Daily Record

Legislation aimed at strengthening Maryland’s laws against child pornography would turn the producers and distributors of such acclaimed movies as “Romeo and Juliet” and “American Beauty” into criminals, the Maryland Office of the Public Defender told lawmakers Tuesday.

The controversial legislation would change current law to make it illegal not only to distribute or possess pornographic images of actual minors but to promote or distribute photographs that are “purported” to be of children engaged in sexual acts — even if the pictures are of adults.

Supporters of HB 534 hail the proposed expansion of the criminal law, saying it would enable police to target individuals who market their smut as child pornography but have skirted the law by actually providing their customer with photographs of young-looking adults who appear to be children.

The legislation would also permit police to capture individuals soliciting child pornography without the officers having to send lewd pictures of children. Rather, the officers could send photographs of adults posing as children, the receipt of which would be a crime under the proposed law, supporters say.

But Brian Denton, representing the public defender’s office, said the distribution of “purported” images of children in sexual acts is not necessarily criminal behavior. To the contrary, such images provided the most compelling scenes in director Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 movie “Romeo and Juliet,” the Shakespearean story of star-crossed teenagers, and the Academy Award-winning 1999 movie “American Beauty,” which depicted a middle-aged man’s attraction to his high school daughter’s classmate.

“If I were the distributor [of these movies], I would be nervous right now,” Denton told the House Judiciary Committee. “This [legislation] does wander into the area of regulating speech.”

Denton said the term “purported,” as used in the legislation, is vague, providing prosecutors too much discretion in deciding what qualifies as unlawful child pornography, as opposed to a valid constitutionally protected depiction of youngsters in a motion picture.