Tampa - A public access program showing a punk rocker defecating and urinating on stage may have disgusted viewers, but it wasn't illegal, a state prosecutor said.
State Attorney Harry Lee Coe III called the show "vile and disgusting" but said Florida's obscenity laws don't specifically address excretory conduct, so producer Suzy Smith cannot be criminally charged.
But Coe wants a change in the law.
The videotape of punk rocker GG Allin aired late March 3 on a cable TV public access show called "The Morbid Underground."
Officials from Jones Intercable, which provides the public access programming facilities, asked Tampa police to begin a criminal investigation in response to complaints from the public.
Meanwhile, they suspended Smith for a year for violating Jones' policy against showing genitalia on public access programs.
Smith, 23, applauded what she called Coe's fairness and courage, but religious conservative David Caton criticized the decision as tantamount to encouraging obscenity in Hillsborough County.
"We're not talking about a man walking into a peep show," said Caton, state director of the American Family Association, said. "We're talking about a 25-minute-long act of defecation pumped into tens of thousands of homes. That's an atrocity."
Prosecutors determined they could not proceed for three reasons: excretory conduct is not specifically mentioned in state law, the dissemination of obscene videotapes is not against the law and the obscenity statute does not clearly define "prurient interest," a cornerstone of most obscenity laws.
The Associated Press
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