Court Opinion

ID: 9682611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:14:48.123297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:40.402351
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
MILLER, Judge.
We granted the State’s motion for leave to file a motion for rehearing to consider whether this Court’s holding on original submission is in conflict with the New York Court of Appeals decision in People v. Kirkpatrick, 32 N.Y.2d 17, 343 N.Y.S.2d 70, 295 N.E.2d 753 (1973), appeal dismissed for want of a substantial federal question sub nom., Kirkpatrick v. New York, 414 U.S. 948, 94 S.Ct. 283, 38 L.Ed.2d 204 (1974); a 1973 opinion which upheld the constitutionality of a statutory presumption almost identical to V.T.C.A., Penal Code, § 43.-23(e).1 In addition, we are to consider whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s dismissal of the Kirkpatrick appeal for want of a substantial federal question represents a ruling on the merits by the Supreme Court on the specific challenges to the ruling of the lower appellate court.
We find that this Court’s holding is not in conflict with Kirkpatrick, supra, and that under the facts in the instant case no precedential value should be given to the Supreme Court’s summary dismissal.
In Kirkpatrick, two booksellers were found guilty in a non-jury proceeding of the sale of an obscene adult comic magazine. The appellate court in addressing the issue of sufficiency of the evidence of scienter “found scienter both by reason of a statutory presumption [New York Penal Law, § 235.10, subd. 1]2 not having been rebutted and by its own inference of the fact of knowledge from the evidence.” Kirkpatrick, supra, 343 N.Y.S.2d at 74, 295 N.E.2d at 756. The New York court detailed the evidence of knowledge of content and character upon which it relied in affirming the conviction. The evidence revealed that defendant, Dargis, manager and sole employee of a bookstore, ordered and reordered the magazine, personally unpacked the copies and placed them on the shelves, and sold approximately 25 of the magazines himself. Dargis admitted glancing through the “end*583ing pages” of the magazine and noted the “Adults Only” legend on the cover. Defendant Kirkpatrick, co-manager of another bookstore,3 was also responsible for ordering and reordering the various issues of the magazine and admitted personally having sold approximately 30 copies. The Kirkpatrick court found that “the characteristic drawings of the magazine are largely of the same kind from the first page to the last, so that any sampling would have been illustrative of the bulk.” Kirkpatrick, supra 343 N.Y.S.2d at 74, 295 N.E.2d at 756. Without relying on the statutory presumption, the court found, from the evidence, that the scienter requirement had been satisfied.
In the instant case, there is no evidence that the appellant “did ... unlawfully and knowing the content and character of the material, intentionally exhibit to G.P. Hugo obscene material ... ”, as alleged in the information. The evidence merely reflects that the appellant was standing behind the counter in the front area of the store, was the sole employee in the store, and gave the complainant an unknown amount of change. Appellant was not shown to have any managerial responsibilities in the operation of the bookstore, was not shown to have anything to do with the operation of the movie projector, or the selection of or the showing of the film, and was not shown to have any financial interest in the bookstore. The facts in the instant case are wholly different than those highlighted in Kirkpatrick upon which the State relies so heavily. In Kirkpatrick as previously stated, the defendants testified that they were responsible for ordering and reordering the obscene publication, admitted that they had personally sold numerous copies of the magazine and in addition had skimmed the pages of the magazine. It was from the defendant’s conduct and their own testimony, that the Kirkpatrick court found scien-ter. The court, in a sharply divided 5-4 decision, upheld the presumption and set forth the “alternative ground for sustaining the conviction ... based on the inference of fact” made by the trial court, independent of the presumption. Id., 343 N.Y.S.2d at 77, 295 N.E.2d at 758.
The State further asserts that this Court is in direct conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court in our failure to rely on Kirkpatrick and give legal credence to its subsequent dismissal on appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court “for want of a substantial federal question.” The State explains the impact and precedential value of the court’s summary dismissal by citing Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 97 S.Ct. 2238, 53 L.Ed.2d 199 (1977).
“Summary affirmances and dismissal for want of a substantial federal question without a doubt reject the specific challenges presented in the statement of jurisdiction and do leave undisturbed the judgment appealed from. They do prevent lower courts from coming to opposite conclusions on the precise issues presented and necessarily decided by those actions.” Id. at 176, 97 S.Ct. at 2240.
While we understand the significance of the United States Supreme Court’s dismissal of Kirkpatrick, supra, we find that the Supreme Court’s action is not binding in light of the New York Appeals Court’s specific reasons for its affirmance. The New York court held that the conviction would stand regardless of the validity of the presumption because there was enough evidence to satisfy the requirement of scienter without resorting to the statutory presumption of New York Penal Law, § 235.10. Thus, the alternative reasoning of the court in affirming the conviction failed to present to the Supreme Court a controversy to resolve, thus no substantial question. It is interesting to note that the Fifth Circuit in Red Bluff Drive-In, Inc. v. Vance, 648 F.2d 1020 (5th Cir.1981), a case upon which the State relies heavily in its motion, acknowledged that court’s own failure to give legal merit to Kirkpatrick, supra, and said, “Relevant to but not dispositive of this issue [the constitutionality of V.T.C.A., Penal Code, *584§ 43.23(e) & (f)] is the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal of People v. Kirkpatrick ...” Id. at 1031. The court added that the Kirkpatrick court affirmed the convictions on the alternative ground that the evidence of actual knowledge was sufficient and the presumption was constitutional as applied. The Fifth Circuit said “Recognizing the precedential effect of a dismissal of an appeal under these circumstances, we discern no definitive guidance on the validity of presumptions from the Supreme Court’s summary affirmance of the New York court’s two pronged holding.” Id.
Justice Brennan, in his concurring opinion in Mandel, supra, noted the effect of the court’s decision concerning summary dismissals and said,
“After today, judges of the state and federal systems are on notice that, before deciding a case on the authority of a summary disposition by this Court in another case, they must (a) examine the jurisdictional statement in the earlier case to be certain that the constitutional questions presented were the same, and if they were, (b) determine that the judgment in fact rests upon decision of those questions and not even arguably upon some alternative non-constitutional ground. The judgment should not be interpreted as deciding the constitutional question unless no other construction of the disposition is plausible.” Id. 432 U.S. at 180, 97 S.Ct. at 2242. (emphasis added)
See also, Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes, 439 U.S. 463, 472, 476 fn. 20, 99 S.Ct. 740, 747, 749, 58 L.Ed.2d 740, 753 (1979); Ill. State Bd. of Elec. v. Socialist Workers, 440 U.S. 173, 179, 182, 99 S.Ct. 983, 987, 989, 59 L.Ed.2d 230, 240 (1979).
In light of the independent and adequate non-federal ground presented in Kirkpatrick, as distinguished from the facts in the instant case wherein no evidence of scienter was introduced at trial to support the conviction, we find no precedential value should be given to the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Kirkpatrick.
We uphold our opinion on original submission. The State’s motion for rehearing is denied.
McCORMICK, J., concurs in the result.

. V.T.C.A., Penal Code, § 43.23(e) (Vernon 1979) provides:
“A person who promotes or wholesale promotes obscene material or an obscene device or possesses the same with intent to promote or wholesale promote it in the course of his business is presumed to do so with knowledge of its content and character.”

. New York Penal Law, § 235.10(1) (McKinney 1965) provides:
“A person who promotes or wholesale promotes obscene material or possesses the same with intent to promote or wholesale promote it, in the course of his business is presumed to do so with knowledge of its content and character.”

. Defendants Dargis and Kirkpatrick were manager and co-manager of two separate bookstores which both sold the obscene publication. Their cases were tried together.