Opinion ID: 1927032
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Roth Test.

Text: The capsule statement of the Roth test of obscenity is as follows: Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest. [11] The court equates material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest as material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts and quotes a dictionary definition of prurient as follows: . . . Itching; longing; uneasy with desire or longing; of persons, having itching, morbid, or lascivious longings; of desire, curiosity, or propensity, lewd. . . . [12] The court approved the standards applied by the trial courts in the cases under review ( Roth and Alberts ) [13] although not expressed in the same terms as the capsule statement. In Roth, the jury had been instructed: `The words obscene, lewd and lascivious as used in the law, signify that form of immorality which has relation to sexual impurity and has a tendency to excite lustful thoughts. ' (p. 486.) And that `The test in each case is the effect of the book, picture or publication considered as a whole, not upon any particular class, but upon all those whom it is likely to reach. In other words, you determine its impact upon the average person in the community. The books, pictures and circulars must be judged as a whole, in their entire context, and you are not to consider detached or separate portions in reaching a conclusion.' (p. 490.) In Alberts the trial judge indicated that as the trier of facts, he was judging each item as a whole as it would affect the normal person. The court also appeared to endorse the definition of the American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, sec. 207.10(2) (Tentative Draft No. 6, p. 1, 1957): A thing is obscene if, considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest, i.e., a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, and if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters. The court also said: Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest. [14] There are several areas in which we, as well as others, have found the Roth test difficult to interpret. An excellent analysis of the Roth decision is contained in Censorship of Obscenity, an article by Dean Lockhart and Professor McClure of the University of Minnesota Law School. Those authors conclude that Roth, . . . laid down twoand only twoconstitutional requirements for determining what is obscene. The two requirements are, of course, that material must be judged as a whole, not by its parts, and that it must be judged by its impact on average persons, not the weak and susceptible. [15] The authors point out other concepts which they believe may be developed in future decisions. Among other questions raised is whether and to what extent the category of the obscene will include material which is not hard-core pornography. [15a] It has been suggested that four per curiam decisions of the supreme court of the United States following Roth make it clear that the court was applying the constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression to confine obscenity censorship within very narrow limits indeed. [15b] One portion of the Roth decision which has been the subject of controversy, and which is of importance in dealing with the case before us, is the extent to which the seriousness of an author's purpose, the social importance of the idea expressed, or the artistic quality of expression is to be weighed in determining whether a work is obscene under the test. The court said: All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinionhave the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests. But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance. . . . We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. [16] Where a literary work of serious purpose which can reasonably be said to be a portrayal of truth or to express a social or philosophical idea is couched in language, or conveyed by the relation of incidents, of a type which would be obscene in another context, do the guaranties protect it, or does the nature of the language and of the incidents of the plot permit its suppression? We do not understand the quoted language as meaning that particular material can be determined to be obscene without considering the purposes, ideas, or artistic quality of the work. We can only conclude that under the capsule statement of the Roth test, the question of whether the work is obscene is to be answered in the process of identifying the dominant theme and the degree of its appeal to the prurient interest. A balancing of factors is undoubtedly necessary in the application of the test, and we are of the opinion that where a work of apparent serious purpose is involved, the scales will not readily be tipped toward the determination of obscenity. Although we understand that a literary work of some quality was involved in the Roth Case we understand that its merits were not before the supreme court for procedural reasons. [17] Sec. 269.565, Stats., contemplates such balancing of factors. It directs the taking of evidence as to literary, cultural, or educational character of the material under scrutiny, as well as providing that the dominant effect of the whole shall be determinative. The supreme judicial court of Massachusetts, in holding Tropic of Cancer not obscene, expressed the balancing concept as follows: We think, in the light of the decisions reviewed above, that the First Amendment protects material which has value because of ideas, news, or artistic, literary, or scientific attributes. If the appeal of material (taken as a whole) to adults is not predominantly prurient, adults cannot be denied the material. When the public risks of suppressing ideas are weighed against the risks of permitting their circulation, the guaranties of the First Amendment must be given controlling effect. The dangers of subjective judgments in the matter of censorship lead to a strong presupposition against suppression. [18]