City Declines to Prosecute Rap Group

The San Diego city attorney’s office will not prosecute a Los Angeles-based rap group that allegedly simulated sex acts with inflatable dolls during a summer concert, authorities said Friday.

Deputy City Atty. James Cahan said his office considered bringing obscenity charges against three members of the rap group Digital Underground, who allegedly acted out oral sex and intercourse on stage during an Aug. 26 show at the San Diego Sports Arena.

But, particularly in light of recent obscenity rulings that went against prosecutors, he said, the city attorney decided the case “was not worth pursuing.” In recent months, prosecutors have lost two celebrated obscenity cases involving the lyrics of rap group 2 Live Crew and an exhibit of the late Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs.

Cahan said that his office concluded that the odds of winning the case against Digital Underground, whose album is entitled “Sex Packets” and whose members include one rapper named Humpty Hump, were not necessarily good.

“The conduct was certainly vulgar but not necessarily obscene according to the statute,” Cahan said. “It was not worth bringing to trial.”

“It was a question of resources but also a question of probability of conviction,” he said. “When you’re dealing with the First Amendment, and you always are when you’re dealing with obscenity, the probability of winning was too remote to bring to trial and bring before the courts and the people.”