PHILADELPHIA — The clerk for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has advised counsel for the adult entertainment trade group Free Speech Coalition and the Justice Department that the court has scheduled oral arguments in early December in a review over the legality of 18 U.S.C. §§2257 and 2257A.
Counsel will be allotted 15 minutes oral argument time for each side on Dec. 9, the clerk said.
The 3rd Circuit in September granted a full-panel review of the Free Speech Coalition’s appeal in its longtime legal fight against the Justice Department challenging the federal record-keeping laws for adult producers.
The FSC is counting on a possible game-changer for the adult industry in the case — a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Reed vs. Town of Gilbert, Ariz. The FSC is hoping that the court could interpret the legality of the laws differently and possibly dismantle the existing statutes.
In May, a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel left intact the core of the record-keeping regulation's tenets for producers of sexually explicit content with the exception of warrantless inspections of records.
The 3rd Circuit in its ruling said that 2257, for the most part, was "narrowly tailored" and, therefore, constitutional.
