Florida- Former Lakeland resident Christopher Wilson was still in jail Christmas Eve on obscenity charges relating to his internet pornography Web site.
But late Saturday, he received a note of good news: The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether Wilson should be granted bail.
Wilson's lawyer, Lawrence Walters, said that the Supreme Court has made arrangements to receive a filing by e-mail and immediately start considering it. His firm planned to submit the filing Saturday night, Walters said.
The filing will ask that Wilson be released from the Polk County Jail immediately.
"We are hopeful that the court will act quickly in order to give Chris Wilson some time with his family this Christmas," Walters said.
Walters' law firm has been communicating with the clerk of the United States Supreme Court all day Saturday, he said.
"The Supreme Court tends to take First Amendment matters very seriously. This is an emergency matter, and they've agreed to consider it over the Christmas weekend," Walters said.
On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency motion that Walters filed last week.
The Florida Supreme Court said it did not have jurisdiction, Walters said.
Wilson's Web site generated international controversy earlier this year when he began allowing soldiers serving in the military to send in pictures of alleged dead Iraqi insurgents, which he posted to his site.
Wilson was arrested by the Polk County Sheriff's Office on Oct. 7 on 301 charges of obscenity, one of them a felony charge.
After he posted bail, he moved out of the county and continued running his Web site.
Then, on Dec. 16, his bail was revoked because he allegedly had allowed new, obscene pictures and video clips to be posted to his Web site.
This violated the law, which meant that his bail needed to be revoked, prosecutors argued.
His lawyer argued that until a jury legally determines that pictures are obscene, they are protected by the First Amendment. But Judge J. Dale Durrance reviewed the pictures and said there was probable cause to think they were obscene.
Wilson is being held in solitary confinement because he is a former police officer, and there are fears for his safety from the general inmate population, according to his lawyer.
