorse. Adolescent gangs rule the streets in some of our cities and scoff at the Society that spawned them. Babies are having babies, killing themselves in unprecedented numbers and we shrug our shoulders at the purveyors of the filth that has shaped our children.

District Attorney Gil Garcetti should be ashamed of himself. If the word "children" should cross his lips in his future political races, I promise you I will be there to shout my protest, and so should you.

Eight and a half months to come to the decision to do nothing. If there were not six children involved it would be laughable.

The Department of Labor's Standards and Enforcement agency did the first investigation, turning over its findings to the District Attorney for possible criminal investigation. The SAFE task force (Sexual Abuse Federal Enforcement) investigated and identified eight adults liable for criminal prosecution and handed its recommendations to the DA. Gil Garcetti's staff admitted that "intimidation" was used on the children and recommended to Labor that they pursue labor code violations, even as the DA's office refuses to prosecute documented violations of the criminal code.

The two Studio Teachers who did not do their jobs still have their credentials. The Studio and the Production Company, Sony/Tri-Star and Phoenix Films still have the State-issued "Certificate of Eligibility to Employ Minors" permit that promises to follow all laws of the great State of California. Neither the 35 millimeter film nor the still photography negatives have been accounted for, let alone destroyed. No charges have been filed and no action has been taken.

Wonderful.

The civil suit is still pending. We can only hope that the suit comes before Judge Fujisake in Santa Monica and is heard by a jury of twelve Americans who have not yet lost their moral compass.

As things now stand, it is "A Minor Consideration," six children, and their parents against the power and influence of Hollywood.

Which side of this issue are you on?

Friday, December 19, 1997