Referring to previous U.S. Supreme Court cases on obscenity and child pornography, he held, "Free Speech Coalition made clear that banned material must meet either the Ferber or Miller standards.
In May 2006, postal inspectors attained a search warrant for the home of 38-year-old Iowa comic collector Christopher Handley, who was suspected of importing "cartoon images of objectionable content" from Japan.
"[4] This was related to obscenity charges involving pornography depicting minors, being applied to a fictional comic book.
On this, Chase said, "This prosecution has profound implications in limiting the First Amendment for art and artists, and comics in particular that are on the cutting edge of creativity.
In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the federal government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books.
"[6] United States district court Judge James E. Gritzner[7] was petitioned to drop some of the charges, but instead ruled that two parts of the PROTECT Act criminalizing certain depictions without having to go through the Miller test were unconstitutionally overbroad.
CBLDF board member Neil Gaiman remarked on how this could apply to his work The Doll's House, saying, "if you bought that comic, you could be arrested for it?