But the case has outraged some First Amendment experts. “It’s clearly unconstitutional,” says Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe. “It’s as close as you can get to creating a thought crime.” The U.S. Supreme Court has said that it can be illegal simply to possess child pornography, since the production of the images harms children. But in this case, says Raymond Vasvari, legal director at the Ohio branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, since the writings were fictional and not intended for distribution, “nobody was exploited.” Dalton is considering whether to request to withdraw his plea.
