Censorship and courts

Hi,

A short comment, since I have an interest in law.

the that offense should not even be an illegal one,
A very interesting legal rule, you got in the states.

I can only speak from my own country's legal situation:

That being DA's recent moves to withhold showing jurors certain picture (or video too, I suppose) evidence that have been deemed (by God, I imagine) to be "too disturbing" for them to handle. (Be ye careful, my little children, what ye little eyes may see)

Over here, I sometimes hear the argument, that this actually protects the accused. The judges (here jurors are judges) may become emotional, if they see CP, and react emotional, when deciding the sanction against the accused. So often the defendant will not want the court to see the material, and the defense and prosecution agress not to show the material.

If I were jugding a CP case, I would argue, that the court should decide to see the pictures, if the defendant wanted it, since the competence of what the court should see is held by the court itself*. It's not like police officers have some special ability to classify what material is indecent and which is not. The courts have the right to interpret the law, including to decide what is indecent.

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* For instance a court a few years ago, ruled that the domestic intelligence agency had to hand over confidential material, because the compentence to decide what is and is not confidential is held by the courts, and not by the agency.