Protection from prosecution for employees of libraries and educational institutions possessing obscene materials

What it would have done

Summary by the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislature's nonpartisan drafting office. It's their wording, not ours.

Under current law, it is a crime to import, print, sell, possess for sale, publish, exhibit, play, or distribute any obscene material; to produce or perform in any obscene performance; to require, as a condition to the purchase of periodicals, that a retailer accept obscene material; to distribute, exhibit, or play any obscene material to a person under the age of 18 years; or to possess with intent to distribute, exhibit, or play to a person under the age of 18 years any obscene material. Obscene material means a writing, picture, film, or other recording that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find appeals to the prurient interest if taken as a whole; that under contemporary community standards describes or shows sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and that lacks serious literary, artistic, political, educational, or scientific value, if taken as a whole.

Under current law, no person who is an employee, a member of the board of directors, or a trustee of certain educational institutions and libraries is liable to prosecution for an obscene materials violation for acts or omissions while in his or her capacity as an employee, a member of the board of directors, or a trustee of such an institution. This bill removes public elementary and secondary schools, private schools, and tribal schools from the list of institutions for which an employee is protected from prosecution for an obscene materials violation.

Who's behind it

2 senators are its authors⁠. All 2 are Republicans.

9 more lawmakers signed on in support⁠.