The Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with a challenge to theconstitutionality of a federal child pornography law, with counsel forboth sides fielding tough questions that included hypotheticalsinvolving popular mainstream movies, along with what Justice StephenBreyer described as “schoolboy behavior.”
In United States v. Williams, Michael Williams challenges what isknown as the anti-pandering provision of the Prosecutorial Remedies andOther Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act (the PROTECTAct). The act was passed by Congress in 2003 after the Court struck downtwo provisions of the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act dealing with”virtual” child pornography (images of child pornography that do notdepict real children).
