Val Midwest Drops Appeal of 45-day Sentence

THE HEARTLAND—From all appearances, aggressive tactics used by the Lincoln County, Nebraska City Attorney to intimidate Val Midwest into dropping an appeal of the 45-day jail sentence handed to her for trespass and public nudity have succeeded. The Lincoln Journal Star reported today that the 20-year-old adult performer has agreed to dismiss the appeal, and today her case was sent back to the county court. MidWest, who was sentenced in December by Lancaster County Judge Thomas Fox, "hasn't yet been given a date to report to jail," added the paper. "With credit for good time, she will have to serve 30 days." While even that reduced sentence may seem flagrant to some—including the defendant's lawyer, who complained to the court in December that "people convicted of first-offense DUI cause more risk to others 'than parading around naked,' and the most they get is a week in jail," to no avail, for law enforcement in the little Nebraska square known as Lincoln County, getting MidWest and getting her good has been nothing less than a jihad. In fact, the appeal only came about because, as the Star  noted, "[Midwest] had faced three new public nudity charges in county court, filed by the City Attorney's office in January, on allegations that she exposed herself at North American Martyrs Church, at Cathedral of the Risen Christ Church and on a street corner near Woods Park, all in 2013. "Reached Wednesday," it added, "her attorney, Chad Wythers, said [Midwest] reached an agreement with city prosecutors, who said they would dismiss the pending cases if she withdrew her appeal." In other words, "We're going to put you away for months, maybe even a year, unless you surrender your Constitutionally protected right of appeal." [We don't know if city attorney Christine Loseke actually said those words, but we do know she didn't have to.] [By the way, MidWest's situation reminds us of the multi-jurisdictional prosecution strategy that the first President Bush's ational Obscenity Enforcement Unit used against Adam & Eve, attempting to force it out of business by bringing obscenity charges against it in several states at the same time.] Wythers commented to the paper in an email, "Although she believed her case contained many good issues for an appeal, at this point, she simply wants to move on with her life and pursue future career goals and endeavors." At the end of the day, therefore, Val Midwest is a martyr to the cause of free speech. She will not spend a lot of time in jail, to be sure, but she will probably spend far more time behind bars than anyone else convicted this year of mere public nudity, and as far as the trespass charge goes, the judge and everyone else knows that it was the least possible egregious example of the infraction they have seen in years, and should have at most received a warning, community service or a suspended sentence. Indeed, only the front lawn of Midwest's former high school, Pius X, was trespassed upon, and only for a short period of time, during which only she and the individual shooting the photos were aware of her nudity. In other words, in this case, it is simply impossible for any harm or outrage to have been caused by her nudity or trespass, because no one saw it or was aware of it! In fact, the direct allegations are meaningless to even the city attorney, who spilled the rotten beans when, as AVN reported in December, she said, "I think she deserves jail for what she did," reasoning that the 19-year-old had shown no remorse for her deeds. Judge Fox, too, found himself unable to extend any consideration to the young woman when she asked to have the sentence held until after the holidays, answering with a curt "no" when Wythers requested an extension until January. As we editorialized in December, "Time will tell, of course, if the jerk quotient in the Nebraska courts extends to the judge who will hear the appeal, which now goes to Lancaster County District Court." What we did not realize at the time was that the jerks at the local level would do everything in their power to prevent that from happening.