Court Opinion

ID: 9426842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:04.966996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.417293
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
The decision in this case confirms the statement in Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 23, that “[t]his is an area in which there are few eternal verities.” Today, the Court silently abandons one of the cornerstones of the Miller test announced so forcefully just five years ago.
The Miller Court stated:
“Under the holdings announced today, no one will be subject to prosecution for the sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive ‘hard core’ sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law, as written or construed. We are satisfied that these specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that *778his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution.” Id., at 27.
The specificity requirement is stressed elsewhere in the opinion.1 More than 50 cases were remanded for further consideration to give the defendants the “benefit” of this aspect of Miller. See 413 U. S. 902 et seq.; Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 197 n. 12.
Many state courts, taking Miller at face value, invalidated or substantially limited their obscenity laws.2 Others, like Illinois, did “little more than pay lip service to the specificity requirement in Miller.” F. Schauer, The Law of Obscenity 167 (1976). Like most pre-Miller obscenity statutes, the Illinois statute contained open-ended terms broad enough to prohibit the distribution of any material making an “appeal ... to prurient interest.” 3 In its post-Miller opinions, *779the Illinois Supreme Court has made it clear that the statute covers all of the Miller examples. It has not, however, stated that the statute is limited to those examples, or to any other specifically defined category.4
*780Nevertheless, this Court affirms the conviction in this Illinois case on two theories. The first is that this particular defendant had notice that the State considered these materials obscene, because prior Illinois cases had upheld obscenity convictions concerning similar material. But, if such notice is all that is required, it is difficult to understand why the Miller case itself»was remanded for consideration of the specificity issue, see 413 U. S., at 37. For the description of *781the materials involved in Miller leaves no room for doubt that they were similar to materials which had often been the subject of prosecutions in the past;5 there clearly was no question of fair notice.6
The Courtis second theory is that, in any event, the Illinois statute is sufficiently specific to satisfy Miller. Although the statute does not contain an “exhaustive list” of specific examples, ante, at 776, it passes muster because it contains a generic reference to “the kinds of sexual conduct which may not be represented or depicted under the obscenity laws . . . .” Ibid, (emphasis in original). To hold that the list need not be exhaustive is to hold that a person can be prosecuted although the materials he sells are not specifically described in the list. Only five years ago, the Court promised that “no one” could be so prosecuted, Miller, 413 U. S., at 27. And if the statute need only describe the “kinds” of proscribed sexual conduct, it adds no protection to what the Constitution itself creates. For in Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U. S. 153, this Court held that the Constitution protected all expression which is not “within either of the two examples given in Miller” or “sufficiently similar to such material to justify similar treatment.” Id., at 161.
*782One of the strongest arguments against regulating obscenity-through criminal law is the inherent vagueness of the obscenity concept. The specificity requirement as described in Miller held out the promise of a principled effort to respond to that argument. By abandoning that effort today, the Court withdraws the cornerstone of the Miller structure and, undoubtedly, hastens its ultimate downfall. Although the decision is therefore a mixed blessing, I nevertheless respectfully dissent.

 “That conduct must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed. . . .
“The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: ... (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law . . . .” 413 U. S., at 24.
On the following page, the Court gives examples of such “specific” definitions.

 E. g., State v. Harding, 114 N. H. 335, 321 A. 2d 108 (1974); People v. Tabron, 320 Colo. 646, 544 P. 2d 372 (1976); ABC Interstate Theatres, Inc. v. State, 325 So. 2d 123 (Miss. 1976); State v. Wedelstedt, 213 N. W. 2d 652 (Iowa 1973); Commonwealth v. Horton, 365 Mass. 164, 310 N. E. 2d 316 (1974). Many statutes passed since Miller have included definitions more specific than that given in Miller. See, e. g., La Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:106 (1974); N. Y. Penal Law §235.00 (McKinney 1974 and Supp. 1976).

 This Court saved such a statute in Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87, by holding that it was limited to the examples given in Miller. In its final footnote to United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U. S. 123, 130 n. 7, the Court had stated that it was prepared to construe generic words such as “obscene” and “lewd” in 18 U. S. C. § 1462, “as limiting regulated material to patently offensive representations or descriptions of that specific 'hard core’ sexual conduct given as examples in *779Miller.” (Emphasis added.) In Hamling, the Court quoted this language and added:
“As noted above, we indicated in [12 200-Ft. Reels of Film] that we were prepared to construe the generic terms in 18 U. S. C. § 1462 to be limited to the sort of ‘patently offensive representations or descriptions of that specific “hard core” sexual conduct given as examples in Miller v. California.’ We now so construe the companion provision in 18 U. S. C. § 1461 .. . .” 418 U. S., at 114.

