A federal appeals court has ordered criminal charges reinstated against the owners of a California company that makes violent and graphic pornographic movies.

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The 30-page decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was handed down yesterday. In it, the court found that Pittsburgh U.S. District Court Judge Gary L. Lancaster erred in dismissing the indictment against Extreme Associates Inc., and its owners, Robert Zicari, and his wife, Janet Romano.

Their attorney, H. Louis Sirkin, of Cincinnati, said he will appeal.

His clients were charged in August 2003 with 10 counts of violating federal obscenity laws.

In January, Judge Lancaster dismissed the indictment, saying that those laws violate the Constitution. He specifically cited a recent Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas, in which the court ruled that laws prohibiting same-sex sodomy are unconstitutional. He ruled that the Lawrence decision undermined obscenity statutes, as well as earlier Supreme Court decisions that upheld them.

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan appealed Judge Lancaster's decision, and the appeals court heard oral argument in October.

The three-judge panel agreed with Ms. Buchanan's position on the case, saying that the Lawrence decision didn't even address obscenity law.

"The court's analysis need not be so specific in order to limit a district court's prerogative to overturn an entire category of federal statutes, even as applied to particular defendants, based on speculation about a later decision that fails even to mention those statutes," the judges wrote.

The court also ruled that Judge Lancaster improperly ignored precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in a number of cases that upheld federal obscenity statutes based on both the First Amendment and substantive due process.

Extreme Associates argued that obscenity laws violated the right to due process established under the Fifth Amendment's guaranteed right to liberty.

In his argument before the court, Mr. Sirkin said that if a right exists for people to possess obscenity in the home, then they must have a right to buy it.

His clients were charged with transporting obscenity through the U.S. mail, as well as distributing it over the Internet.

Under current law, a person has the right to view obscenity in private at home, but it is illegal to distribute across state lines.

"The court has stated clearly that the right recognized in (a 1969 case) to possess obscene material within the home (and by logical implication, the ability to exercise that right) 'does not mean' that there is a correlative right to distribute that material," the judges wrote.

Ms. Buchanan brought the charges against Extreme Associates to protect community standards and what she called "the order of society."

The movies made by the company feature scenes of women being raped and murdered. For the purposes of oral arguments, Extreme Associates stipulated that the movies are, by definition, obscene.

Mr. Sirkin said he was disappointed in the overall opinion but was encouraged by some parts of it. The court did agree that his clients had standing to challenge the law on behalf of their customers, and, he said, it did not demean any of his arguments.

Further, he knows that had his side won, the case would still not be over because the U.S. attorney would likely have appealed.

Mr. Sirkin plans to file a petition to have the entire 3rd Circuit hear the case.

"We feel we climbed the first step of the ladder by winning in the district court," he said. "We're prepared to fight the next round."