Joanne Webb, the Felonious Sex Toy Selling Housewife of Cleburne, Texas, has had all charges dropped against her.
A woman who received nationwide attention when she was arrested for selling two sex toys to undercover police officers posing as a couple is no longer charged with violating the state’s obscenity law.
The case against Joanne Webb was dismissed by a judge, Johnson County Attorney Bill Moore said Friday in a statement. He said he asked the judge for the dismissal to prevent wasting county resources, but he didn’t give a date for the dismissal.
No one answered the phone at Moore’s office Saturday.
Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher, started selling erotic toys and other adult products as a Passion Parties Inc. consultant in June 2003. She hosts what she calls Tupperware-type parties for suburban housewives who feel more comfortable buying marital aids in a private home than at an adult bookstore or on the Internet.
Webb was arrested Nov. 13, about a month after the officers approached her at her husband’s business in Burleson, about 10 miles south of Fort Worth, and bought two products. She had faced up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine, if convicted.
Webb’s attorney, BeAnn Sisemore, said she and her client were pleased.
“We knew that it was a possibility, but we weren’t contacted,” she told the Cleburne Times-Review for its Sunday edition.
Webb learned from a reporter that the charges had been dropped.
Moore said a pending federal lawsuit filed by Sisemore would determine the constitutionality of the state obscenity statute Webb was accused of violating.
The Cleburne Times-Review story is here, if you want to fill out their noxious registration screen. Mrs. Webb expresses some defiance after this outcome.
The former elementary school teacher, a mother of three, called the dismissal by Johnson County “the wisest action they could have made.”
“The fact that they arrested me in the first place shocked me,” Ms. Webb said. “As far as my family and I were concerned, jail was a possibility. This is a cloud that has been hanging over us for the last eight months. We finally feel like we can breathe again.”
[…]
Despite the charge, she said, she never stopped promoting the Tupperware-style parties, though she stopped staging them in Johnson County. And she has no plans to stop now.
With the charges dropped, Ms. Webb vowed to continue fighting to repeal an obscenity law she described as outdated and selectively enforced. She plans to join a federal lawsuit seeking to declare the law unconstitutional. She had not been allowed to participate in the lawsuit while her case was pending.
“My personal battle has been won, but the battle to attack this law is just beginning,” she said.
The “Sisemore” mentioned in the Chron clip is BeAnn Sisemore, Mrs. Webb’s attorney.
Webb’s attorney, BeAnn Sisemore, said she and her client were pleased with the dismissal.
“We knew that it was a possibility, but we weren’t contacted,” she told the Cleburne Times-Review for its Sunday edition.
[…]
Moore said a pending federal lawsuit filed by Sisemore would determine the constitutionality of the state obscenity statute Webb was accused of violating.
According to the state’s obscenity code, an obscene device is a simulated sexual organ or an item designed to stimulate the genitals. Adult stores get around the law by posting signs that say “sold only as novelties.”
Webb is not named in the lawsuit, but she may join it as soon as next week, Sisemore said.
The dismissal of the misdemeanor charge is “a victory, but absolutely it’s not the end of the fight,” Sisemore said. “Now that real fight can begin.”
Oh, I can’t wait.
Perhaps they weren’t counting on someone who would fight and get media attention. I suspect that they fear a serious challenge will get it thrown out on grounds of unconstitutionality (we are, after all, presumably talking about transactions among consenting adults here), so if someone agitates enough to get the question of the law’s validity, they blinked.
I agree with Tim regarding the “cnsenting adults” argument, especially since sodomy laws have been declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.
I also find the comparison to Tupperware parties interesting. I don’t think Tupperware has products that look like sex toys, however, going to a party to look for a salad shooter might take on a whole new meaning. 😉
On a completely off-topic note, Charles, if you’re using Firefox or another Mozilla-based browser, the Bugmenot extension will make a world of difference in reading various random newspaper sites. If you’re using IE or Safari or something, Bugmenot.com does the same thing less conveniently.
Looks like the Talibaptists lost another one…
Heh. I popped in to mention bugmenot but I see Steve got there first. I hope she does succeed in getting that silly law overturned.
This provision of our obscenity law is almost certainly unconstitutional. As I understand it, it criminalizes not sex toys themselves but how they are sold, which means not only the Lawrence v. Texas precedent, but also First Amendment law and the Miller obscenity standard come into play. One adult explaining how to use a sex toy to another adult may be considered patently offensive in Johnston County, but I don’t think they could prove that it has no redeeming value.
My guess is that the DA knew the law would be found unconstitutional and dropped the charges to deprive Mrs. Webb of one avenue to challenge it. After all, if the law is unconstitutional but no court has said so, the police can still arrest people under it, then the DA can drop the charges when they go to court, as he did with Mrs. Webb. Thus a plainly unconstitutional law can still have harassment value.
She can still challenge the law under the federal Declaratory Judgement Act, and it sounds like that’s just what she’s going to do now.
Incidentally, Steve and Kathy, thanks for the info on BugMeNot.
I as a sane woman member of society who has given over 20 years of honorable service in the military to the defense of my country applaud Ms. Webb and Ms. Sisemore. Brava!!! I hope they can both rest knowing that not all women are so anal, and only those who ain’t getting any are so petty and mean. Brava. I applaud them sincerely.
I think its awsome they droped the charges against this lady. I hope she turns around and sues for public humiliation.