 In a well-reasoned opinion, a three-Judge District Court for the Northern District of Illinois carefully reviewed the Illinois authorities and concluded that Illinois has failed to meet the specificity requirement of Miller. Eagle Books, Inc. v. Reinhard, 418 F. Supp. 345 (ND Ill. 1976). This conclusion is well founded.
The Illinois statute defines obscenity in these terms:
“A thing is obscene if, considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion, and if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters.” Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, § 11-20 (b) (1975).
Nothing in this definition or the rest of the statute “specifically defines” what depiction of hard-core sexual conduct is prohibited.
The Illinois Supreme Court has not remedied this deficiency by supplying a limiting construction. In its primary discussion of the State’s obscenity statute in relation to the Miller specificity requirement, People v. Ridens, 59 Ill. 2d 362, 321 N. E. 2d 264 (1974) (Ridens II), the Illinois Supreme Court relied on two cases to uphold the statute. In the first case, Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 110, this Court noted in language quoted by the Illinois court that “[t]he words of the Rockford ordinance are marked by ‘flexibility and reasonable breadth, rather than meticulous specificity ....’” The second case which the Ridens II court relied upon was its own decision in People v. Raby, 40 Ill. 2d 392, 240 N. E. 2d 595 (1968). That case concerned the aUeged vagueness of a statute designed to prohibit public disorder. The Illinois court quoted the following language from Raby, and in the next sentence relied upon that decision and Grayned in upholding the statute’s specificity:
“It is true that section 26-i (a) does not attempt to particularize all *780of the myriad kinds of conduct that may fall within the statute. The legislature deliberately chose to frame the provision in general terms, prompted by the futility'- of an effort to anticipate and enumerate all of the methods of disrupting public order that fertile minds might devise.” 40 Ill. 2d, at 396, 240 N. E. 2d, at 598.
Neither of these decisions requires conduct to be specifically defined; indeed, Raby notes that to survive a vagueness attack a statute need not “attempt to particularize all of the myriad kinds of conduct” within its bounds. This may be true for other vagueness attacks, but does not square with the special Miller requirement that conduct be specifically defined. Nowhere else in the Ridens II opinion does the Illinois Supreme Court limit the reach of the obscenity statute.
In the present case, the Illinois Supreme Court again considered the specificity problem, and again refused to narrow the statute:
“It was held in Ridens II that the obscenity statute was sufficiently clear and that it adequately informed the public of the conduct whose depiction is proscribed. We noted that the statutory definition of obscenity includes within the scope of the ‘prurient interest’ a 'shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion.’ The defendant argues that we erred in Ridens II in our interpretation of Miller and that Miller requires obscenity statutes to be much more specific in defining the type of material which will be considered obscene. We see no reason to reconsider our decision in Ridens II. It is extremely difficult to define the term ‘obscenity’ with a fine degree of precision. We again express our opinion that Illinois’ statutory definition is sufficiently clear to withstand constitutional objections.” 63 Ill. 2d 437, 441, 349 N. E. 2d 47, 49 (1976).
Thus, there does not appear to be anything in the Illinois decisions that would preclude the State from prosecuting forms of obscenity not “specifically defined” in prior decisions. And, as noted above, the statute provides no specific definition in this area.

 The materials are described as follows in the opinion :
“While the brochures contain some descriptive printed material, primarily they consist of pictures and drawings very explicitly depicting men and women in groups of two or more engaging in a variety of sexual activities, with genitals often prominently displayed.” 413 U. S., at 18.
The State’s description was somewhat more specific:
“The materials involved are a collection of depictions of cunnilingus, sodomy, buggery and other similar sexual acts performed in groups of two or more.” Brief for Appellee in No. 70-73, O. T. 1972, p. 26.

 If fair notice is the issue, it is hard to see how this can be provided by a narrowing construction made after the underlying conduct. Yet in Hamling, 418 U. S., at 115-116, the Court held such ex post facto “notice” sufficient.