Connection Distributing Co. v. Holder

Connection Distributing Co. v. Holder
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Full case name	Connection Distributing Co.; Rondee Kamins; Jane Doe; John Doe v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
Argued	September 10, 2008
Decided	February 20, 2009
Citations	Panel opinion: 505 F.3d 545 (October 23, 2007) En banc opinion: 557 F.3d 321 (February 20, 2009)
Case history
Prior history	Summary judgment to the defendant, 95-01993 (N.D. Ohio)
Subsequent history	Appeal turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court without comment on October 5, 2009.[1]
Holding
The court held that the record-keeping requirements of the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act did not violate the First Amendment.
Court membership
Judges sitting	Danny Julian Boggs, Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy, Boyce F. Martin, Jr., Alice M. Batchelder, Martha Craig Daughtrey, Karen Nelson Moore, R. Guy Cole, Jr., Eric L. Clay, Ronald Lee Gilman, Julia Smith Gibbons, John M. Rogers, Jeffrey Sutton, Deborah L. Cook, David McKeague, Richard Allen Griffin, Raymond Kethledge, and Helene White
Case opinions
Majority	Sutton, joined by Boggs, Batchelder, Daughtrey, Gilman, Gibbons, Rogers, Cook, McKeague, Griffin, Kethledge
Dissent	Kennedy, joined by Martin, Moore, Cole, Clay, White
Dissent	Moore, joined by Martin, Cole
Dissent	Clay, joined by Martin, Cole
Dissent	White
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I; Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act

Connection Distributing Co. v. Holder, 557 F.3d 321 (6th Cir. 2009)^[2] is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the record-keeping provisions of the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act did not violate the First Amendment.

Section 2257 of the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act requires those who create sexually explicit materials to maintain records of their model's age and identities, as a measure against child pornography. Connection Distributing, a publisher of swinging magazines, challenged the constitutionality of the statute, as individuals who posted on Connection's magazines would also be required to create and maintain such records, and provide them to the publisher.

In 2009, the Sixth Circuit ruled en banc that the provisions were not unconstitutional, while a panel of the court had decided in 2007 that the statute violated the First Amendment.