Some prosecutors say they do not understand all of the nuts and bolts of a bill in the Alabama legislature that could criminalize librarians.

The proposed legislation, HB385, says anyone who believes a library book is obscene or harmful to minors can file a complaint with the library and their district attorney’s office. The library then has seven days to review the complaint and remove the book. If they don’t it could be a misdemeanor crime.

But what counts as harmful? And who gets to decide?

CJ Robinson, the district attorney for three counties north of Montgomery, described the bill as a “wide open net,” saying that it doesn’t specify what counts as obscene or harmful to children.

Tim Douthit, chief trial attorney for the Madison County’s District Attorney’s Office, said the bill does define harmful material but that it does not specify who decides what qualifies as a crime.

He said he interprets the bill to mean that police officers would have the discretion to decide whether a book was harmful to minors. If after seven days such a book was not removed from the shelf by a local librarian, officers could make an arrest.

“The district attorney does not make any determination,” he said. “We’re not going to go through books and decide what is and is not harmful. They just have to let us know that they’re letting the library know,” he said of the seven-day notice window.

Robinson said that the bill doesn’t even say who should be arrested in the case of a violation.

“Who are we prosecuting?” said Robinson. “Are we prosecuting the director of the board? Are we prosecuting the board itself? Are we prosecuting the manager? Are we prosecuting the actual person that put the book on the shelf? All those things are questions.”

Librarians in Alabama have said they fear that the proposed legislation will have a chilling effect on free speech and reading, as it exposes them to arrest if they shelve books that some residents find offensive.

Douthit said if the police arrested someone for violating the law, it would then be up to the courts to decide whether the person is guilty.

“Technically, as the law is written right now, there’s a definition of material harmful to minors, but there is no arbiter, pre-arrest of whether or not material is actually harmful to minors.”

Alabamians already have the right to complain about library books to local library boards. Just last year, more than 100 books were challenged statewide, with local boards in some instances removing books or relocating them from the childrens section to the adult section.

As the district attorney for Chilton, Autaugua and Elmore counties, Robinson is the top law enforcement official in Prattville, a small city north of Montgomery that has been the epicenter of the battle over library books and debates over censorship in Alabama.

Robinson said he spoke to several fellow district attorneys in the state who had similar questions about how the proposed legislation would actually work. The Alabama District Attorneys Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the sponsor of the legislation state Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Shelby County.

AL.com contacted more than two dozen other district attorneys in the state who did not respond to requests for comment. James Tarbox, the district attorney for Coffee County, said he did not feel comfortable commenting before the legislation is enacted.

Robinson said if the bill passes as written, prosecutors across the state will require a lot of training to make judgements about things like artistic and literary value.

“How do we go about applying a moving target of the standard?” he asked.

The proposed legislation passed in the state House of Representatives on April 26. At a Senate committee hearing this week, lawmakers passed the bill 6-0 but discussed making changes to it before it goes to the full Senate for a vote.

There are just three days left in the legislative session.

The bill defines material harmful to minors as anything that lacks literary or artistic value and, “The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient.” It goes on to specify that sexual conduct, breast nudity, genital nudity are not suitable.

The legislation’s definition of obscenity includes, sadomasochistic abuse, “flagellation or torture in an act of sexual stimulation, by or upon a person who is nude or clad in undergarments or in a revealing or bizarre costume.”