Court Opinion

ID: 9447278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:30:30.224316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:19.121261
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
The subject matter of this case is a book completed in 1928 in Italy. It is significant that it was then published only “for private distribution.” For almost thirty years it remained unpublished in this country except for an expurgated edition which enjoyed comparative obscurity. The unexpurgated edition has been barred from the mails since 1928. In 1959, and undoubtedly relying upon the changing “climate” of community standards, plaintiffs (the publisher and the distributor) decided to publish the unexpurgated edition and test the book’s “nonmailable” character. Suddenly, with the restoration to the text of “coarse and vulgar” expressions and play-by-play descriptions of extramarital sexual activities, the book (properly called “this now famous book”) becomes “a major and a distinguished novel.” Certain critics, apparently for years unconcerned with it absent the vulgarisms and the questionable scenes, now hail the book as a great contribution to our literary heritage.1 The public, ever anxious to read in print certain words which they can so easily see written in public toilets and other public places, *440avidly purchased thousands (probably millions) of copies.
The plot of the book has no bearing on the obscenity issue. Its first two messages (as analyzed by the majority), if they be directed against the “crass industrialization of the English Midlands” and “the British caste system,” could be delivered effectively without the objectionable material. The third message of “repression of the natural man,” said to be inveighed against by the author, is the “inhibited sex relations between man and woman.” Whether “natural man” should be somewhat inhibited in this activity presents a sociological and moral problem thus far not solved by society. If the author wishes to plead “for greater freedom and naturalness” for man and woman in their sexual diversions uninhibited by law or convention, it is for the lawmakers and not the courts to rule how far this objective should properly be pursued.
The fallacy of “the changing climate of opinion” argument is that it rotates in a circle. During recent years authors of the so-called school of “realism” have vied with each other to depict with accuracy all that could be observed by peeking through hypothetical keyholes and by hiding under beds. The last war offered an excellent opportunity to employ the entire register of Anglo-Saxon four-letter words via the medium of realistic soldier conversations. Many such books became best sellers. After this phase of literary effort palled, it became necessary to go beyond this stage into the sordid and more perverted sexual field — all under the guise of telling an allegedly powerful and moving story about various characters or families which had better remained unborn. One normal adultery per book was quite insufficient to create a best seller. And an eager public, possibly bored by the monotony of monogamy, seized upon each literary contribution to enjoy vicariously —and quite safely — bold but rather impractical daydreams of a life which could be found in fictional actuality in these books. Each book contributed a few additional degrees to the temperature and by its unchallenged existence created the “contemporary community standards” which, in turn, are to justify its acceptance as consistent with such standards. Into this climate ever increasing in warmth came “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” which plaintiffs sought to distribute through the mails.
Charged by law with the responsibility of enforcing (initially at least) a statute presumably representing the will of the-people, the Postmaster-General adhered to the policy of the Post Office Department for some thirty years and refused to transmit the book and literature relating thereto through the mails. Hearings were duly held and after reviewing various criteria, particularly those mentioned by the Supreme Court in the case of Roth v. United States, 1957, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed. 1498, the Postmaster-General concluded that “The contemporary community standards are not such that this book should be allowed to be transmitted in the mails.” [175 F.Supp. 497.]
The applicable statute declares non-mailable every “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article * * * ” (18 U.S.C.A. § 1461). A prohibitory law is not self-enforcing. Although under our governmental system the courts usually have to make final decisions, the Postmaster-General here had to make the first decision. Such a decision, of course,, is not beyond judicial review. Any holding of agency finality would be contrary to our fundamental judicial concepts and' make of each department head a despot or czar. On this point I am in complete-accord with the majority. Nevertheless, the Postmaster-General’s findings and conclusions should not be dismissed casually. The Supreme Court (not the Postmaster-General) chose the test of “contemporary community standards” and “appealing to prurient interest.” But what “community” and what is “prurient interest”? And is a single judge or a group of judges in any one restricted geographic district all-knowing as to community standards? At least the: *441.Postmaster-General by virtue of his office and his staff of inspectors in every State of the Union is mindful of the type of questionable material found in the mails and the reaction thereto of each community. Parenthetically a conjecture that juries in a substantial number of communities throughout the country would support the Postmaster-General’s conclusion in this case would not be too erroneous. As to “prurient interest” one can scarcely be so naive as to believe that the avalanche of sales came about as a result of a sudden desire on the part of the American public to become acquainted with the problems of a professional gamekeeper in the management of an English estate.
The majority, in my opinion, are overly influenced by “the risk run by judges in enforcing obscenity statutes” and believe that “Some of the present Justices of the Supreme Court revolt against all this supervision as violative of constitutional precepts.” This obviously is the easiest (and possibly the best) solution. In effect, repeal the statute by judicial failure to enforce it or overrule ail decisions as to its constitutionality. Then, at least, the Postmaster-General would be relieved of an unenviable burden and each community could enact such protective ordinances as it might deem best suited to its own standards subject always to constitutional limitations. In substance, literary local option. However, so long as the statute remains upon the hooks it should be interpreted and enforced according to some standards.
In almost every other field of the law in which neither judge nor administrator boast of any special competence in subjects beyond their knowledge expert testimony is usually required. So here the courts should receive evidence “to allow light to be shed on what those ‘contemporary community standards’ are.” Smith v. State of California, 1959, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 225, 4 L.Ed.2d 205. In coping with a problem difficult at best both as to procedure and proof, the portion of the opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter in the Smith case seems particularly apt:
“Their interpretation [the courts’ or juries’] ought not to depend solely on the necessarily limited, hit-or-miss, subjective view of what they are believed to be by the individual juror or judge. It bears repetition that the determination of obscenity is for juror or judge not on the basis of his personal upbringing or restricted reflection or particular experience of life, but on the basis of ‘contemporary community standards.’ Can it be doubted that there is a great difference in what is to be deemed obscene in 1959 compared with what was deemed obscene in 1859. The difference derives from a shift in community feeling regarding what is to be deemed prurient or not prurient by reason of the effects attributable to this or that particular writing. Changes in the intellectual and moral climate of society, in part doubtless due to the views and findings of specialists, afford shifting foundations for the attribution. What may well have been consonant ‘with mid-Victorian morals, does not seem to me to answer to the understanding and morality of the present time.’ United States v. Kennerley, [D.C.] 209 F. 119, 120. This was the view of Judge Learned Hand decades ago reflecting an atmosphere of propriety much closer to mid-Victorian days than is ours. Unless we disbelieve that the literary, psychological or moral standards of a community can be made fruitful and illuminating subjects of inquiry by those who give their life to such inquiries, it was violative of ‘due process,’ to exclude the constitutionally relevant evidence proffered in this case. The importance of this type of evidence in prosecutions for obscenity has been impressively attested by the recent debates in the House of Commons dealing with the insertion of such a provision in the enactment of *442the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, 7 & 8 Eliz. 2, Ch. 66 (see 597 Parliamentary Debates, H.Comm., col. 1009-1010, 1042-1043; 604 Parliamentary Debates, H.Comm., No. 100 (April 24, 1959), col. 803), as well as by the most considered thinking on this subject in the proposed Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute” (361 U.S. at pages 166, 167, 80 S.Ct. at pages 225, 226, 4 L.Ed.2d 205).
Whether such an approach would satisfy those who, marching under the banner of freedom and tolerance, are themselves often the most intolerant of the views of others, I do not know. Surely this minority group which preaches freedom of the press without restraint would probably not be willing to honor “contemporary community standards” if these differed from their own.
Nor do I find solace in the knowledge and in the thought suggested by the majority that there are other books just as bad. Following the majority’s example and referring to the public press “No democratic society has ever yet been able to come up with a foolproof definition of the thin line between liberty and license. One of the weariest cliches in this battle is to point out that there are passages in the Bible and Will Shakespeare that are not for Little Pitchers.” (Inez Robb in the New York World-Telegram, December 15, 1959.) Many an advertisement seeking to peddle pornographic material to be sent surreptitiously through the mails offers choice passages from well recognized Greek and Roman authors. But should the literary merit of the product of an author’s pen give him carteblanche in case he chooses to venture into forbidden fields? Both the trial court and the majority suggest that the reputations of author and publisher should weigh heavily in deciding the issue. And so they should, were intent involved.2
Then there is the doctrine of the “book as a whole” (Parmelee v. United States, 1940, 72 App.D.C. 203, 113 F.2d 729, 737). In other words, if out of some four hundred pages there were three or four pages which clearly are in the “obscene” category, they constitute merely a de minimis one per cent and hence the good overwhelms the bad. The very proposal of such a principle should suffice to demonstrate its impracticability as a test of whether the statute has been violated because obscenity could then parade abroad under the protective cloak of a quantity of innocuous pages.
Another Lawrence3 is more pessimistic as to the effect of the trial court’s decision in saying “So it does look as if the sky is the limit now on the sale and distribution through the mails of pornographic books and pictures.” There would seem to be some justification for this prophecy judging by the recent book reviews and an apparent attempt to bring to light hitherto smuggled undercover poems of a well-known poet.
*443Unless those who really represent all communities and are best able to speak for their standards, namely, the legislative bodies, take some more definite action the courts will have to continue to struggle with the problem of some vague and ever-retreating boundary line. Certain it is that if the trend continues unabated, by the time some author writes of “Lady Chatterley’s Granddaughter,” Lady Chatterley herself will seem like a prim and puritanical housewife.
However, this case must be decided in accordance with contemporary judicial standards4 and therefore I reluctantly concur.

