Miller vs. California
Primary
Holding. Speech that is
obscene and thus lacking First Amendment protection must be without serious
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. It also must appeal to the prurient interest in the view of
an average person according to community standards, and it must describe sexual
conduct or excretory function in an offensive way.
Brief Fact Summary. This is one of a group of
“obscenity-pornography” cases being reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United
States (Supreme Court) in a re-examination of the standards, which must be used
to identify obscene material that a State may regulate.
Synopsis of Rule of Law. The
basic guidelines for a trier of fact in an obscenity matter must be: (a)
whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would
find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b)
whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual
conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law and (c) whether the
work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or
scientific value.
Facts. In this case, the
Appellant, Miller (Appellant), conducted a mass mailing campaign to advertise
the sale of illustrated adult material books. After a jury trial, he was
convicted of violating California Penal Code S 311.2(a), a misdemeanor, by
knowingly distributing obscene matter, and the Appellate Department, Superior Court
of California, County of Orange, summarily affirmed the judgment without
opinion. The Appellant’s conviction was specifically based on his conduct in
causing five unsolicited advertising brochures to be sent through the mail. The
brochures consist primarily of pictures and drawings very explicitly depicting
men and women in groups of two or more engaging in a variety of sexual
activities, with genitals often predominantly displayed. This case thus
involves the application of a state’s criminal obscenity statute to a situation
in which sexually explicit materials have been thrust by aggressive sales
action upon unwilling recipients.
Issue. Whether/n the obscenity presented in this case is
prohibited by the applicable state statute?
Held. In sum, the Supreme Court: (a) reaffirmed the Roth holding
that obscene material is not protected
by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (Constitution), (b)
held that such material can be regulated by the States, subject to specific
safeguards, without a showing that the material is “utterly without redeeming social value and (c) held that obscenity is
to be determined by applying “contemporary community standards.” As a result,
the majority determined that the material at issue in this case was not protected
by the First Amendment of the Constitution and that the California state
statute could regulate the matter. Furthermore, the requirement that a
California jury evaluate the materials with reference to “contemporary
standards” is constitutionally adequate.
Dissent. Dissenting opinions were offered by both Justice William
Douglas (J. Douglas) and Justice William Brennan (J. Brennan).
J. Douglas: It should not be the
role of the court to define obscenity.
J. Brennan: The state statute in
this case is unconstitutionally overbroad.
Discussion. The Supreme Court focused much of its decision on the role
of a jury in this type of matter. The Supreme Court found that, despite the
guidelines that it established, it is nearly impossible to articulate a
national obscenity standard. As a result, the
Supreme Court noted that each state should be free, through state statute, to
construct obscenity laws that are representative of their communities. Furthermore,
the Supreme Court noted that the publication at issue in this case had no literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The Supreme Court found that hard-core portrayal of sexual conduct, for its own
sake and for the ensuing commercial gain, does not fit the articulated
standard.
Legal
terms (or otherwise).
● Prurient - having
or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters.
● The Miller test
was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California.[3] It has three parts:
○ Whether "the
average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
○ Whether the work
depicts or describes, in a patently
offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions[4] specifically defined by applicable state law,
○ Whether the work,
taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.[5]
● The work is
considered obscene only if all three
conditions are satisfied.
● The first two prongs of the Miller
test are held to the standards of the community, and the last prong is held to
what is reasonable to a person of the United States as a whole. The national
reasonable person standard of the third prong acts as a check on the community
standard of the first two prongs, allowing protection for works that in a
certain community might be considered obscene but on a national level might
have redeeming value.
● For legal scholars, several issues
are important. One is that the test allows for community standards rather than
a national standard. What offends the average person in Manhattan, Kansas, may differ from what offends the
average person in Manhattan,
New York.[6] The relevant community, however, is
not defined.
●
Another
important issue is that the Miller test asks
for an interpretation of what the "average" person finds offensive,
rather than what the more sensitive persons in the community are offended by,
as obscenity was defined by the previous test, the Hicklin test, stemming from the English
precedent.
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