View source for Retiree cleared of pornography charges for a 30-year-old book

Thirty years ago Richard Whittman Barker stopped by the University of Pittsburgh bookstore to buy a photography book he'd read about in an issue of Playboy magazine. When state troopers found "Show Me! A Picture Book of Sex for Children and Parents" in a search of the 66-year-old man's Glenshaw home in 2004 they charged him with a violation of the state pornography laws. But Senior Common Pleas Judge John K. Reilly ruled yesterday that Mr. Barker, a Westinghouse retiree with an otherwise spotless record, had not violated the law because the 176-page hardcover book police found in a locked filing cabinet was published three years before anti-pornography laws existed.<br>
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Written in 1974 by German physician Helga Fleischhauer-Hardt, the book features black-and-white photographs of naked girls and boys posing alone, together and with naked adults. An explanatory note in the 1975 English edition by Will McBride says the publishers "are relying on the discretion of adults" to use it for sex education and to promote "the sexual liberation of children and adolescents." The federal anti-pornography law passed in 1978 followed by a state law banning the purchase and use of child pornography. [...]<br>
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"I'm a Penn State graduate," the judge said, "I don't know what they do at the University of Pittsburgh," but the fact that the book was sold legally in the campus bookstore convinced him Mr. Barker had not broken the laws at the time. "I find the defendant not guilty," Judge Reilly said.<br>
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<i>source: Article 'Retiree cleared of pornography charges for a 30-year-old book' by Gabrielle Banks; www.post-gazette.com/pg/06207/708596-85.stm; Post-Gazette; 26 July 2006</i>

[[Category:Gabrielle Banks]]
[[Category:Richard Whittman Barker]]
[[Category:University of Pittsburgh]]
[[Category:Playboy]]
[[Category:Child pornography]]
[[Category:Kinderporno]]
[[Category:John K. Reilly]]
[[Category:Judges]]
[[Category:Rechters]]
[[Category:Helga Fleischhauer-Hardt]]
[[Category:Will McBride]]