Recluse in Text-Obscenity Case Goes for Plea Over Facing Trial

Karen Fletcher, described by her attorneys as an agoraphobic who is afraid to leave her house, has decided to give up her fight in a text-obscenity case against her rather than go through the ordeal of a trial.

An indictment was handed up against the Donora, Pa.-native by a grand jury in September 2006. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh initiated the case.

Fletcher was charged with six counts of violating obscenity laws for writing fictional stories on her Web site, RedRoseStories.com, about the kidnapping, rape and torture of children.

Fletcher said in court documents in U.S. v. Fletcher that she wrote the stories for therapeutic value to help get over her own abuse she said she thinks she suffered as a child. One of the rules for her Web site, which her attorney said had less than 30 members, was that no one was allowed to post pictures, according to court papers.

Since the time of her indictment, U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania Joy Flowers Conti had allowed several continuances and did not order Fletcher to attend any of the hearings given her mental state.

Conti had denied a defense motion to dismiss the case on grounds that an obscenity case couldn’t be applied to text where there are no pictures involved.

The case gained national attention and there were questions in the legal community about why the U.S. Attorney’s Office would choose to prosecute this particular woman.

After the motions to dismiss were denied, Fletcher’s attorney Larry Walters said it became clear that a plea or a trial with the potential for jail time were her only options. Walters said the two sides agreed to a resolution that would not involve jail, a place he said his client couldn’t mentally withstand. Fletcher will enter a plea of guilty on Aug. 8 and will be put on house arrest, which Walters said is basically how she lives now. It will be up to the Conti as to how long she is on house arrest.

Walters said the judge, in a rather unusual step for federal court, agreed to have the plea and sentencing done on the same day so that Fletcher would only have to leave her house once.

“A lot of education has occurred on both sides, but primarily we’ve tried to show the prosecution who they were dealing with,” Walters said. “This is not somebody who had any real impact on the adult entertainment industry – this is a fragile, broken, elderly lady who had 29 members on her Web site.”

– Gina Passarella, Staff Reporter

Recluse in Text-Obscenity Case Goes for Plea Over Facing Trial

Karen Fletcher, described by her attorneys as an agoraphobic who is afraid to leave her house, has decided to give up her fight in a text-obscenity case against her rather than go through the ordeal of a trial.

An indictment was handed up against the Donora, Pa.-native by a grand jury in September 2006. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh initiated the case.

Fletcher was charged with six counts of violating obscenity laws for writing fictional stories on her Web site, RedRoseStories.com, about the kidnapping, rape and torture of children.

Fletcher said in court documents in U.S. v. Fletcher that she wrote the stories for therapeutic value to help get over her own abuse she said she thinks she suffered as a child. One of the rules for her Web site, which her attorney said had less than 30 members, was that no one was allowed to post pictures, according to court papers.

Since the time of her indictment, U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania Joy Flowers Conti had allowed several continuances and did not order Fletcher to attend any of the hearings given her mental state.

Conti had denied a defense motion to dismiss the case on grounds that an obscenity case couldn’t be applied to text where there are no pictures involved.

The case gained national attention and there were questions in the legal community about why the U.S. Attorney’s Office would choose to prosecute this particular woman.

After the motions to dismiss were denied, Fletcher’s attorney Larry Walters said it became clear that a plea or a trial with the potential for jail time were her only options. Walters said the two sides agreed to a resolution that would not involve jail, a place he said his client couldn’t mentally withstand. Fletcher will enter a plea of guilty on Aug. 8 and will be put on house arrest, which Walters said is basically how she lives now. It will be up to the Conti as to how long she is on house arrest.

Walters said the judge, in a rather unusual step for federal court, agreed to have the plea and sentencing done on the same day so that Fletcher would only have to leave her house once.

“A lot of education has occurred on both sides, but primarily we’ve tried to show the prosecution who they were dealing with,” Walters said. “This is not somebody who had any real impact on the adult entertainment industry – this is a fragile, broken, elderly lady who had 29 members on her Web site.”

– Gina Passarella, Staff Reporter

High Court Quibbles Over Definition of ‘Proceeds’

Most decisions issued by the United States Supreme Court include a majority opinion, supported by at least five of the court’s justices (assuming full participation by the court’s nine justices).  Yet, occasionally, the court is fractured, with no five justices agreeing on a single rationale for disposing of the case.  In those situations, as cited in Grutter v. Bollinger, “the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” 

This proposition is well-established and typically is applied in a later case when the court is determining the precedential effect of a prior case decided without a majority opinion.  In a recent decision, United States v. Santos, involving the interpretation of the word “proceeds” in the federal money-laundering statute, however, Justice Antonin Scalia took the unusual step of expressing his view regarding the precedential effect of the very case the court was deciding.

In the penultimate paragraph of his plurality opinion that was joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Scalia noted, “We think it appropriate to add a word concerning the stare decisis effect of Justice Stevens’ opinion.  Since his vote is necessary to our judgment, and since his opinion rests upon the narrower ground, the Court’s holding is limited accordingly.”  So far, no problem.  But then Scalia went on to critique Justice John Paul Stevens’ “speculations,” which, according to Scalia, “address a case that is not before him, are the purest of dicta, and form no part of today’s holding.”  Id.  Not done yet, he concluded with a pointed warning to counsel in later cases that, while they may argue that Stevens’ view in Santos was the holding of the court, Stevens’ view was expressly rejected by a majority of the court.

The issue thus joined, Stevens struck back.  Using Scalia’s own words — “the purest of dicta” — to describe Scalia’s opinion regarding the effect of Stevens’ opinion, Stevens explained the actual basis for the result he reached, one not based on speculations.  Not wanting to be left out, Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent joined by three other justices, noted that he agreed with some of Stevens’ reasoning but not all of it.  And, in a riposte to Scalia, Alito noted in a footnote, “In light of the plurality opinion’s discussion of ‘the stare decisis effect of Justice Stevens’ opinion,’ it must be noted that five Justices agree with the position taken by Justice Stevens on the matter discussed in the preceding sentence of the text.”

Good luck to practitioners and lower court judges in the many cases to come where “proceeds” of money laundering are at issue and the Santos decision is the precedent (whatever that precedent may be) most on point.

This posting is intended only to inform, not to provide legal advice; and readers should seek professional advice for specific applications of the information.

Bruce P. Merenstein
Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP
www.schnader.com