Abilene Judges Reject Cosby Lion's Den Grand Jury Petition

ABILENE, KS—In keeping with the best traditions of Religious Right activism, American Family Association leader Phillip Cosby can't seem to do anything right. As AVN recently reported, Cosby tried to have a grand jury empaneled to investigate a local Lion's Den retail outlet as an alleged "obscene business," and apparently he did manage to obtain enough signatures on a petition to get the process started—and this time, he didn't even have to tamper with anyone's home address to do so—but as Eighth Judicial District Chief Judge Michael Powers pointed out, "the court finds that there is no mention whatsoever regarding even general information upon which a grand jury could identify what they were summoned to do." Powers was acting in response to findings by other court officers that Cosby's petition—which, with 345 signatures, had 120 more than necessary to begin proceedings—lacked "sufficient general allegations" to even begin a grand jury investigation of the store, which is located just west of Abilene on I-70. Cosby, of course, won't be giving up. After all, just because his ten (10!) previous grand jury petitions had similarly failed doesn't mean the eleventh (or twelfth or thirteenth or fiftieth) won't succeed. In fact, he told Salinas Journal reporter Erin Mathews that "if the court will give him some direction on what type of information it seeks or provide an example, he will gather the necessary signatures again on a more detailed petition if necessary." Let's be clear on one thing: Here's the head of national pro-censorship group American Family Association's Kansas/Missouri chapter and he doesn't know what information a grand jury would want to look at to determine if a local business is "obscene"??? "I can't imagine they would want us to do our own investigation; that would be commissioning citizens to do what professionals do in law enforcement," Cosby told Mathews. Of course, Cosby does have a couple of ideas. Apparently, if he can ever get his grand jury empaneled, he said he'd have some or all of them "visit stores and see what is sold ... with the sheriff and a search warrant."   "[E]ach member could purchase three items through the sheriff's budget for further review and determination of whether the items violate community standards," Mathews summarized Cosby's plan. Great idea! Spend taxpayers' money on "sex toys and videos" when he doesn't even have any specific allegedly obscene videos or "devices" in mind for them to check out! In the law, that's called a "fishing expedition," and is generallly frowned upon. (One question, though: Who gets to keep the stuff when they're done?) In any case, Cosby told Mathews that he will "write a letter seeking further clarification from the judges, and then he will comply," adding that "he does not anticipate any difficulty acquiring sufficient signatures again." "Usually courts are gracious in dealing with lay persons who are dealing with the law, and they are careful to explain," he said. "I've talked to three attorneys so far, and they're all scratching their heads." Wow! Really? After nine (9!) previous petitions on the same subject, several of which were similarly rejected and none of which resulted in convictions, someone's puzzled as to why they're leery about this tenth one? Cosby claims to be relying on Kansas Statutes Annotated 21-6401, which Cosby said contains "specific information with graphic verbiage as to how obscenity is defined," but in fact, it's just a pretty basic obscenity law which takes most of its language from the U.S. Supreme Court's Miller test, and if Cosby considered that a "road map" for his petition, as he told Mathews, it's no wonder the petition was rejected. Of course, the main problem isn't that Cosby keeps trying to foist his religious beliefs on Kansas' citizens; it's that whenever he is successful in getting a grand jury to indict, Lion's Den and other adult businesses have to shell out big bucks to fight them, adn even if the stores win, they're still out of pocket tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that's obscene. Pictured: Phillip and Cathy Cosby.