Court Opinion

ID: 9847941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:10:18.326804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:48.333829
License: Public Domain

Otis, Justice
(concurring in the result).
All that is necessary for decision in this appeal is our unanimous holding that the conviction “cannot stand because defendant did not have that clear notice of the legislative proscription which fundamental fairness requires.” That should end the matter. The remainder of the opinion is pure dictum, as the majority must concede. We are simply prognosticating what rules we will adopt when future appeals are taken without having the benefit of a trial at which parties may offer evidence *414and argue the law, and the trial court may render its decision and present a record for review. I cannot accept this approach to a problem of these dimensions, one which has confused and confounded lawyers, judges, sociologists, and law-enforcement officers as much as any other issue in the criminal law.
By prognosticating our intended disposition of future litigation, we do not bind ourselves or others to the rules we suggest but, on the contrary, may seriously mislead those who rely on them. I submit that we do not have such special expertise that we can confidently adopt rules of law in this complex area without permitting the bar or the legislature to have a voice in formulating policy.
The United States Supreme Court in Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. ed. 2d 419 (1973), did not and could not require our legislature or courts to adopt rules of law which make obscenity punishable within the limits the Supreme Court has defined. That court’s authority is confined to specifying what state laws pass Federal constitutional muster. It cannot mandate state laws governing pornography or any other subject. Nevertheless, the majority opinion adopts the extreme perimeters of laws which the Supreme Court holds, by way of dictum also, it would tolerate, and we engraft those limits verbatim onto ordinances and statutes which are no longer viable under the Miller ruling.
It is not our function either to draft criminal laws to replace those struck down by Miller or to construe our constitution in a vacuum. Under our Federal system it is the exclusive responsibility of this court, and no other court, to make the ultimate decision of what legislation conforms to the Minnesota Constitution and what does not. No consideration has been given in the majority opinion to the validity of the rules proposed in Miller measured against the provisions of the Minnesota Constitution. On that important issue, Miller is not controlling but constitutes only prestigious precedent.
In sum, I respectfully protest against abdicating our preroga*415tive and our duty to scrutinize and decide for ourselves these important issues on a case-by-case basis. By pursuing the course we adopt, we deny the public its right to notice of what rules of conduct we intended to consider in this decision. More important, we invade a legal thicket without the benefit of hearings, such as the legislature requires, and without the benefit of a consideration of briefs and arguments by counsel who are experienced and knowledgeable in dealing with this difficult and volatile field of human behavior.
Accordingly, except as to the result, I dissent from the majority opinion and would defer, until presented in a traditional adversary proceeding, the resolution of issues not now before us.