Opinion ID: 2209739
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Prurient Interest

Text: We then turn to the three-part Miller test and first consider whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, could find that the videotape, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. With regard to the definition of prurient interest, the jury was properly instructed as follows: You must determine whether the material appeals to a prurient interest in sex, for unless it does it cannot be obscene. A prurient interest in sex is not the same as a candid, wholesome, or healthy interest in sex. Material does not appeal to the prurient interest just because it deals with sex, or shows nude bodies. Prurient interest is a shameful or morbid interest in sex, nudity or excretion which goes beyond the customary limits of candor. The substance of this definition was taken directly from Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 487 n. 20, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), and remains an accurate description of the Supreme Court's definition of prurient interest. See Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U.S. 491, 105 S.Ct. 2794, 86 L.Ed.2d 394 (1985). No objection to this instruction was made by either Harrold or the State. The jury was further instructed, in relevant parts: In determining whether or not the material appeals to a prurient interest in sex, you must determine whether the average person in the community would find that the material has such appeal. People have different views as to the propriety of certain material. What may be prurient to some is not prurient to others. Obscenity is not, however, a matter of individual taste. Your personal opinion as a juror about this material is not a proper basis for determining whether or not the material is obscene or appeals to the prurient interest. Thus, whether you personally believe that the material is good or bad is of no concern in determining whether or not it is obscene; so, too, you may not consider whether in your personal opinion the material is moral or immoral or whether it is likely to be helpful or injurious to public morals. Similarly, whether you personally like or dislike the material, whether it offends or shocks you, may not be considered by you. You personally may think the material is immoral, shocking or offensive, and yet you must acquit the defendant if the material is not obscene, as the court has defined that term for you. You must judge how the average person in the community would view this material. . . . . ... In determining whether an appeal to the prurient interest is the main and principal appeal of the material, you should consider the intended effect on the intended and probable recipients of the material. Again, the trial court correctly captured the definition and standards established by the Supreme Court in its instructions with respect to prurient interest. See Pinkus v. United States, 436 U.S. 293, 98 S.Ct. 1808, 56 L.Ed.2d 293 (1978). The question regarding appeal to the prurient interest was properly submitted to the jury for its determination. An examination of the videotape supports the jury's conclusion that the videotape appealed to a prurient interest. Harrold's masturbation is clearly depicted; in fact, the camera is placed in such a way that Harrold's genitals are prominently displayed and are the primary image visible on the screen during Harrold's masturbation. The masturbation sequence is introduced on the videotape by the statement that it is for the ladies only. Similarly, when the sequence is complete, the narrator states, I hope you enjoyed that, ladies. Harrold's trial testimony further establishes that the inclusion of the masturbation scene was intended to address a complaint from a female viewer that Cosmic Comedy had not featured enough male sexual activity. Taken together, these facts certainly support the conclusion that Harrold's masturbation was an attempt, however misguided, to sexually appeal to women. In the instant case, the jury was properly instructed on how to evaluate whether the videotape appealed to an average person's prurient interest in sex, and the record amply supports the jury's determination that the videotape was shameful and went beyond the ordinary limits of candor. In reaching a different conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied in part on the federal district court's decision in U.S. v. M-K Enterprises, Inc., 719 F.Supp. 871 (D.Neb.1989). In that decision, the district court found that in order to appeal to the prurient interest, a work must appeal to the darker side of sex, and listed the depiction of force, deliberate pain, inanimate insertions, bondage, deception, or the involvement of children or animals as examples of material that would be considered obscene. Id. at 878. Based upon that standard, the court determined that certain material presented in that case appealed to the prurient interest, while other material did not. We determine, however, that the Court of Appeals has misapprehended the context of the federal district court's decision. In that case, the judge was not conducting an appellate review, but was the trier of fact in a bench trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska. Id. The district court's decision was specifically based on the judge's understanding of the contemporary community standards of the average person in southeast Nebraska. Id. at 878. In other words, the decision in U.S. v. M-K Enterprises, Inc., supra , does not represent a determination that the First Amendment only allows the regulation of sexual material that depicts, for example, force, deliberate pain, inanimate insertions, bondage, deception, or the involvement of children or animals. It is instead a determination, by a trier of fact, of obscenity vel non based upon the trier of fact's understanding of the relevant contemporary community standards. As such, it is not relevant to our review of the jury's verdict in the present case. It is true that the federal judge's understanding of the contemporary community standard is different from that applied by the jury in the present case, and it is also true that the jury in this case was drawn from essentially the same community whose views the federal judge addressed in U.S. v. M-K Enterprises, Inc., supra . The determination of one trier of fact, however, is neither binding nor even relevant to the determination of another trier of fact in a different case. As noted by the Supreme Court: The mere fact juries may reach different conclusions as to the same material does not mean that constitutional rights are abridged.... [I]t is common experience that different juries may reach different results under any criminal statute. That is one of the consequences we accept under our jury system. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 26 n. 9, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973). This principle is even more appropriately applied where the triers of fact are considering different material in different cases. We have also held that in determining an issue of fact in an obscenity case, each case must be determined on evidence peculiar to it alone and not by comparison to fact determinations made by another jury in a similar case. State v. Embassy Corp., 215 Neb. 631, 340 N.W.2d 160 (1983). In the present case, whether Harrold's videotape appealed to the prurient interest of the average person in the community was a determination for the jury to make, and the jury's affirmative determination is supported by the record. We are also unpersuaded by Harrold's argument, reiterated by the Court of Appeals, that the work taken as a whole is not obscene because the sexual conduct depicted occupies little more than the final minute of a 16-minute presentation. The fact that the opening act of Harrold's show is over 14 minutes long does not redeem the whole, given that the first 14 minutes contains no dialog, comprehensible expressive conduct, or, indeed, any meaningful content that this court can discern. Harrold's masturbation can at the very least be recognized for what it is, and it is the only activity depicted on the videotape for which we believe the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would have any frame of reference. The jury could certainly have found, based upon the record, that the work, as a whole, appealed to the prurient interest. Cozblah the extraterrestrial is hardly Voltaire, and if [a] quotation from Voltaire in the flyleaf of a book will not constitutionally redeem an otherwise obscene publication, then over a minute of explicit masturbation will not be constitutionally redeemed by over 14 minutes of content-free nonsense. See Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U.S. 229, 231, 92 S.Ct. 2245, 33 L.Ed.2d 312 (1972).