Opinion ID: 1916681
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: application of miller

Text: The first issue this court must deal with is whether the statute contains the necessary specificity as required by Miller . The U.S. Supreme Court in Miller invites judicial construction as a method of supplying the required specificity if such is absent from the statute. As already mentioned, this court in McKinney I limited the reach of the statute by construing it as encompassing the then current Roth-Memoirs tests. The construction in McKinney I supplied all the elements of Roth-Memoirs tests even though these elements were missing from the statute as drafted. Similarly, this court now specifically incorporates the Miller guidelines or tests heretofore set out into its construction of the word obscene in Section 374(3). Thus the operation of the provisions of Section 374(4) applicable in this case is limited to matter which depicts or describes sexual conduct. The regulated matter is more specifically restricted to (a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, or (b) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals. Further, the state need only prove the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value, rather than utterly without such value as was formerly the test. The argument is made that Miller should not be retrospectively applied and that to construe the statute and apply it to the defendant in the instant case would violate ex post facto principles. This argument is without merit since the U.S. Supreme Court in a footnote to Miller states that existing state statutes as construed heretofore or hereafter, may be adequate. (Emphasis added) McKinney I was decided prior to the defendant's arrest, indictment and conviction. McKinney I limits the operation of Section 374(4) to at least lewd descriptions or pictures of female genitals. This Court, in holding the matter before it to be obscene in an independent review in McKinney I, describes the matter as follows: The front and back covers, however, were clearly visible through the cellophane covers and in one or more of these covers were the photographs of a female with her feet spread-eagled apart, exposing her genital organs. The appellant refers again and again in his briefs to the magazines as `girlie' magazines. A more apt description would be `genital' magazines. Thus there is no doubt that from November 18, 1971, the date McKinney I was issued, all persons were on notice that magazines which contained lewd photographs or descriptions of female genitals were subject to Section 374(4). In the case at hand, at least one exhibit covered in each indictment contains lewd photographs or descriptions of female genitals. There can be no doubt that as to such photographs or descriptions the Miller requirement for specificity had been supplied by McKinney I and that as applied to said matter, the potential vagueness of the statute had been cured by prior judicial construction. The other ex post facto problem arises because Miller establishes a new social value norm. If the defendant would have been protected by the test of Roth-Memoirs but not by the Miller standards then arguments pertaining to ex post facto considerations could arise. The defendant here was found guilty under the old, but more stringent, utterly test, however, and an independent examination of evidence demonstrates that the jury's determination that the matter was utterly without redeeming social value was correct. If a defendant is protected by the restrictiveness of the utterly test then it is inescapable that he is within the protective shield of the serious test for any publication which is utterly without value could have no serious value. Thus in this case there is no ex post facto problem applicable to the newly-created three-pronged test of Miller . In adopting the new Miller standards this court wants to make clear that it is abandoning the Roth-Memoirs tests insofar as they conflict with Miller . Thus any portion of McKinney I and Visual Educators, Inc. v. Koeppel, 289 Ala. 410, 268 So. 2d 22 (1972) in conflict with Miller are expressly overruled. Coalescence of the three-pronged Miller test must now be demonstrated before a conviction may be had in an obscenity case. It should be noted that this opinion does not address all the provisions of Section 374(4). Sections 374(1)-374(16) (the 1961 obscenity statute) purport to accomplish several ends: (1) To define obscene matter and prohibit the sale, etc., of such matter, (2) to provide the state an opportunity to get a civil determination of obscenity pertaining to a particular work or works, and to obtain an injunction pursuant thereto, and (3) to provide criminal procedures and sanctions for selling, etc., mailable matter which had been declared obscene in such civil action. The instant case does not involve (2) or (3) in any way and, therefore, should not be read as approving or disapproving these other facets of the statute. For a treatment of (3), see McKinney v. State, 292 Ala. 484, 296 So.2d 228 (1974) released simultaneously with this opinion. As sections of 374(3) and 374(4) are applicable to the instant case this court holds that they are constitutional with the judicially engrafted Miller standards.