Opinion ID: 1367422
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: common law and colonial regulation of obscenity

Text: The publication of obscenity was not a widely recognized or vigorously prosecuted Common Law crime. At first, the publication of obscene literature was thought to be the exclusive concern of the ecclesiastical courts, [7] and was not held to be an indictable offence until 1727. [8] The only obscenity case reported in the seventeenth century was that of The King v. Sir Charles Sedley, 1 Keble 620 (K.B.1663). [9] Authorities generally agree that this was the first reported case involving obscene conduct. [10] Whether the framers of the United States Constitution were influenced by the Common Law experience with the regulation of obscenity is, in our opinion, an unresolved issue. Mr. Justice Douglas suggests in A Book Named John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts [hereinafter Memoirs ], 383 U.S. 413, 86 S.Ct. 975, 16 L.Ed.2d 1 (1966) (Douglas, J., Concurring), that the impact of the Common Law decisions was probably negative: [T]o assume that English common law in this field became ours is to deny the generally accepted historical belief that `one of the objects of the Revolution was to get rid of the English common law on liberty of speech and of the press.' Schofield, Freedom of the Press in the United States, 9 Publications Amer. Social. Soc. 67, 76. Nevertheless, Justice Brennan, in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), posits that the rejection of obscenity is implicit in the history of the First Amendment . . .. In our opinion, however, the historical narative lends little forcefulness to Justice Brennan's opinion. Little consideration was given to the regulation of obscenity in colonial New England. In fact, the only colonial statute expressly mentioning the word obscene was a Massachusetts statute which prohibited composing, writing, printing, or publishing . . . any filthy, obscene, or profane song, pamphlet, libel or mock sermon, in imitation of or in mimicking of preaching, or any other part of divine worship. [11] The regulatory context in which the word obscene appears in this statute casts it more as a blasphemy statute than as an obscenity statute. All other colonies left obscenity essentially unregulated, concentrating instead upon the offenses of blasphemy and libel. [12] No obscenity decisions were reported during the colonial period, and the first case was in Pennsylvania in 1815. [13] Not until 1821 was a decision reported which involved obscene literature. [14] The same year, Vermont passed the first state law proscribing the publication or sale of lewd or obscene material. [15] Congress passed no legislation relating to obscenity until the middle of the nineteenth century. [16] The sketchy evidence leads us to conclude that the absolute rejection of obscenity is less than implicit in the history preceding the adoption of the First Amendment. U. S. Const. amend. I.