Court Opinion

ID: 9426822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:02.703586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.310904
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
Under the trial court’s instructions, the jury may have determined that the films sold by the petitioner had some social significance and therefore were not in themselves obscene, but nevertheless found him guilty because they were advertised and sold as “sexually provocative.” 1 A conviction pursuant to such an instruction should not be allowed to stand.
Truthful statements which are neither misleading nor offensive are protected by the First Amendment even though *603made for a commercial purpose. Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748. Nothing said on petitioner’s behalf in connection with the marketing of these films was false, misleading, or even arguably offensive either to the person who bought them or to an average member of the community. The statements did make it clear that the films were “sexually provocative,” but that is hardly a confession that they were obscene. And, if they were not otherwise obscene, I cannot understand how these films lost their protected status by being truthfully described.2
Even if the social importance of the films themselves is dubious, there is a definite social interest in permitting them to be accurately described. Only an accurate description can enable a potential viewer to decide whether or not he wants *604to see them. Signs which identify the “adult” character of a motion picture theater or of a bookstore convey the message that sexually provocative entertainment is to be found within ; under the jury instructions which the Court today finds acceptable, these signs may deprive otherwise nonobscene matter of its constitutional protection. Such signs, however, also provide a warning to those who find erotic materials offensive that they should shop elsewhere for other kinds of books, magazines, or entertainment. Under any sensible regulatory scheme, truthful description of subject matter that is pleasing to some and offensive to others ought to be encouraged, not punished.3
I would not send Mr. Splawn to jail for telling the truth about his shabby business.4

 The relevant instruction is quoted by the Court, ante, at 597-598. I would emphasize this sentence: “If you conclude that the purveyor’s sole emphasis is in the sexually provocative aspect of the publication, that fact can justify the conclusion that the matter is utterly without redeeming social importance.”

 Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463, does not foreclose this analysis because it was decided before the Court extended First Amendment coverage to commercial speech. Ginzburg cannot survive Virginia Pharmacy. Ginzburg is based on the premise that advertising the character of the material may “catch the salaciously disposed,” 383 U. S., at 472, and “stimulat[e] the reader to accept them as prurient,” id., at 470. But Mr. Justice Blackmun’s opinion for the Court in Virginia Pharmacy makes it clear:
“There is ... an alternative to this highly paternalistic approach. That alternative is to assume that this information is not in itself harmful, that people will perceive their own best interests if only they are well enough informed, and that the best means to that end is to open the channels of communication rather than to close them. ... It is precisely this kind of choice, between the dangers of suppressing information, and the dangers of its misuse if it is freely available, that the First Amendment makes for us.” 425 U. S., at 770. See also Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, ante, p. 85. Indeed, the ease for First Amendment protection in advertising is stronger in this case than in Linmark or Virginia Pharmacy. For to ban advertising of a book or film is to suppress the book or film itself.
Mr. Justice Brennan does not join this footnote. Because he agrees that the California Legislature’s retroactive adoption of Ginzburg violates the Ex Post Facto Clause, n. 4, infra, we need not in his view decide the question whether Ginzburg survives Virginia Pharmacy.

 It is ironic that in upholding obscenity laws this Court has stressed the State’s “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.” Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 18-19 (footnote omitted).

 I must also record my dissent from the Court’s disposition of petitioner’s ex post facto argument.
In People v. Noroff, 58 Cal. Rptr. 172 (1967), the California Court of Appeal reversed a trial judge who had determined the obscenity issue before trial solely on the basis of the materials themselves. Relying on Ginzburg, the Court of Appeal held that the prosecution should have been allowed to present evidence of pandering; “although the ultimate constitutional fact in issue remains a question of law to be decided by the court, it will be a rare case . . . when a trial court may properly undertake to determine this issue prior to trial by a mere examination of the material itself unaided by expert testimony or evidence relating to the conduct of defendant in connection with the material.” 58 Cal. Rptr., at 177.
The California Supreme Court reversed, and rejected the argument “that the trial court should have permitted the prosecution to go to the jury with evidence bearing upon the defendant’s ‘pandering’ of the magazine in question.” 67 Cal. 2d 791, 793, 433 P. 2d 479, 480 (1967). The court also expressly rejected an argument that an earlier California case had *605adopted “a 'pandering’ concept similar to that elaborated in Ginzburg in the context of the federal obscenity statute.” Id., at 793 n. 4, 433 P. 2d, at 480 n. 4.
After petitioner’s offense, the California Legislature retroactively adopted Ginzburg by statute. In my view, petitioner had the right to rely on the Noroff decision, and to believe that he was entitled to truthfully advertise otherwise nonobscene material. The Ex Post Facto Clause ''reflect[s] the strong belief of the Framers of the Constitution that men should not have to act at their peril, fearing always that the State might change its mind and alter the legal consequences of their past acts so as to take away their lives, their liberty or their property.” El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U. S. 497, 522 (Black, J., dissenting).