Court Opinion

ID: 9527521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:31:15.933645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:50.796608
License: Public Domain

HAMITER, Justice
(dissenting).
LRS 14:106(3), with the violation of which the accused is charged, provides: “Obscenity is the intentional: * * * (3) Performance by any person, * * * in any public place or in any public manner, of any act of lewdness or indecency, grossly scandalous and tending to debauch the morals and manners of the people * * This provision, in my opinion, admits of no double meaning and is not indefinite, vague and uncertain so as to render it invalid and unenforceable.
According to modern usage the word “lewdness” connotes lustful, libidinous, lascivious, unchaste conduct; “indecency” is a state of unfitness to be seen or heard. See Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition. This being true the statute in question, when considered in its entirety as must be done, can only be interpreted as prohibiting the performance in a public place or in a public manner of any act which offends against sexual morality and decency — any act (to use the language contained in State v. Rose, 147 La. 243, 84 So. 643, 646) “tending to excite lustful thoughts.”
The decisions cited in support of the majority opinion are inapposite. Only City of Shreveport v. Wilson, 145 La. 906, 83 So. 186, 187, involved a law that denounced lewd and indecent acts; and the question of its constitutionality or validity was not determined. In setting aside the convictions and sentences therein the court observed and ruled: “The only question thus presented is whether the municipal ordinance has application to the facts stated.
“Our opinion is that the ordinance is not applicable. * * * ”
In the remaining cases relied on by the majority the language of the assailed laws, *299found to be susceptible of varying meanings, was entirely dissimilar to that of the instant statute.
I respectfully dissent.