A federal judge ruled that sections of an Arkansas law that could result in librarians being charged for distributing obscene material were unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas struck down two of the five sections of the 2023 law, claiming they violated the First Amendment, the Arkansas Advocate reported Monday. Republican Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin vowed to appeal.
Brooks had temporrary blocked the sections of the law before it took effect in July 2023. The law would give elected officials the final say on which books can be available to the public, according to the Advocate.
"The State has made no attempt to tailor Section 1 based on the Arkansas Supreme Court's interpretation of 'harmful to minors,' " Brooks wrote Monday in a 37-page ruling. "Similarly, Section 5 contains multiple undefined terms that invite censorship decisions on the basis of content."
The case featured 18 plaintiffs, including libraries, bookstores, and library patrons.
"This ruling by Judge Brooks affirms the values that CALS librarians and, I believe, most of our citizens hold dear — namely that our Constitution does not deputize city boards or quorum courts, or librarians like me for that matter — to be the agents of government censorship by allowing any of us to remove or restrict access to books when some people in our community find the content or ideas in those books objectionable," Nate Coulter, the executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System, said in a statement, according to the Advocate.
Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the law was common sense.
"Act 372 is just common sense: schools and libraries shouldn't put obscene material in front of our kids," Sanders said in a statement to KATV-TV in Little Rock. "I will work with Attorney General Griffin to appeal this ruling and uphold Arkansas law."
A 2003 state law that banned displays of reading materials harmful to minors was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2004.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.