Court Opinion

ID: 9860943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:37:29.402386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:54.663894
License: Public Domain

Jacobs, J.
(concurring). A theatrical performance which is lewd, obscene or indecent is prohibited by state law and may properly be made the subject of a penal ordinance. N. J. S. 2A:115-1 et seq.; R. S. 40:48-1 (6); R. S. 40:48-2; R. S. 40:52-1; Adams Theatre Co. v. Keenan, 12 N. J. 267, 273 (1953). The standard, though general, is commonly used and is said to satisfy constitutional requirements. See Adams Theatre Co. v. Keenan, supra; State v. Weitershausen, 11 N. J. Super. 487, 491 (App. Div. 1951), certification denied 7 N. J. 79 (1951); Bantam Books, Inc. v. Melko, 25 N. J. *481Super. 292, 302 (Ch. Div. 1953), modified 14 N. J. 524 (1954); Spring, Risks & Rights in Publishing, Television, Radio, Motion Pictures, Advertising and the Theater 261 (1952); Obscenity and the Arts, 20 Law Contemp. Prob. 531 et seq. (1955). In the Adams case this court, in an opinion by Justice Brennan, adopted the now prevailing view that the determination of whether a theatrical performance is lewd, obscene or indecent must rest on its dominant effect which is to be gathered, not from isolated excerpts withdrawn from their setting, but from a viewing and consideration of its entirety. Cf. Public Welfare Pictures Corp. v. Brennan, 100 N. J. Eq. 132 (Ch. 1926); Hygienic Productions v. Keenan, 1 N. J. Super. 461 (Ch. Div. 1948); American Museum of National History v. Keenan, 20 N. J. Super. 111 (Ch. Div. 1952). The struggle to attain that much freedom of expression has been long and hard and I do not understand that the majority would retrace any of the course followed. See Bantam Books, Inc. v. Melko, supra.
The plaintiffs urge that a literal reading of the ordinances indicates an intent to depart from the governing principle of the Adams case. On the other hand the city’s brief and oral argument on appeal seem to suggest that its ordinances may properly be construed and sustained to the extent that they prohibit lewd, indecent and obscene conduct, and the majority opinion appears to defer the crucial determination until a later date. Thus it points out that “individual transgressions alleged to come within the purview of the ordinance will be tested and weighed in accord with the law when the occasion for the prosecution arises.” On the assumption that a defendant will then be entitled to prevail if the conduct, viewed in the light of the dominant note of the entire performance, is not lewd, obscene or indecent, I concur in the judgment of reversal. While this may place a defendant in jeopardy of an adverse determination, his position will not differ significantly from that of others who are prosecuted under criminal statutes embodying equally general standards which have been held to be constitutionally sufficient. See Holmes, J., in Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. *482373, 377, 33 S. Ct. 780, 57 L. Ed. 1232, 1235 (1913): “the law is full of instances where a man’s fate depends on his estimating rightly, that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree.” But cf. Thornhill v. State of Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 60 S. Ct. 736, 84 L. Ed. 1093 (1940); Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 68 S. Ct. 665, 92 L. Ed. 840 (1948).
Jacobs, J., concurring in result.
For reversal — Chief Justice Vanderbilt, and Justices Heher, Wacheneeld, Burling and Jacobs — 5.
For affirmance — None.