Canadian Charges Against US Manga Reader Dropped

tverbeek writes "The U.S.-based Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Canada-based Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund have announced that the Canadian government has withdrawn all criminal charges in R. v. Matheson, a case which involved a U.S. citizen who was arrested and faced criminal charges in Canada relating to manga found on his computer when he entered the country. Customs agents declared the illustrations of fictional characters to be 'child pornography.' The defendant, a 27-year-old comic book reader, amateur artist, and computer programmer, has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. Despite financial assistance from the CBLDF and CLLDF, he has an outstanding debt of $45K for his defense."

Comments

Drop charges == pay?

[MobyDisk]

If you drop charges from the case then you should pay the legal fees for the defense. Or is this up to the judge?

Re:Drop charges == pay?

[ClioCJS]

That might encourage people to never stop/drop, though, like SCO. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re:Drop charges == pay?

[gl4ss]

sco wasn't a _criminal_ case.

criminal cases ie. public prosecution vs. a private person with criminal charges, of course the state should pay when it loses. but the state didn't lose, it withdrew. like if coppers showed up at your house, intimidated you that they're going to take you to court for things xyz, then you go to a lawyer and ask if there's any merit and the lawyer says no and then the cops don't proceed further to do anything.

I guess it's in this case the state didn't pay because the prosecution dropped the case..? doesn't make much sense, but plausable.. if they withdrew and it never went to court then a judge didn't decide anything on the case, didn't find the prosecution to pay for damages/costs.. pretty fucked up though, he should sue the state.

Be falsely accused, become poor

[i kan reed]

Legal systems aren't any fun to ever get involved with.

Justice for those who can afford it.

[Ultra64]

gee, only $45,000 in debt

Re:Justice for those who can afford it.

[citab]

who says he could afford it? he didn't have a choice but to defend himself.

Re:Justice for those who can afford it.

[Endo13]

You took the quotes completely out of context. He doesn't mean what you're implying at all.

For those who don't want to bother RTFA, here's the full paragraph:

Others like me that are interested in comics, manga and anime should become informed about this important issue and stick together. Some people may be tempted to say things like, “Well, I don’t like that type of manga” or “That doesn’t bother me — I’ve never read that title,” but you should step back and take a look at the big picture. The law shouldn’t be based on what you like or don’t like. The people should have their own choice to pursue what they like and avoid what they don’t like. When overzealous governments try to unjustly attack comics and manga, they are attacking all of literature and art as a whole. Free speech should be absolute, not a pick-and-choose sort of thing. This is a very important right that we enjoy every day and we need to stand up for ourselves and protect it!

Ten years ago

[JazzHarper]

I knew that it would be best to leave my laptop at home when entering Canada. Even the Canadian customs officer, who was very nice, said, "That was a wise decision".

Re:"Anime and manga"

[girlintraining]

"Mr. Matheson has agreed to plead to a non-criminal code regulatory offense under the Customs Act of Canada."

Hey look buddy, we know you're going to sue the pants off of us if we don't nail you with something, so our lawyers found this obscure section of the customs code that is really vague and could nail anyone, because heh, that's what it's there for, and anyway, yeah... you're guilty, and your sentence is, er, nothing. But the important thing here is that justice was served: Namely, We Got Our Man(tm). Er, sorry about ruining your life dude... sorta. Okay, not really. Heh heh, eh? Now if you'll excuse us, we have to go watch videos of ourselves beating the crap out of a bunch of illegal immigrants as part of some 'sensitivity training'. It's mandatory, and so the boss made it BYOB. Man this job sucks... they don't pay for the beer. My last law enforcement job paid for the beer... oh .. crap... is this thing still recording?

Drawings != child porn

[Fjandr]

As distasteful as it may be in the case of images produced with the intent to be a form of child pornography, it sickens me to see artificially-produced images classified as child pornography. It opens the door to criminally penalizing people for something which must be judged based solely on opinion. There cannot be an objective judgment that an artificially-produced image constitutes "underage pornography," and criminal penalties should be based as closely on objectivity as possible.

These resources should be directed toward finding and jailing people who produce child pornography using actual children, not those who produce images which require (sometimes highly) subjective interpretation.

Re:Drawings != child porn

[tmosley]

You could go to jail for that, it they are the wrong type of thoughts.

Where's the victim of this cartoon porn?

[cpu6502]

No crime committed.

Re:Where's the victim of this cartoon porn?

[steelfood]

The victim? There are plenty.

1) This guy, who's now $45K in debt defending himself from fraudulent charges.
2) The customs officer, for having seen these drawings, is now scarred for life.
3) Us, for having to waste time and energy yet again to assert that drawn pictures is not illegal.

Bad logic

[betterunixthanunix]

Child sex abuse imagery is illegal because producing it involves sexually abusing children, not because images of child abuse happen to offend most people. If no children are being abused, then what is the logic for making the cartoons illegal?

Re:Bad logic

[marnues]

There is a significant portion of the US population that believes if objects of vice are removed, so go the vices themselves. Removing all kiddy porn real or fake will decrease child sex abuse. I find this completely specious, but it's so difficult to disprove that any attempts to argue otherwise seems to embolden these believers.

Re:Misleading headline

[sjames]

Yes, we are well aware of how a plea bargain is used as extortion to force people to accept a charge they are innocent of when they cannot afford a proper defense or are afraid of the kangaroo court. Often it's used as an excuse to not pay damages that are ethically owed to the defendant.

Re:shitty summary strikes again!

[tqk]

the important bit from the actual article.

I beg to differ. The important bit from the actual article:

He was subjected to abusive treatment by police and a disruption in his life that included a two-year period during which he was unable to use computers or the internet outside of his job, severely limiting opportunities to advance his employment and education. ... Matheson was even told by police transporting him to prison that "if you get raped in here, it doesn't count!"

What a !@#$ing travesty, and for a comic book! Sue for malicious prosecution. They admitted their guilt when they dropped it. That it took them two years and $31,000.00 from two advocacy orgs PLUS, is even worse! Both those orgs and Ryan deserve to be compensated for this cluster!@#$.

And I don't even *get* Manga. Holy Kafkaesque, Batman! :-P

Re:"Anime and manga"

[GmExtremacy]

Better that people like Al Capone run free than innocent people be punished.