Opinion ID: 1729502
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: community standard

Text: The fourth, and most difficult, question we deal with today is that of the applicable community standards. Appellant was convicted of knowingly exhibiting to a minor a motion picture depicting sexual conduct and harmful to minors, in violation of Fla. Stat. § 847.013(2)(a), F.S.A. In defining the applicable standard, the statute refers to: prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors. Fla. Stat. § 847.013(1)(f)(2), F.S.A. In his instructions to the jury, the experienced trial judge defined the applicable community as Alachua County. In Miller v. California, supra , the Supreme Court has determined that the contemporary community standards to be applied in obscenity cases are not national standards, the Court specifically approving as constitutionally adequate a requirement that the jury evaluate the materials with reference to the contemporary community standards of the State of California. 413 U.S. at 33, 93 S.Ct. at 2621, 37 L.Ed.2d at 436. This holding is reiterated in Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115, 93 S.Ct. 2680, 37 L.Ed.2d 492. While the Supreme Court has not indicated whether the community whose standards are to be used may be geographically smaller than an entire state, we note that the Court in that case referred to the historical fact that jurors are permitted to draw on the standards of their community, and we note also that jurors are not chosen from a state-wide jury pool but rather on a county-by-county or circuit basis. Furthermore, the court in Miller stated: It is neither realistic nor constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the people of Maine or Mississippi accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable in Las Vegas, or New York City. 413 U.S. at 32, 93 S.Ct. at 2619, 37 L.Ed.2d at 435. This statement would seem to indicate that community standards may well be based upon a community smaller than a state, such as a metropolitan area. The primary purpose of the community standards test, we are told, is to be certain that, so far as the material in question is not aimed at a deviant group, it will be judged by its impact on an average person, rather than a particularly susceptible or sensitive person. [6] Applying a statewide standard in a state as diverse as Florida might result in a statewide suppression of material acceptable to the community in a metropolitan area such as Miami Beach or Jacksonville, or in exhibition of materials offensive in a community whose standards differ from those of these metropolitan areas. To paraphrase the Court in Miller , it is neither realistic nor constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the people of Marion County or Bay County accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable in Miami Beach or Key West or Jacksonville. Each is its own community with standards which may or may not differ, or from time to time change. The United States Supreme Court has now determined that the obscenity vel non of allegedly obscene material is to be determined in the light of contemporary community standards, rather than national standards and has expressly ruled that a determination of obscenity vel on based upon the community standards of an entire state is constitutionally permissible. In so determining, the Court has not limited the applicable community to that of the state as a whole, and indeed language in the Miller opinion indicates that the standards of a geographically more limited community may be appropriate. Black's Law Dictionary defines community in terms of a neighborhood, a group of people residing in a locality in more or less proximity, or a society or body of people living in the same place, under the same laws and regulations, who have common rights, privileges, or interests. It is in the light of such definitions that we hold that the community by whose contemporary standards the issue of obscenity is to be determined need not be the state as a whole, but that it is constitutionally permissible to apply the contemporary community standards of a county, although not necessarily an entire county, in determining whether material is constitutionally obscene. We conclude that the trial judge did not err in instructing the jury to apply the contemporary community standards of the adult community of Alachua County, Florida, as a whole. Accordingly, we resolve the issues reconsidered today as follows: (1) § 847.013 meets constitutional standards; (2) the seizure of the prints of the films in question, under the circumstances involved, was reasonable; (3) the provisions of Fla. Stat. § 847.013 [F.S.A.] meet the requirements for prompt appellate determination of the obscenity issue, at least insofar as the injunctive provisions of the statute are not involved. (The injunctive provisions are not before us today, and we accordingly take no position on their meeting such requirements.) (4) the trial judge did not commit error in applying, as the appropriate community standards, the standards of the adult community of Alachua County as a whole with respect to what material is harmful to minors. This being the case, the Judgment appealed is again affirmed. It is so ordered. CARLTON, C.J., ROBERTS, BOYD and McCAIN, JJ., and JOHNSON, District Court Judge, concur. ERVIN, J., dissents with opinion.