Opinion ID: 2384642
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: tennessee obscenity cases under article i, section 19

Text: In Robert Arthur Management Corp. v. State, 220 Tenn. 101, 414 S.W.2d 638 (1966), this Court upheld an injunction prohibiting the distribution of a motion picture film that was alleged to be obscene. In the process of upholding the injunction, the Court stated as follows: Under the Constitution of the United States, obscenity is excluded from constitutional protection since it is utterly without redeeming social importance. Alberts v. State of California, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957); Jacobellis v. State of Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 84 S.Ct. 1676, 12 L.Ed.2d 793 (1964). Likewise under the Constitution of the State of Tennessee obscenity has no protection. (Emphasis added.) 220 Tenn. 101, at 104, 105, 414 S.W.2d 638. In Leech v. American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc., 582 S.W.2d 738 (Tenn. 1979), this Court held that the Tennessee Obscenity Act of 1978 violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the Tennessee Constitution. The Court described the result of its holding in that case as follows: However, this does not leave Tennessee without a criminal obscenity law. An unconstitutional act that purports to supersede or repeal an existing law is ineffective to do so, since a void law has no force and effect. State v. Dixon, 530 S.W.2d 73, 74-75 (Tenn. 1975), and cases cited therein. The result is that the prior obscenity law, 1974 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 510, as amended, is in full force and effect. 582 S.W.2d at 740. The statutes that are before the Court in this case are part of the legislation that was enacted by Public Acts of 1974, Chapter 510, which, following this Court's holding in Leech v. American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc., supra , were in full force and effect. In the process of concluding that the Tennessee Obscenity Act of 1978 violated both the federal and state constitutional provisions dealing with freedom of speech, this Court stated, in Leech v. American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc ., as follows: This Court is of the opinion that the Tennessee constitutional provision assuring protection of speech and press, Tenn. Const. art. I, § 19, should be construed to have a scope at least as broad as that afforded those freedoms by the first amendment of the United States Constitution. It is settled constitutional law that state supreme courts may not restrict the protection afforded by the federal constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, but they may expand constitutional protections, even where the state and federal constitutions contain similar or identical provisions. Thus, this Court may interpret Article I, § 19, as granting absolute protection to speech and press and forbid any and all regulation of pornography in Tennessee. We have no inclination to do so. 582 S.W.2d at 745. In addressing the issue before us in this case (whether Article I, Section 19 of the Tennessee Constitution affords greater protection to obscenity than is granted by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution), we are revisiting the identical issue that was presented in Leech v. American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc .