Opinion ID: 1783619
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: First Amendment free speech jurisprudence

Text: In general, the states may not pass laws restricting free speech. U.S. Const. amends. 1, 14. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, has recognized that certain forms of speech fall outside the First Amendment's protection: There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene   . It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). Later, in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), the court squarely held that obscenity was not constitutionally protected speech. Incipiently noting the special problem of obscenity and children, the court in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973), held that states have a legitimate interest in prohibiting dissemination or exhibition of obscene material when the mode of dissemination carries with it a significant danger of offending the sensibilities of unwilling recipients or of exposure to juveniles  (emphasis added). Id., 413 U.S. at 18-19, 93 S.Ct. at 2612. The Miller court expounded the now-familiar definition of obscenity. [3] Next, in New York v. Ferber, supra, the court recognized the growing body of evidence available to state legislatures, linking child pornography with physiological, emotional and mental health problems in children. 458 U.S. at 756-763, 102 S.Ct. at 3354-3358. The court therefore found that the states are entitled to greater leeway in the regulation of pornographic depictions of children than in general obscenity cases and held that child pornography may be consider[ed]    without the protection of the First Amendment. 458 U.S. at 756, 764, 102 S.Ct. at 3354, 3358. Specifically, the court announced the test for statutes that restrict visual depictions of sexual conduct by children below a certain age: A trier of fact need not find that the material appeals to the prurient interest of the average person; it is not required that sexual conduct portrayed be done so in a patently offensive manner; and the material at issue need not be considered as a whole. 458 U.S. at 764, 102 S.Ct. at 3358. The court further held, pertinently to the instant case, that as with obscenity laws, criminal responsibility may not be imposed without some element of scienter on the part of the defendant. Id., citing Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959). In other words, to pass constitutional muster, a child pornography statute must require scienter (the Latin word for knowingly), some degree of guilty knowledge, on the part of the defendant; however, the court did not specify the dimensions of the requisite scienter. See also United States v. Burian, 19 F.3d 188, 191 (5th Cir. 1994); United States v. X-Citement Video Inc., 982 F.2d 1285, 1291 (9th Cir.1992). Most recently, in Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 110 S.Ct. 1691, 109 L.Ed.2d 98 (1990), the defendant challenged, on various constitutional grounds, an Ohio statute that made it illegal for any person to [p]ossess or view any material or performance that shows a minor who is not the person's child or ward in a state of nudity[.] Ohio Rev.C.Ann. § 2907.323(A)(3) (Supp.1989). A plain reading of the statute showed that scienter was not stated as an element of the offense. The Supreme Court, however, held that even though the statute did not specify the requisite mental state, this was cured by another law that plainly satisfies the requirement laid down in Ferber that prohibitions on child pornography include some element of scienter. Id., 495 U.S. at 115, 110 S.Ct. at 1699. The court thus held that states may prohibit the simple possession of child pornography. In general the imposition of criminal liability requires knowledge of the fact that separates lawful from unlawful conduct. Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 425, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 2088, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985). Whenever it is possible, courts have the duty to interpret statutes in a manner consistent with the Constitution. United States v. Burian, supra, citing Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Bldg. & Const. Trades Council, 485 U.S. 568, 575, 108 S.Ct. 1392, 1397-1398, 99 L.Ed.2d 645 (1988), and United States v. 37 Photographs, 402 U.S. 363, 369-370, 91 S.Ct. 1400, 1404-1405, 28 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971). See also Osborne v. Ohio, supra. The federal Courts of Appeals, facing challenges to a federal law that criminalizes the possession of material involving the sexual exploitation of minors, 18 U.S.C. § 2252, have almost uniformly read scienter into the statute. See, e.g., United States v. Burian, supra (actual knowledge or reckless disregard of a performer's minority); United States v. Gifford, 17 F.3d 462 (1st Cir.1994) (the government must prove that the defendant knew the character of the visual depictions as depicting a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct); United States v. Brown, 862 F.2d 1033 (3d Cir.1988) (the recipient need only know that the material he receives is child pornography). The opposite view is taken in United States v. X-Citement Video Inc., supra; it holds § 2252 unconstitutional for failure to require the government to prove that defendant knew that the performers were minors. The X-Citement opinion, however, carries an incisive and cogent dissent, 982 F.2d at 1292, 1296 (op. of Kozinski, J.); has been criticized by the other courts, see, e.g., United States v. Burian, supra, United States v. Cochran, 17 F.3d 56 (3d Cir.1994), and United States v. Gifford, supra; and it is currently under consideration by the United States Supreme Court, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 1186, 127 L.Ed.2d 536 (1994). Louisiana law and jurisprudence Louisiana law defines criminal conduct as: (1) An act or failure to act that produces criminal consequences, and which is combined with criminal intent; or (2) A mere act or failure to act that produces criminal consequences, where there is no requirement of criminal intent; or (3) Criminal negligence that produces criminal consequences. La.R.S. 14:8 (emphasis added). General criminal intent is present when the circumstances of the crime indicate that the offender, in the ordinary course of human experience, must have adverted to the prescribed criminal consequences as reasonably certain to result from his act or failure to act. La.R.S. 14:10(2); State v. Elzie, 343 So.2d 712 (La.1977). This court has frequently interpreted statutes which on their face are silent as to any requirement of intent or scienter, to impose in fact a requirement of intent, guilty knowledge or scienter (the cases use these terms interchangeably). See, e.g., State v. Johnson, 228 La. 317, 82 So.2d 24 (1955) (possession of marijuana); State v. Roufa, 241 La. 474, 129 So.2d 743 (1961) (the obscenity statute); and State v. Phillips, 412 So.2d 1061 (La.1982) (contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile). [4] In the absence of qualifying provisions, the terms intent and intentional refer to general criminal intent. La.R.S. 14:11; State v. Banks, 307 So.2d 594, 596 (La.1975). Louisiana law also provides for the severability of acts. Unless a law specifically provides otherwise, each provision of an act or law is severable. La.R.S. 24:175 further provides: If any provision or item of an act, or the application thereof, is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions, items or applications of the act which can be given effect without the invalid provision, item, or application. Severability is therefore authorized unless the unconstitutional portions of the statute are so interrelated and connected with the constitutional parts that they cannot be separated without destroying the intention manifested by the legislature in passing the act. State v. Azar, 539 So.2d 1222 (La.1989), citing Cobb v. Louisiana Board of Institutions, 237 La. 315, 111 So.2d 126 (1958). In State v. Johnson, 343 So.2d 705 (La.1977), we stated that the test of severability is whether or not the legislature would have passed the statute had it been presented with the invalid features removed. 343 So.2d at 708, quoting 2 Sutherland, Statutes & Statutory Construction, § 44.04 (Sands 4th ed. 1973). Until its 1983 amendment, the legislative acts enacting and amending R.S. 14:81.1 specifically included a severability clause. La.Acts 1977, No. 97, § 4; La.Acts 1981, No. 502, § 2. The clause was likely deemed unnecessary in subsequent amendments after the enactment of the general severability statute, R.S. 24:175 by La.Acts 1982, No. 132. When a court can reasonably do so, it must construe a statute so as to preserve its constitutionality. Moore v. Roemer, 567 So.2d 75, 78 (La.1990), citing State v. Newton, 328 So.2d 110 (La.1976).