Opinion ID: 2994351
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Review

Text: In Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 506 (1973), the Supreme Court held that the government must obtain a warrant before seizing allegedly obscene material. The case involved the seizure of a film by a county sheriff who had viewed the film and thought it violated the state’s-anti- obscenity law. The Court reasoned that the material in question fell arguably within First Amendment protection and its seizure is plainly a form of prior restraint. Id. at 504. A prior restraint of the right of expression, whether by books or films, calls for a higher hurdle in the evaluation of reasonableness. Id. The Court demanded the most scrupulous exactitude in applying the warrant requirement when the ’things’ [to be seized] are books, and the basis for their seizure is the ideas which they contain. Id. (quoting Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476, 486 (1965)). Moore asks us to extend this rule to require prior judicial approval of arrests for possession of child pornography. On one occasion, the Court expressly refused to decide whether a warrant is required to arrest a suspect on obscenity charges, see Maryland v. Macon, 472 U.S. 463, 467 (1985), and we reject Moore’s suggestion for two reasons. First, Roaden involved the warrantless seizure of obscene material, not the arrest of a person, and that distinction changes the standard governing police conduct. While arrest may serve in some circumstances as a prior restraint, its primary purpose is to bring a suspect before a magistrate to answer a charge. It implicates Fourth Amendment rights, which the Court has balanced against the interest in effective law enforcement by requiring probable cause prior to the arrest. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 237-39 (1983); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 112 (1975) (describing probable cause as a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise between the interests of individual liberty and effective law enforcement). Probable cause, contrary to its name, demands even less than probability, see United States v. Burrell, 963 F.2d 976, 986 (7th Cir. 1992), which is far less than the higher hurdle and most scrupulous exactitude required for a seizure of First Amendment material. Ideally, the judgment of probable cause is made in a warrant proceeding before a detached, neutral magistrate, but it also can be made, and routinely is made, by police officials. See Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 112. In Gerstein, the Court noted that although the Court has expressed a preference for the use of arrest warrants when feasible . . . it has never invalidated an arrest supported by probable cause solely because the officers failed to secure a warrant. Id. at 113 (citations omitted). But see Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 576 (1980) (prohibiting warrantless entries into a suspect’s dwelling to effect felony arrest). Five years after Payton, the Court decided Maryland v. Macon and expressly left open the issue of whether a warrant may be required before an arrest on obscenity charges. 472 U.S. at 467. No authorities cited by either party to this appeal, nor any found by this Court have taken this additional step to require arrest warrants in any instance other than arrests in a suspect’s home. The protection of First and Fourth Amendment values does not compel this Court to take this step today. The arrest of a suspect for possession of contraband does not constitute a prior restraint in the way the seizure of books or films does. While at first glance it may seem odd to require more judicial protection for the liberty of one’s books than for one’s body, the distinction reflects this country’s great concern with the chilling effect on protected speech brought on by a government seizure. An ordinary arrest implicates an individual’s Fourth Amendment freedoms and must meet the constitutional standard of reasonableness. The seizure of an individual’s books implicates both First and Fourth Amendment liberties, for which the Supreme Court has required heightened judicial protection to afford the right to free expression the breathing room it needs to survive. In some circumstances, an arrest might implicate First Amendment rights as well, but Moore’s arrest did not act as a prior restraint, and therefore we need not reach that issue. Given the facts of this case, we decline to extend this level of heightened protection to arrests that do not constitute prior restraints. Officer Tertipes arrested Moore based on probable cause to believe he possessed child pornography. In terms of the First Amendment, Moore was not a speaker, and his arrest cannot be considered a prior restraint. Therefore, a warrantless arrest could be effected if the situation as known to Tertipes met the requirements of probable cause. The second reason we reject Moore’s argument that a warrant was required for his arrest lies in the distinction between arguably obscene material at issue in Roaden, and child pornography. Like obscenity, the Court has held that child pornography is not protected expression, and the states may regulate it without offending the Constitution. See New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 764 (1982); see also United States v. Andersson, 803 F.2d 903, 907 n.3 (7th Cir. 1986). However, the concern with chilling protected speech by regulating arguably obscene material, which is presumptively protected under Roaden, 413 U.S. at 504, is outweighed by the compelling state interests in protecting children in the case of child pornography. See Ferber, 458 U.S. at 756- 59. Accordingly, the states are free to regulate child pornography without the strictures of the complex, community standards test required for obscenity under Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24-25 (1973). See Ferber, 458 U.S. 764- 65. The application of child pornography standards involves a more limited inquiry than Miller requires, see Ferber, 458 U.S. at 764-65, and is within the competency and experience of police officers making a probable cause determination. As such, we see no need to extend Roaden to require pre-arrest judicial oversight of whether particular material constitutes child pornography.