Court Opinion

ID: 9425955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:16.588096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.319764
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
Appellant Star owns several bookstores in Baltimore which contain, inter alia, coin-operated viewing machines showing portions of so-called “adult” motion pictures. After a number of raids in which these motion pictures were seized for lack of a proper license from the Maryland State Board of Censors, appellant sought injunctive relief against the enforcement of Maryland’s film-licensing requirements on the ground that such requirements violate the freedoms protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. We held a predecessor Maryland statute unconstitutional in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965); the three-judge District Court, however, concluded that the defects identified in Freedman had been remedied by the present statute. 352 F. Supp. 530 (Md. 1972); 375 F. Supp. 1093 (Md. 1974).
The court below made much of the fact that the amended statute provides for a prompt judicial determination of obscenity after denial of a license by the Board, and that the Board must bear the burden of proof at all stages of the proceedings. I have previously set forth, at some length, my view that no form of censorship, no matter how speedy or efficient it may be, is constitutionally permissible. The cost and delay involved in contesting an adverse determination by the censor provide a very practical deterrent to free and open expression; the inevitable result is a reluctance even to attempt to disseminate ideas which, by virtue of their content, may attract the censor’s attention or draw his wrath. Moreover, by imposing his sanctions in advance, the censor circumvents all the protections of the Bill of Rights which are called into play by a criminal prosecution after the *957fact. The Maryland system has no place for the right of trial by jury, nor does it require proof beyond a reasonable doubt; step by step, by eroding these constitutional guarantees, the State facilitates its self-appointed task of imposing and ensuring conformity to an official standard of morality.
I adhere to the positions I have taken in Freedman v. Maryland, supra, at 61 (concurring opinion); Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U. S. 43, 78 (1961) (dissenting opinion); Kingsley International Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U. S. 684, 697 (1959) (concurring opinion); and Superior Films v. Department of Education, 346 U. S. 587, 588 (1954) (concurring opinion). I would reverse the judgment below.