Utah hires country's first 'porn czarina'

By The Associated Press

01.29.01

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SALT LAKE CITY — A city prosecutor who cut her teeth on obscenity cases has been hired as Utah's "porn czarina," the first such position in the nation.

"Utah is a family-oriented state, and pornography doesn't have a place in a family-oriented state," said West Valley City prosecutor Paula Houston, whose appointment was announced Jan. 26 by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

She said she saw the damage pornography could do when prosecuting her first smut case: busting a video shop that rented hardcore tapes.

"I guess I developed a passion for it at that time," she said.

Now, more than a decade later, her new job will let her put that passion to work.

But how the office will work remains unclear, and at least one critic calls it a waste of time and money.

The position of Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman — Houston's official title — was created by the Legislature last year to field complaints from people who said they had been exposed to pornography.

The original intent was to go after Internet porn, and Shurtleff and Houston say that remains one of their goals, although Houston conceded that there is no legal precedent allowing states to regulate Internet pornography.

The office will also help local communities draft ordinances so they can block out as much indecent material as the law will allow, Houston said. That will involve untangling vague and often uncharted legal issues.

"We do not want to trample First Amendment rights, but we have to balance that with protecting our children," she said.

Shurtleff, who made Internet pornography one of his top campaign issues, was more forceful.

"I, for one, will not allow pornographers to hide behind the Constitution," he said.

Andrew McCullough, a Utah attorney who represents several adult-oriented businesses, says the $75,000 going to the porn czarina's office is "a tremendous waste of taxpayers' money," and that the state could end up shelling out even more to defend the office's actions.

"The only one real winner here is me," he said. "I'm going to make a lot of money. The state's going to spend a lot and I'm going to have a lot of fun. And I think when the dust settles, nothing is going to have changed."

Shurtleff says the state may be liable for some legal costs, but insists that Utah is more likely to win its cases.

Houston earned her law degree at Brigham Young University and has worked for the West Valley City attorney's office since 1988.

Shurtleff's office is backing another bill to hire a computer expert to help crack down on Internet pornography and to develop a "virtual 911" button that parents can use to notify the attorney general's office if their kids are targeted by online smut.

Utah, where some residents use video services to edit nudity and profanity out of even the mildest R-rated movies, already has tough anti-porn laws.

In one high-profile 1996 case, a Utah County video store owner was charged with multiple counts of distributing pornography.

He was acquitted nearly three years later, after being driven into bankruptcy.