Miller v. California

Brief Fact Summary.

The petitioner challenges California’s application of its state criminal obscenity statute in which sexually explicit materials have been thrust by aggressive sales action upon unwilling recipients who had in no way indicated any desire to receive such materials.

Synopsis of Rule of Law.

Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment and such material can be regulated by the States, subject to the specific standards, without a showing that the material is utterly without redeeming social value.

Facts.

The case at issue the Supreme Court review was tried on the theory that the California Penal Code incorporates the three-stage Memoirs test. But now the Memoirs test has been abandoned as unworkable and no Member of the court today supports the Memoirs formulation. The Court re-examines standards enunciated in earlier cases involving what the obscenity problem. This case involves the application of a State’s criminal obscenity statute in which sexually explicit materials have been thrust by aggressive sales action upon unwilling recipients who had in no way indicated any desire to receive such materials.

Issue.

Does the application of a state criminal obscenity statute in which sexually explicit materials have been thrust by aggressive sales action upon unwilling recipients who had in no way indicated any desire to receive such materials violate the Constitution?

Held.

No. Neither the State’s alleged failure to offer evidence of national standards, nor the trial court’s charge that the jury consider state community standards were constitutional errors. Nothing in the First Amendment requires that a jury must consider hypothetical and unascertainable national standards attempting to determine whether certain materials are obscene as a matter of fact. It is neither realistic nor constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the people of Maine accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable in Las Vegas.

Discussion.

No formulation of the Court, Congress, or the States can adequately distinguish obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment from protected expression. Suppression of unprotected obscene material is permissible to avoid exposure to unconsenting adults, as in this case, and to juveniles, although he gives no indication of how the division between protected and unprotected materials may be drawn with greater precision for these purposes than for regulation of commercial exposure to consenting adults only. Upon the holding, no one will be subject to prosecution for the sale or exposure obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive hard core sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law. These specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution.