Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. SHREVEPORT NEWS AGENCY, INC.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1973-12-03
Citations: 287 So. 2d 464
Docket Number: No. 53985
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. SHREVEPORT NEWS AGENCY, INC.
Judges: SANDERS, C. J., dissents with written reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 287
Pages: 464–478

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. SHREVEPORT NEWS AGENCY, INC.
No. 53985.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Dec. 3, 1973.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 11, 1974.
Robert J. Donovan, Jr., Naff, Kennedy, Goodman, Donovan & Parnell, Shreveport, for defendant-relator.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., LeRoy A. Hartley, Asst. Atty. Gen., John A. Richardson, Dist. Atty., Charles R. Lindsay, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-respondent.

Opinion:
BARHAM, Justice.
The State filed 20 bills of information, each charging the defendant with a violation of the Louisiana obscenity statute, R. S. 14:106 A(2) and (3). The State had seized twenty magazines and the seizure of each magazine constitutes the offense in the twenty separate bills of information. The defendant filed a motion to quash and a supplemental motion to quash, alleging in part that the bills of information were filed under statutory provisions which are unconstitutional and which deprive defendant of its constitutional rights under the First, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution* Defendant alleges that the statute is so vague and indefinite that it must fall since it does not give notice of the criminal activity intended to be proscribed. The defendant further contends that recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court have made the statute unconstitutional on its face for lack of specificity.
The defendant here is charged in each bill of information with violating R.S. 14:106A(3) by intentionally possessing, with intent to sell, exhibit, give, and advertise, a magazine which is obscene as defined by R.S. 14:106A(2). R.S. 14:106A (2) and (3) reads as follows:
"Obscenity is the intentional:
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(2) Production, sale, exhibition, gift, or advertisement with the intent to primarily appeal to the prurient interest of the average person, of any lewd, lascivious, filthy or sexually indecent written composition, printed composition, book, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper ,
(3) Possession with the intent to sell, exhibit, give or advertise any of the pornographic material of the character as described in Paragraph (2) above, with the intent to primarily appeal to the prurient interest of the average person."
In 1957 in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498, the United States Supreme Court held that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. Additionally, although Roth dealt with obscenity in the abstract, certain safeguards or standards were required of local statutes for the judging of obscenity in order that the statutory regulation not impinge upon First Amendment rights.
First, the Court differentiated between sex and obscenity and declared that sexual material which could be declared obscene was material whose dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to prurient interests. Roth further discarded the concept of the impact of the material upon particularly susceptible persons and looked rather to the effect of the material upon the average person applying contemporary community standards.
The Louisiana Legislature, apparently reacting to the Roth decision, amended R. S. 14:106(2) to read as above quoted, in 1960. In State v. Roufa, 241 La. 474, 129 So.2d 743 (1961) this Court held the particular section of the statute we consider to be constitutional, relying upon Roth v. United States. In Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 84 S.Ct. 1676, 12 L.Ed.2d 793 (1964), the court transformed Roth's statement that obscenity is "utterly without redeeming social importance" into a third safeguard. The court stated:
"Nor may the constitutional status of the material be made to turn on a 'weighing' of its social importance against its prurient appeal, for a work cannot be proscribed unless it is 'utterly' without social importance." (Emphasis here and elsewhere supplied).
See also Kingsley International Pictures Corporation v. Regents, 360 U.S. 684, 79 S.Ct. 1362, 3 L.Ed.2d 1512 (1959).
Nine years after Roth, the Supreme Court reiterated the third safeguard for testing the constitutionality of a local statute regulating obscenity in A Book Named: "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 86 S.Ct. 975, 16 L.Ed.2d 1 (1966), (hereinafter referred to as "Memoirs"). There the court below had held under the "social importance test" of Jacobellis that the material which appeals to prurient interests and is patently offensive need not be "unquali-fiedly worthless before it can be deemed obscene". In Memoirs, the Supreme Court stated, " A book cannot be proscribed unless if is found to be 'utterly' without redeeming social value. This is so even though the book is found to possess the requisite prurient appeal and to be patently offensive."
In State v. Henry, 250 La. 682, 198 So.2d 889 (1967), our Court considered the constitutionality of R.S. 14:106(2) again. The Court noted that the legislature had adopted the two safeguards required under the Roth decision. It did not meet the question of whether or not the statute met the third standard required under Jacobel-lis and Memoirs. However, the court did cite the companion cases to Memoirs, Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 86 S.Ct. 942, 16 L.Ed.2d 31 (1966), and Mishkin v. New York, 383 U.S. 502, 86 S.Ct. 958, 16 L.Ed.2d 56 (1966), but for the holding that obscenity can be restricted and controlled without violating the First Amendment.
In State v. Gay Times, Inc., 274 So.2d 162 (La.1973), the majority of this Court stated, in light of Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767, 87 S.Ct. 1414, 18 L. Ed.2d 515 (1967), and the varying views of the several Justices of the United States Supreme Court in other opinions : " Consequently, there is no easily ascertainable standard by which we may judge the constitutionality of the Louisiana obscenity statute as applied to moving picture film." The Court then held: "Under the Roth standards, we find the second section of R.S. 14:106 to be violative of neither the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution nor Art. I, § 10 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921."
At the time of the trial court's rulings on this defendant's motions it could be stated unequivocally that Louisiana's highest court had interpreted and applied the obscenity statute to prohibit the sale of all "lewd, lascivious, filthy and sexually indecent" expression within the ambit of the Roth safeguards. A perusal of the evolution of the obscenity statute makes it clear that our legislature intended to prohibit the display and distribution of all "lewd, lascivious, filthy or sexually indecent" matter or materials which could constitutionally be prohibited. When the trial court ruled upon the defendant's motions to quash on the grounds of unconstitutionality, it was correct under the interpretation and application of that statute by the highest court of this state. However, the United States Supreme Court handed down five cases concerning obscenity statutes during its last term. We must decide the constitutionality of our statute under the latest pronouncement by the United States Supreme Court. The principle case which affects our decision is Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973).
Before the Miller decision, material which was "lewd, lascivious, filthy or sexually indecent" was obscenity and without First Amendment protection, if it were established that:
(A) The dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appealed to the prurient interest in sex;
(B) The material was patently offensive because it offended contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters;
(C) The material was utterly without redeeming social value.
Miller v. California reviewed a California statute which had been interpreted under the Memoirs test in the very same light as the criteria above enumerated. Chief Justice Burger, writing for the majority, stated that the case they reyiewed was tried in the lower court on the theory that the statute incorporated the three-pronged Memoirs test. He wrote:
" £ut now the 'Memoirs' test has been abandoned as unworkable by its author and no member of the Court today supports the 'Memoirs' formulation."
The United States Supreme Court repudiated the Memoirs test which had been incorporated in part into our law by statute and to some extent by court interpretation. In repudiating the Memoirs test, the court stated that one part of the test:
" called on the prosecution to prove a negative, i. e., that the material was 'utterly without redeeming social value'. — a burden virtually impossible to discharge under our criminal standards of proof." ,
The majority further found that the Roth and Memoirs test had never been approved by a majority of the court. As the United States Supreme Court in Miller laid down new tests for determining obscene material which could statutorily be controlled, it said:
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"We acknowledge, however, the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression. State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited. See Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, supra, 390 U.S. 676, at 682-685, 88 S.Ct. 1298, 20 L.Ed. 2d 225 (1968). As a result, we now confine the permissible scope of such regulation to works which depict or describe sexual conduct. That conduct must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed."
The court then laid down the constitutional test for local control of obscenity by statute. It said:
"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact 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."
The court said further:
"If a state law that regulates obscene material is thus limited, as written or construed .
"We emphasize that it is not our function to propose regulatory schemes for the States. That must await their concrete legislative efforts."
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"Under the holdings announced today, no one will be subject to prosecution for the sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive chard-core' sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law, as written or construed. We are satisfied that these specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution."
The above is an accurate summary of the totality of the guidelines laid down in Miller v. California for testing the constitutionality of a statute. The court additionally gave to the state legislatures examples of what activity or matter could be declared obscene, if done so with specificity.
The remainder of the opinion deals with the test of "community standards" which has no application to the issue before us.
Thus, it must be obvious, even to laymen and surely to this Court, that R.S. 14:106(2) does not meet the guidelines and standards set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. California.
We are urged by the State, however, to take the two examples, which the Miller majority opinion suggests state legislatures might define for regulation of certain obscene materials, and to make them the obscenity statute for Louisiana. This urging comes because of a statement in Footnote 6 of the Miller opinion:
" Other existing state statutes, as construed heretofore or hereafter, may well be adequate."
But the body of the opinion, where the examples are given, states emphatically that it is not a function of that court, and certainly we hold that it is not a function of our Court, to propose new regulatory schemes. The court stated:
"We emphasize that it is not our function to propose regulatory schemes for the States. That must await their concrete legislative efforts. It is possible, however, to give a few plain examples of what a state statute could define for regulation under the second part (b) of the standard announced in this opinion, supra:
(a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.
(b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals."
In United States v. 12 200 Ft. Reels of Super 8mm. Film et al., 413 U.S. 123, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (1973), the Chief Justice, who authored all five of the opinions, stated in Footnote 7, in pure obiter dictum, that the Supreme Court was prepared to construe "obscene", "lewd", "lascivious", "filthy", "indecent", or "immoral", for the purpose of reviewing the constitutionality of the federal statutes, 19 U.S.C. § 1305 (a) and 18 U.S.C. § 1462, as' being limited to "specific — hard-core" sexual conduct given as examples in Miller v. California. We are bound by the holdings of the United States Supreme Court. We are not bound by the passing remarks of the authors of the opinions from that court. We are not of the opinion that we are endowed with the constitutional authority to re-draft Louisiana's obscenity statute. Our Court may interpret a statute, but it cannot re-write a statute in order to hold it constitutional. The Louisiana Legislature intended to regulate all material which could constitutionally be declared obscene. Certainly, the legislature intended to prohibit more than the two examples given in the Miller opinion.
Our Court has, in a long line of cases, held that we must strictly consider all criminal and penal statutes as stricti juris, resolving ambiguities in favor of the accused. State v. Christine, 239 La. 259, and cases cited therein at page 290, 118 So.2d 403, 414 (1960). The Court said there that our courts have " consistently refused to usurp the prerogatives of the legislature by supplying either the definition or essential elements thereof that have been omitted in the drafting of the statute ,"
Recently, in State v. Brown, 282 So.2d 707 (La.1973), Mr. Justice Marcus, writing for the majority, cited State v. Ganch, 263 La. 251, 268 So.2d 214 (1972), and State v. Adams, 263 La. 286, 268 So.2d 228 (1972), per curiam opinions of this Court which had declared unconstitutional R.S. 14:103A(7) and R.S. 14:103A(2). Mr. Justice Marcus therein declared R.S. 14:103B(2) (e) unconstitutional and quoted approvingly from the per curiam in Ganch and from a recent opinion of the United States Supreme Court:
"The statute on its face is susceptible of application to expression protected by the Louisiana Constitution (Art. 1, Sec. 3) and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Since we have not heretofore limited the statute in application to expression which is not constitutionally protected, it must fall as being overly broad and in contravention of the Louisiana and United States Constitutions.
"The United States Supreme Court in Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 31 L.Ed.2d 408 (1972), stated:
"The constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech forbid the States to punish the use of words or language not within 'narrowly limited classes of speech.' Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031, 1035 (1942). in other words, the statute must be carefully drawn or be authoritatively construed to punish only unprotected speech and not be susceptible of application to protected expression. "
The United States Supreme Court in Miller v. California has made R.S. 14:106(2) unconstitutional. It has required the state to draft a statute with specificity because " these specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution /> Our statute is totally lacking in specificity which would comply with the requirements of Miller v. California. Mr. Justice Dixon, who wrote the majority opinion in State v. Gay Times, Inc., supra, joins with the rest of the majority here in the opinion that we are now required, under Miller, to overrule the holding in that opinion. We reject any theory that we can authoritatively construe our criminal statute regulating obscenity so as to make it constitutional under the United States Supreme Court holding in Miller v. California. It is for the legislature to design a statute or statutes which meet the tests and •formulations set forth by that court.
In summary, we conclude that R.S. 14:106(2), as considered and interpreted in light of Miller v. California, is over-broad, too general, and without the required specificity to withstand the constitutional attack under the United States Constitution, First and Fourteenth Amendments, and our Constitution Article 1, Sections 2 and 3. We conclude that while the United States Supreme Court has given examples of what it believes may be controlled as obscenity without violating the First Amendment right of free speech, it would be an unconstitutional usurpation of the legislative function for us to engraft these limiting two examples into a broad, general statute which clearly conveys the obvious legislative intention to prohibit many other "offensive representations or descriptions".
The United States Supreme Court pronouncement in Miller v. California has made our statute unconstitutional. It is the legislative function to cure the defects in the statute in the manner and to the extent which they believe the people of this state desire within the constitutional limits now newly pronounced by the United States Supreme Court.
Pursuant to the clear pronouncement by the United States Supreme Court, we declare R.S. 14:106A(2) and (3) to be unconstitutional. The trial court judgment is reversed. The motions to quash are sustained. The defendant is ordered discharged.
SANDERS, C. J., dissents with written reasons.
SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
MARCUS, J., dissents with written reasons.
CALOGERO, J., additionally assigns concurring reasons.
. As amended by Act 199 of 1960.
. Reversed by the United States Supreme Court in per curiam, "The motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Treating the papers whereon the appeal was taken as a petition for a writ of certiorari, certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed. Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767, 87 S.Ct. 1414, 18 L.Ed.2d 515." Henry v. Louisiana, 392 U.S. 655, 88 S.Ct. 2274, 20 L.Ed.2d 1343.
. See also: Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 93 S.Ct. 2628, 37 L.Ed.2d 446 (1973); United States v. Orito, 413 U.S. 139, 93 S.Ct. 2674, 37 L.Ed.2d 513 (1973); Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115, 93 S.Ct. 2680, 37 L.Ed.2d 492 (1973); United States v. 12 200 Ft. Reels of Super 8mm. Film et al., 413 U.S. 12, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (1973).
. On November 5, 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in Gay Times, Inc. v. Louisiana, - U.S. -, 94 S.Ct. 346, 38 L.Ed. 2d 232, vacated our judgment in State v. Gay Times, Inc., 274 So.2d 162 (La.1973), and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Miller v. California, and others.