back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
Penny for your thoughts.
How many times have you made that statement to someone who was in a pensive mood?
Seems basic enough, right? After all, thoughts, by design, are innocuous--it's only actions that can cause harm. Brian Dalton recently found out that thoughts can cost much more than a penny--his cost him 10 years of his life.
Now, let's get something straight right up front--Dalton, 22, is no choirboy. He was convicted in an Ohio court in 1998 of a pandering charge involving the possession of pornographic photographs of children, and was put on probation. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Dalton's mind is so sick, he would greatly benefit from spending a few thousand or so hours reclining on a psychiatrist's couch. But it's precisely the inspection of the contents of Mr. Dalton's mind that allow us to, as Ross Perot was so fond of intoning, "stop slow dancing around the issue and get right to the center of the bulls-eye."
If you're in the dark about Dalton, here's the skinny. Brian Dalton keeps a journal. No foul there--so do millions of Americans. What got Dalton into hot water with, first, his probation officer, who stumbled across the 14-page journal during a routine house search, and subsequently, Ron O'Brien, the Franklin County, Ohio, prosecutor, who hailed the case as a breakthrough in child-pornography prosecution, was the subject matter contained in the journal.
Had Dalton stuck with the mundane prattle found in most journals--weather reports, vacation plans, daily event recaps--he probably would have lived the rest of his life in obscurity.
Unfortunately for him, Dalton had something quite disturbing in mind when he put pen to paper. The diary of Dalton contained multiple stories concerning the entrapment, molestation and torture of three kids--aged 10 and 11. So stomach-turning were the contents of the stories, that members of a grand jury asked a detective to stop reading after about two pages, as they couldn't bear to hear any more. Dalton was sentenced on July 13 to 10 years in the penitentiary for pandering obscenity involving a minor.
So what's the problem, you ask? The sicko's locked away for the next decade and a generation of kids can rest a little easier--case closed.
Not so fast.
As a man eagerly awaiting the arrival of my soon-to-be-born child, I have nothing but utter disdain for any child molester. But that's not what Dalton is guilty of--he's guilty of being a writer. I know that what he wrote is contemptible, so much so that the grand jury plugged their ears and said, "No more." Is that, in and of itself, criminal? I have read a few things in my life that I simply had to put down and then force from my consciousness. J.G. Ballard's dark novel "Crash"--with its lewd depictions of a group of people who receive sexual gratification watching strangers die in horrific automobile crashes--comes readily to mind, but I didn't wish to see him locked up.
Mr. O'Brien conceded that the stories are pure fiction. What the case boils down to is the First Amendment to the Constitution and a person's right to free speech. Gary Daniels, spokesman for the New York-based National Coalition Against Censorship, said: "It's one thing to get an obscenity prosecution when there's visual images. To suggest that something could be obscene in a written form points out the contradictions in obscenity law."
Putting Dalton aside for the moment, who among us has not had an occasional thought that someone, somewhere, might not find offensive?
Bob Dylan laid it out plainly in the verse, "If my thoughts and dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine." If the Dalton decision sets precedence, we'd better start building a lot of new prisons, because many of us will be taking up residence under the warden's watch.
When I was a kid, a good friend and I would play a game called "How would you?" The game had simple rules. One of us would ask a question, which when answered would constitute a round.
"How would you pull off a great Brink's robbery?"
"I'd go out with a teller who would give me the lowdown on the inside of the bank and the armored car schedule."
"How would you get away without being identified?"
"I'd do it on Halloween, when I could walk into the bank with a Frankenstein's monster mask on and not look suspicious."
The questions would go on until the subject was exhausted.
If we were to play "How would you" with Brian Dalton, the game would be over in one round.
"How would you turn a penny into 10 years?"
"I'd write my thoughts down in my private journal."