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Prior Restraint


  "In a stunning rebuke to overzealous prosecutors," reports the New
York-based National Coalition Against Censorship, the owner and manager
of
the store called simply Newstand, in Bellingham, Wash., have been found
not
guilty and awarded $1.3 million "for prior restraint and for retaliatory
prosecution" by a U.S. District Court jury in Seattle.

  Ira Stohl and Kristina Hjelsand had been charged with obscenity for
selling the controversial magazine "Answer Me!" a short-lived but
legendary
periodical that offered extremely politically incorrect articles about
rape, among other subjects.

  The NCAC earlier reported the owners of Newstand rejected an offer
from
the prosecutor to drop criminal charges in return for a promise not to
carry further issues of "Answer Me!" or "anything remotely similar."

  Instead, the freedom fighters displayed the magazine in their store,
chained, under lock and key.

  The jury found that the troglodytes in charge of Whatcom County had
violated Stohl and Hjelsand's First Amendment rights, caused emotional
suffering, and damaged their business.

  Censorship News, the quarterly newsletter of the NCAC, is published
out
of 275 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001, e-mail [email protected], web
page
http://www.ncac.org.

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at [email protected]. The
web
site for the Suprynowicz column is at http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/.

***


Vin Suprynowicz,   [email protected]

Voir Dire: A French term which means "jury stacking."