Injustice Beats Justice in the Jesus Castillo Case

The Supreme Court has declined to hear the case and correct the major miscarriage of justice carried out by the state of Texas. It's a crime to sell adult comic books, that were carefully presented in an adults only section, to an adult in Texas. Comic fans beware! In Texas, comic books are ONLY for kids.

Update: More on the massive anti-First Amendment Texan Crap at CBLDF, Newsarama, ICv2, Peter David's Blog, More ICv2, Neil Gaiman's Journal, and Comicon Pulse. I'm sure there's more, but those are the bits I got to quickly.

Another Update: Journalista weighs in, as does Hit and Run to which even Instapundit linked.

Yet another Update: For anyone still ignorant of why the Jesus Castillo case is such an incredible sham, check out this article from the Dallas Observer, a local newspaper, written at the time of the first joke of trial.

A store manager was arrested for selling adult materials to an adult. He broke no laws. The evidence that the material did NOT meet the standards for obscenity was ignored by the jury, who were told: "Comic books, and I don't care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there, use your rationality, use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids." (emphasis mine) In other words, you CANNOT have adult material in comic book form, even if all the evidence and testimony (and there was a LOT of evidence presented) in the world says it is legal. If you are an adult and claim to be a comic book fan and are not outraged by this, you are a hypocrite.

There's also a very long thread about the case at comicon from last year when before the appeal to the Supreme Court was announced.

One more time for the slow folks: Jesus Castillo was convicted on the charge of "Display of Obscenity." The book he sold to the undercover police officer was NEVER DECLARED OBSCENE, and did NOT met the Supreme Court's test case (the Miller Test) for being obscene. This was a brutal travesty of justice that succeeded only because the prosecutor convinced the jury to ignore all the evidence and say that comic books are ONLY for kids, and therefore do not deserve any first admendment protection.