United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film
United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film | |
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Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Burger, joined by White, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist |
Dissent | Douglas |
Dissent | Brennan, joined by Stewart, Marshall |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. amend. I |
United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973), was an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court that considered the question of whether the First Amendment required that citizens be allowed to import obscene material for their personal and private use at home, which was already held to be protected several years earlier. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that it did not.
This case was very similar to
After a
Chief Justice
Background of the case
For most of American history, literary and artistic works depicting, or even alluding to,
That began to change during the 20th century, in response to social and
In some of those cases, like Memoirs v. Massachusetts, the justices realized their Roth standard was inadequate, but they could not agree on a new one.[4] The search for a workable legal definition of obscenity led to Potter Stewart's famous line "I know it when I see it" in Jacobellis v. Ohio.[5] Other Court decisions restricted the scope under which obscenity could be suppressed. Freedman v. Maryland held that local film boards could not ban films, effectively eliminating them, and that they had to approve a film within a specified period of time.[6] In Stanley v. Georgia, the Court held that possession of obscene material in the privacy of the home was constitutionally protected as well.[7]
United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs
In addition to arguing that Stanley gave him the right to import such material, Luros also challenged the procedures of the case under the Fifth Amendment, pointing out that the statute, Section 1305 of Title 18 of the United States Code, did not give a time frame within which the government had to begin forfeiture proceedings against the seized material and did not even require the government move in a timely fashion. A panel of two judges from the Central District of California and one judge from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with him on the Stanley claim but found the lack of a time limit alone enough to hold Section 1305 unconstitutional.[10]
The statute provided for direct appeal to the Supreme Court, which heard the case in 1971. By a 6–3 margin, the Supreme Court reversed the district court panel. "[A]
However, Justice White agreed that without a time limit for when forfeiture proceedings had to begin, Section 1305 was an unconstitutional violation of
In
Underlying dispute
Paladini returned to
Unlike Luros, he alleged no procedural defect in Section 1305. Instead, he argued that the entire statute was unconstitutional, since Stanley v. Georgia had held that the First Amendment protected the right to possess, read and view obscene material in the home and that allowed him to import such material for that use. The district court panel agreed, citing Thirty-seven Photographs, and struck down the statute. Again, the government appealed directly to the Supreme Court.[17]
Before the Court
The Court, as it had in Thirty-seven Photographs, granted
Decision
In June 1973, near the end of the term, the Court handed down its opinion in all five cases. In Miller v. California, it succeeded, where it had failed seven years earlier in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, producing a new standard for obscenity that superseded the 1957 Roth v. United States holding. Miller impacted all the cases decided that day.
As he had in Miller, Chief Justice
Majority
Burger recounted the facts of the case, and he then turned to the Stanley argument. "But it is now well established that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment", he wrote, referring to the Court's other holdings that day. Stanley he continued, was fundamentally a case about
Courts should avoid granting inferential, incremental steps like these, Burger cautioned, in one of the most frequently quoted sections of the case:
The seductive plausibility of single steps in a chain of evolutionary development of a
legislative process: "thus far, but not beyond."[19]
It did not matter that, unlike the claimant in Thirty-seven Photographs, Paladini insisted that the materials were for private personal use. "To allow such a claim would be not unlike compelling the Government to permit importation of prohibited or
Having dealt with the major issue, Burger added an afterthought, observing "that it is extremely difficult to control the uses to which obscene material is put once it enters this country" since it was by then technologically possible to make many copies very quickly and cheaply of a single original. But, "[w]hile it is true that a large volume of obscene material on
Dissents
"I know of no constitutional way by which a book, tract, paper, postcard, or film may be made
Justice Douglas responded to the Miller majority's argument that the First Amendment necessarily incorporated the common-law strictures on obscenity that existed at that time.
Histories of the era, Douglas wrote, show that at the time of the Constitution's adoption many sexually frank works such as
"[I]t is ironic to me," Douglas concluded, "that, in this Nation, many pages must be written and many hours spent to explain why a person who can read whatever he desires ... may not without violating a law carry that literature in his briefcase or bring it home from abroad. Unless there is that ancillary right, one's Stanley rights could be realized, as has been suggested, only if one wrote or designed a tract in his attic and printed or processed it in his basement, so as to be able to read it in his study."[29][note 2]
Brennan's short dissent reflected the change in his thinking about obscenity. It alluded to his dissent in another of the companion cases, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, in which he said he no longer believed it was reasonably possible for judges to define obscenity, even narrowly.[30] For that reason, he considered any statute that attempted to do so, or suppressed obscenity based on that definition, as overbroad and unconstitutional on its face.[31]
Subsequent jurisprudence
The Court's clear holding that the privately possessed obscene material did not create the right to distribute it became part of its general body on the subject. In the wake of Miller, that has not had to be revisited, since general obscenity prosecutions declined, technology allowed more discreet methods of obtaining pornography, and the Court has not had to reconsider its standard. Enforcement mostly turned to child pornography, the production and distribution of which Congress banned with the Child Protection Act of 1978. Four years later, the Court held that obscene material depicting actual children was not protected speech in New York v. Ferber in 1982.[32]
Until that statute was further revised in 1984, possession of child pornography was still legal.
Justice
Notes
- ^ After the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted following the Civil War, the Bill of Rights was held to apply to the states as well.
- ^ Douglas was referring to Black's suggestion as such in his Thirty-seven Photographs dissent, 402 U.S. at 382.
- ^ The Court upheld possession bans in Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103 (1990).
See also
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 413
- List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Burger Court
- List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment
References
- ^ United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, 5 F.Supp. 182 (S.D.N.Y., 1933).
- ^ United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses, by James Joyce, 72 F.2d 705 (2nd Cir., 1934)
- ^ Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
- ^ Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966).
- ^ Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).
- ^ Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51 (1965).
- ^ Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969).
- ^ a b United States v. Reidel, 402 U.S. 351 (1971).
- ^ United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363 (1971).
- ^ United States v. Thirty-seven (37) Photographs, 390 F.Supp. 36, 37 (C.D. Cal., 1970).
- ^ Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. at 376, White, J.
- ^ Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. at 371–73.
- ^ Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. at 377–78, Harlan, J., concurring.
- ^ Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. at 378–79, Stewart, J., concurring.
- ^ Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U.S. at 379, 380 et seq., Black, J., dissenting.
- ^ Reidel, 402 U.S. at 361, Marshall, J., dissenting.
- ^ Burger, C.J.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 126.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 127.
- ^ United States v. Orito, 413 U.S. 139 (1973).
- ^ Stanley, 394 U.S. at 567.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 128–9.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 129.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 130., Douglas, J., dissenting.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 132.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 132–4.
- ^ Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 263–265., Black, J.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 136–7.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 137.
- Brennan, J., dissenting.
- ^ Reels of Film, 413 U.S. at 138, Brennan, J., dissenting.
- ^ New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982).
- ^ United States v. Hurt, 795 F.2d 765, 771 (9th Cir., 1986)
- ^ NLRB v. Electrical Workers, 481 U.S. 573, 598 (1987), Scalia, J., concurring.
- ^ Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509, 565, (2004), Scalia, J., dissenting.
External links
- Text of United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973) is available from: Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)