. I. do not imply that the views of Jacques Barzun, Edmund Wilson, Archibald MacLeish, and other critics mentioned by the majority, are not entitled to consideration and respect. My point is simply that literary critics generally do not represent that hypothetical character, the average reader. It is this individual with whom a judge or administrative official must inevitably be concerned.

. A point of view at least entitled to consideration appears in the book review-pages of “America,” pp. 416-417, June 6, 1959, by Harold O. Gardiner (Father Gardiner), under the title “Good Intentions Can’t Justify Results.” The reviewer differs with some of the majority’s literary critics, saying: “For the book, despite the testimonials solicited from eminent literary figures, is simply not great literature, and that not merely because of the extremely frank passages which, it is charged, make the novel obscene. If the book did not carry the name of Lawrence, no one would bother too much about condemning or defending it.” As to motive he adds, “It must be said at tbe same time, if we are to be fair, that Lawrence, as we know him through his letters, essays and personal life, was not a ‘dirty-minded lecher,’ as has been charged and will certainly now be repeated.” He concedes “that Lawrence’s attitudes toward sex were really the result of a fairly well-thought-out philosophy.” And believes that “Had he lived in the days of pagan Rome, one feels, Lawrence would have defended the ‘liturgical’ character of some of the obscene religious rites, and he would have defended them with a religious fervor.”

. David Lawrence, New York Herald Tribune, June 23, 1959.

. Sunshine Book Co. v. Summerfield, 1958, 355 U.S. 372, 78 S.Ct. 365, 2 L.Ed.2d 352; One, Inc. v. Olesen, 1958, 355 U.S. 371, 78 S.Ct. 364, 2 L.Ed.2d 352; Roth v. United States, supra.