UPDATE

COLORADO–The Globe tabloid published eight more photographs relating to the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation in late March.

JonBenet’s parents have asked the Denver District Attorney’s office to investigate whether the photos were obtained legally, the Associated Press reported.

The photos, which include shots of the child’s bedroom, her father’s golf clubs and the basement room where her body was found, are the second series to be printed by the Globe. The Globe had obtained the first series from a private investigator and a photo lab employee who had illegally obtained copies of crime scene photos. The negatives were subsequently returned to the coroner’s office and the Globe agreed not to run any more of the photos. Both men were sentenced to three days in jail.

Ramsey, a six-year-old Colorado beauty queen, was found strangled in the basement of her family home in late December. *** In mid-March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case concerning the constitutionality of a California law forbidding vending machine sales of publications containing “harmful matter” in public places. “Harmful matter” is defined as material that “appeals to the prurient interest” and depicts or describes sexual conduct in an offensive way, while lacking any literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Five publishers, a newsrack company owner and a consumer filed a complaint in federal District Court in Los Angeles after California passed the law in 1994. The court eventually found that the statute was constitutional because the state had a compelling interest in protecting minors from the influence of “harmful matter” and there were other methods available for distributing the material in question. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Pasadena (9th Cir.) upheld the lower court’s decision in 1995. (Crawford v. Lungren)