Opinion ID: 1927032
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Reference to Community Standards.

Text: As previously noted, the Roth test seems to put the standard of obscenity in terms of the average person, applying contemporary community standards. Plaintiff considers that the term community in the test refers to an indistinct geographic area part of and attached to a metropolitan center such as Milwaukee. Upon the trial he objected to an expression of opinion in terms of the Roth test by a professor of English who lives in a different community within the state. The meaning of the reference to community standards in Roth has been questioned, and it has been suggested that the term has no reference to any locality, but rather to standards of society as a whole. [26] The resort to community standards seems more relevant to a determination of whether a book or other material is patently offensive than to a determination of whether it appeals to prurient interests. We conclude that for the purposes of our statute, no distinction ought to be made between the standards of different communities within the state. We doubt whether standards which are relevant to the question of obscenity differ significantly from one locality to another in Wisconsin. Furthermore, our statute, sec. 269.565 (6), Stats., permits a judgment of obscenity to be used in a criminal trial of any person who was served with notice of it before the alleged violation. Under it a judgment obtained in Milwaukee county could be so used anywhere in the state. Clearly this should not be so if the particular matter could be obscene in one area and not in another.