Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/102827/united-states-vs-thirty-seven-photographs
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 12:44:37+00:00

Document:
Customs agents seized as obscene photographs possessed by claimant Luros when he returned to this country from Europe on October 24, 1969. Section 1305(a) of 19 U.S.C. pursuant to which the agents acted, prohibits the importation of obscene material, provides for its seizure at any customs office and retention pending the judgment of the district court, and specifies that the collector of customs give information of the seizure to the district attorney, who shall institute forfeiture proceedings. The agents referred the matter to the United States Attorney, who brought forfeiture proceedings on November 6. Luros' answer denied that the photographs were obscene and counterclaimed that § 1305(a) was unconstitutional. He asked for a three-judge court, which, on November 20, was ordered to be convened. Following a hearing on January 9, 1970, the court on January 27 held § 1305(a) unconstitutional on the grounds that the statute (1) failed to meet the procedural requirements of Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 , and (2) was overly broad as including within its ban obscene material for private use, making it invalid under Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557 .
Held: The judgment is reversed and the case remanded. Pp. 402 U. S. 367 -379.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concluded in Part I that § 1305(a) can be construed as requiring administrative and judicial action within specified time limits that will avoid the constitutional issue that would otherwise be presented by Freedman, supra. Pp. 402 U. S. 367 -375.
(a) In Freedman, unlike the situation here, the statute failing to specify time limits was enacted pursuant to state authority, and could not be given an authoritative construction by this Court to avoid the constitutional issue. P. 402 U. S. 369 .
(c) Section 1305(a) may be constitutionally applied as construed to require intervals of no longer than 14 days from seizure of the goods to the institution of judicial proceedings for their forfeiture and no longer than 60 days from the filing of the action to final decision in the district court (absent claimant-induced delays). Pp. 402 U. S. 373 -374.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, and MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concluded in Part II that Congress' constitutional power to remove obscene materials from the channels of commerce is unimpaired by this Court's decision in Stanley, supra. Cf. United States v. Reidel, ante, p. 402 U. S. 351 . Pp. 402 U. S. 375 -377.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN concluded that Luros, who stipulated with the Government that the materials were imported for commercial purposes, lacked standing to challenge the statute for overbreadth on the ground that it applied to importation for private use. P. 402 U. S. 378 .
MR. JUSTICE STEWART while agreeing that the First Amendment does not prevent the border seizure of obscene materials imported for commercial dissemination and that Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 , imposes time limits for initiating forfeiture proceedings and completing the judicial obscenity determination, would not even intimate that the Government may lawfully seize literature intended for the importer's purely private use. P. 402 U. S. 378 .
WHITE, J., announced the Court's judgment and delivered an opinion in which (as to Part I) BURGER, C.J., and HARLAN, BRENNAN, STEWART, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined, and in which (as to Part II), BURGER, C.J., and BRENNAN and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. HARLAN, J., post, p. 402 U. S. 377 , and STEWART, J., post, p. 402 U. S. 378 , filed opinions concurring in the judgment and concurring in Part I of WHITE, J.'s opinion. BLACK, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which DOUGLAS, J., joined, post, p. 402 U. S. 379 . MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, ante, p. 402 U. S. 360 .
380 U.S. at 380 U. S. 58 . To insure that a judicial determination occurs promptly so that administrative delay does not, in itself, become a form of censorship, we further held, (1) there must be assurance,"by statute or authoritative judicial construction, that the censor will, within a specified brief period, either issue a license or go to court to restrain showing the film;" (2) "[a]ny restraint imposed in advance of a final judicial determination on the merits must similarly be limited to preservation of the status quo for the shortest fixed period compatible with sound judicial resolution"; and (3) "the procedure must also assure a prompt final judicial decision" to minimize the impact of possibly erroneous administrative action. Id. at 380 U. S. 58 -59.
As enacted by Congress, § 1305(a) does not contain explicit time limits of the sort required by Freedman, Teitel, and Blount. [ Footnote 2 ] These cases do not, however, require that we pass upon the constitutionality of § 1305(a), for it is possible to construe the section to bring it in harmony with constitutional requirements.
Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22 , 285 U. S. 62 (1932). Accord, e.g., Haynes v. United States, 390 U. S. 85 , 390 U. S. 92 (1968) (dictum); Schneider v. Smith, 390 U. S. 17 , 390 U. S. 27 (1968); United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41 , 345 U. S. 45 (1953); Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288 , 297 U. S. 348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). This cardinal principle did not govern Freedman, Teitel, and Blount only because the statutes there involved could not be construed so as to avoid all constitutional difficulties.
The District Court's opinion is not entirely clear. The court may have reasoned that Luros had a right to import the 37 photographs in question for planned distribution to the general public, but our decision today in United States v. Reidel, ante, p. 402 U. S. 351 , makes it clear that such reasoning would have been in error. On the other hand, the District Court may have reasoned that, while Luros had no right to import the photographs for distribution, a person would have a right under Stanley to import them for his own private use, and that § 1305(a) was therefore void as overbroad because it prohibits both sorts of importation. If this was the court's reasoning, the proper approach, however, was not to invalidate the section in its entirety, but to construe it narrowly and hold it valid in its application to Luros. This was made clear in Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479 , 380 U. S. 491 -492 (1965), where the Court noted that, once the overbreadth of a statute has been sufficiently dealt with, it may be applied to prior conduct foreseeably within its valid sweep.
I agree, for the reasons set forth in 402 U. S. JUSTICE WHITE's opinion, that this statute may and should be construed as requiring administrative and judicial action within specified time limits that will avoid the constitutional issue that would otherwise be presented by Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965). Our decision today in United States v. Reidel, ante, p. 402 U. S. 351 , forecloses Luros' claim that the Government may not prohibit the importation of obscene materials for commercial distribution.
were imported for commercial purposes, Luros cannot claim that his primary conduct was not intended to be within the statute's sweep. Cf. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479 , 380 U. S. 491 -492 (1965). Finally, the statute includes a severability clause. 19 U.S.C. § 1652.
I agree that the First Amendment does not prevent the border seizure of obscene materials sought to be imported for commercial dissemination. For the reasons expressed in 402 U. S. JUSTICE WHITE's opinion, I also agree that Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 , requires that there be time limits for the initiation of forfeiture proceedings and for the completion of the judicial determination of obscenity.
But I would not in this case decide, even by way of dicta, that the Government may lawfully seize literary material intended for the purely private use of the importer. [ Footnote 2/1 ] The terms of the statute appear to apply to an American tourist who, after exercising his constitutionally protected liberty to travel abroad, [ Footnote 2/2 ] returns home with a single book in his luggage, with no intention of selling it or otherwise using it, except to read it. If the Government can constitutionally take the book away from him as he passes through customs, then I do not understand the meaning of Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557 .
As MR. JUSTICE WHITE's opinion correctly says, even if seizure of material for private use is unconstitutional, the statute can still stand in appropriately narrowed form, and the seizure in this case clearly falls within the valid sweep of such a narrowed statute. Ante at 402 U. S. 375 , n. 3.
Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500 .
I dissent from the judgments of the Court for the reasons stated in many of my prior opinions. See, e.g., Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147 , 361 U. S. 155 (1959) (BLACK, J., concurring); Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463 , 383 U. S. 476 (1966) (BLACK, J., dissenting). In my view, the First Amendment denies Congress the power to act as censor and determine what books our citizens may read and what pictures they may watch.
earlier cases. That opinion insists that the trial court erred in reading Stanley v. Georgia, supra, "as immunizing from seizure obscene materials possessed at a port of entry for the purpose of importation for private use." Ante at 402 U. S. 376 . But it is never satisfactorily explained just why the trial court's reading of Stanley was erroneous. It would seem to me that, if a citizen had a right to possess "obscene" material in the privacy of his home, he should have the right to receive it voluntarily through the mail. Certainly when a man legally purchases such material abroad, he should be able to bring it with him through customs to read later in his home. The mere act of importation for private use can hardly be more offensive to others than is private perusal in one's home. The right to read and view any literature and pictures at home is hollow indeed if it does not include a right to carry that material privately in one's luggage when entering the country.
The plurality opinion seems to suggest that Thirty-Seven Photographs differs from Stanley because "Customs officers characteristically inspect luggage, and their power to do so is not questioned in this case. . . ." Ante at 402 U. S. 376 . But surely this observation does not distinguish Stanley, because police frequently search private homes as well, and their power to do so is unquestioned so long as the search is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
that enforcement of a possession law was necessary because of the difficulties of proving intent to distribute or actual distribution. However, the Court unequivocally rejected that argument because an individual's right to "read or observe what he pleases" is so "fundamental to our scheme of individual liberty." 394 U.S. at 394 U. S. 568 .
Furthermore, any argument that all importation may be banned to stop possible commercial distribution simply ignores numerous holdings of this Court that legislation touching on First Amendment freedoms must be precisely and narrowly drawn to avoid stifling the expression the Amendment was designed to protect. Certainly the Court has repeatedly applied the rule against overbreadth in past censorship cases, as in Butler v. Michigan, 352 U. S. 380 (1957), where we held that the State could not quarantine "the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence." Id. at 352 U. S. 383 . Cf. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940); United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258 (1967).
The plurality opinion appears to concede that the customs obscenity statute is unconstitutional on its face after the Court's decision in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965), because this law specifies no time limits within which forfeiture proceedings must be started against seized books or pictures, and it does not require a prompt final judicial hearing on obscenity. Ante at 402 U. S. 368 -369. Once the plurality has reached this determination, the proper course would be to affirm the lower court's decision.
Certainly claimant Luros has standing to raise the claim that the customs statute's failure to provide for prompt judicial decision renders it unconstitutional. Our previous decisions make clear that such censorship statutes may be challenged on their face as a violation of First Amendment rights "whether or not [a defendant's] conduct could be proscribed by a properly drawn statute." Freedman v. Maryland, supra, at 380 U. S. 56 . This is true because of the "danger of tolerating, in the area of First Amendment freedoms, the existence of a penal statute susceptible of sweeping and improper application." NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415 , 371 U. S. 433 (1963). Since this censorship statute is unconstitutional on its face, and claimant has standing to challenge it as such, that should end the case without further ado. But the plurality nimbly avoids this result by writing a new censorship statute.
380 U.S. at 380 U. S. 60 . With all deference, I would suggest hat the decision whether and how the customs obscenity law should be rewritten is a task for the Congress, not this Court. Congress might decide to write an entirely different law, or even decide that the Nation can well live without such a statute.
The plurality claims to find power to rewrite the customs obscenity law in the statute's legislative history and in the rule that statutes should be construed to avoid constitutional questions. Ante at 402 U. S. 373 . I agree, of course, that statutes should be construed to uphold their constitutionality when this can be done without misusing the legislative history and substituting a new statute for the one that Congress has passed. But this rule of construction does not justify the plurality's acting like a legislature or one of its committees and redrafting the statute in a manner not supported by the deliberations of Congress or by our previous decisions in censorship cases.
The plurality concedes that, in previous censorship cases, we have considered the validity of the statutes before us on their face, and we have refused to rewrite them. Although some of these cases did involve state statutes, in Blount v. Rizzi, 400 U. S. 410 (1971), we specifically declined to attempt to save a federal obscenity mail-blocking statute by redrafting it. The Court there plainly declared: "it is for Congress, not this Court, to rewrite the statute." Id. at 400 U. S. 419 . The plurality in its opinion now seeks to distinguish Blount because saving the mail-blocking statute by requiring prompt judicial review "would have required its complete rewriting in a manner inconsistent with the expressed intentions of some of its authors." Ante at 402 U. S. 369 . But the only "expressed intention" cited by the plurality to support this argument is testimony by the Postmaster General that he wanted to forestall judicial review pending completion of administrative mail-blocking proceedings. Ante at 402 U. S. 370 . That insignificant piece of legislative history would have posed no obstacle to the Court's saving the mail-blocking statute by requiring prompt judicial review after prompt administrative proceedings. Yet the Court in Blount properly refused to undertake such a legislative task, just as it did in the cases involving state censorship statutes.
The plurality is not entirely clear whether the time limits it imposes stem from the legislative history of the customs law or from the demands of the First Amendment. At one point, we are told that 14 days and 60 days are not the "only constitutionally permissible time limits," and that, if Congress imposes new rules, this would present a new constitutional question. Ante at 402 U. S. 374 . This strongly suggests the time limits stem from the Court's power to "interpret" or "construe" federal statutes, not from the Constitution. But since the Court's action today has no support in the legislative history or the wording of the statute, it appears much more likely that the time limits are derived from the First Amendment itself. If the plurality is really drawing its rules from the First Amendment, I find the process of derivation both peculiar and disturbing. The rules are not derived by considering what the First Amendment demands, but by surveying previously litigated cases and then guessing what limits would not pose an "undue hardship" on the Government and the lower federal courts. Ante at 402 U. S. 373 . Scant attention is given to the First Amendment rights of persons entering the country. Certainly it gives little comfort to an American bringing a book home to Colorado or Alabama for personal reading to be informed without explanation that a 74-day delay at New York harbor is not "undue." Faced with such lengthy legal proceedings and the need to hire a lawyer far from home, he is likely to be coerced into giving up his First Amendment rights. Thus, the whims of customs clerks or the congestion of their business will determine what Americans may read.
Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494 , 341 U. S. 581 (1951) (BLACK, J., dissenting).

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