Court Opinion

ID: 9430951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:59.450998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.445054
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, with whom Justice Brennan joins except as to footnote 11, and with whom Justice Blackmun joins as to Part I, dissenting.
The Court correctly holds that the juries that convicted petitioners were given erroneous instructions on one of the three essential elements of an obscenity conviction. Nevertheless, I disagree with its disposition of the case for three separate reasons: (1) the error in the instructions was not harmless; (2) the Court’s attempt to clarify the constitutional definition of obscenity is not faithful to the First Amendment; and (3) I do not believe Illinois may criminalize the sale of magazines to consenting adults who enjoy the constitutional right to read and possess them.
I — I
The distribution of magazines is presumptively protected by the First Amendment. The Court has held, however, that the constitutional protection does not apply to obscene literature. If a state prosecutor can convince the trier of fact that the three components of the obscenity standard set forth in Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 24 (1973), are satisfied, it may, in the Court’s view, prohibit the sale of sexually explicit magazines. In a criminal prosecution, the pros*508ecutor must prove each of these three elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, in these cases, in addition to the first two elements of the Miller standard, the juries were required to find, on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that each of the magazines “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Ibid.
The required finding is fundamentally different from a conclusion that a majority of the populace considers the magazines offensive or worthless.1 As the Court correctly holds, the juries in these cases were not instructed to make the required finding; instead, they were asked to decide whether “ordinary adults in the whole State of Illinois” would view the magazines that petitioners sold as having value. App. 11, 25-26. Because of these erroneous instructions, the juries that found petitioners guilty of obscenity did not find one of the essential elements of that crime. This type of omission can never constitute harmless error.2
Just as the constitutional right to trial by jury prohibits a judge from directing a verdict for the prosecution, United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564, 572-573 (1977), so too, “a jury’s verdict cannot stand if the instructions provided the jury do not require it to find each element of the crime under the proper standard of proof.” Cabana v. Bullock, 474 U. S. 376, 384 (1986). As Justice White has explained:
“It should hardly need saying that a judgment or conviction cannot be entered against a defendant no matter *509how strong the evidence is against him, unless that evidence has been presented to a jury (or a judge, if a jury is waived) and unless the jury (or judge) finds from that evidence that the defendant’s guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It cannot be ‘harmless error’ wholly to deny a defendant a jury trial on one or all elements of the offense with which he is charged.” Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U. S. 637, 650 (1976) (White, J., concurring) (emphasis added).
Yet, this is exactly what happened in these cases. Because of the constitutionally erroneous instructions, petitioners were denied a jury determination on one of the critical elements of an obscenity prosecution.
An application of the harmless-error doctrine under these circumstances would not only violate petitioners’ constitutional right to trial by jury, but would also pervert the notion of harmless error. When a court is asked to hold that an error that occurred did not interfere with the jury’s ability to legitimately reach the verdict that it reached, harmless-error analysis may often be appropriate.3 But this principle cannot apply unless the jury found all of the elements required to support a conviction. The harmless-error doctrine may enable a court to remove a taint from proceedings in order to preserve a jury’s findings, but it cannot constitutionally supplement those findings. It is fundamental that an appellate court (and for that matter, a trial court) is not free to decide in a criminal case that, if asked, a jury would have found *510something that it did not find. We have consistently rejected the possibility of harmless error in these circumstances. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 320, n. 14 (1979); Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 408-409 (1947); Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U. S. 607, 615 (1946); see also Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 196, n. 12 (1977).
The Court suggests that these cases “are no longer good authority” in light of the decision last term in Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S. 570 (1986). See ante, at 503-504, n. 7. I emphatically disagree. In Rose v. Clark the Court held that harmless-error analysis is applicable to instructions that informed the jury of the proper elements of the crime and the proper standard of proof, but impermissibly gave the jury the option of finding one of the elements through a presumption, in violation of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510 (1979), and Francis v. Franklin, 471 U. S. 307 (1985). In holding harmless-error analysis applicable, the Court explained that because the presumption in question “‘does not remove the issue of intent from the jury’s consideration, it is distinguishable from other instructional errors that prevent a jury from considering an issue.”’ 478 U. S., at 580, n. 8 (emphasis added), quoting Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S. 73, 95, n. 3 (1983) (Powell, J., dissenting). The Court reasoned that when the evidence is overwhelming on intent, the instruction allowing the jury to use a presumption can be deemed “simply superfluous,” 478 U. S., at 581, for as Justice Powell had earlier stated, in some cases the evidence may be so “dispositive of intent that a reviewing court can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have found it unnecessary to rely on the presumption. ” Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S., at 97, n. 5 (dissenting opinion). This case is, of course, far different. No court could ever determine that the instructions on the element were superfluous, since the error in the instructions went to the ultimate fact that the juries were required to find. Rose v. *511Clark did not modify the precedents requiring that a jury find all of the elements of a crime under the proper standard, any more than it modified the Sixth Amendment’s provision that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a . . . trial by an impartial jury.”
HH H — I
Aside from its error in remanding convictions which must clearly be reversed, the Court announces an obscenity standard that fails to accomplish the goal that the Court ascribes to it. After stressing the need to avoid a mere majoritarian inquiry, the Court states:
“The proper inquiry is not whether an ordinary member of any given community would find serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value in allegedly obscene material, but whether a reasonable person would find such value in the material, taken as a whole.” Ante, at 500-501.
The problem with this formulation is that it assumes that all reasonable persons would resolve the value inquiry in the same way. In fact, there are many cases in which some reasonable people would find that specific sexually oriented materials have serious artistic, political, literary, or scientific value, while other reasonable people would conclude that they have no such value. The Court’s formulation does not tell the jury how to decide such cases.4
*512In my judgment, communicative material of this sort is entitled to the protection of the First Amendment if some reasonable persons could consider it as having serious literary artistic, political, or scientific value. Over 40 years ago, the Court recognized that
“Under our system of government there is an accommodation for the widest varieties of tastes and ideas. What is good literature, what has educational value, what is refined public information, what is good art, varies with individuals as it does from one generation to another. . . . From the multitude of competing offerings the public will pick and choose. What seems to one to be trash may have for others fleeting or even enduring values.” Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc., 327 U. S. 146, 157-158 (1946).
The purpose of the third element of the Miller test is to ensure that the obscenity laws not be allowed to “'level’ the available reading matter to the majority or lowest common denominator of the population. ... It is obvious that neither Ulysses nor Lady Chatterley’s Lover would have literary appeal to the majority of the population.” F. Schauer, The Law of Obscenity 144 (1976). A juror asked to create “a reasonable person” in order to apply the standard that the Court announces today might well believe that the majority of the population who find no value in such a book are more reasonable than the minority who do find value.5 First Amend*513ment protection surely must not be contingent on this type of subjective determination.
Ill
There is an even more basic reason why I believe these convictions must be reversed. The difficulties inherent in the Court’s “reasonable person” standard reaffirm my conviction that government may not constitutionally criminalize mere possession or sale of obscene literature, absent some connection to minors or obtrusive display to unconsenting adults.6 During the recent years in which the Court has struggled with the proper definition of obscenity, six Members of the Court have expressed the opinion that the First Amendment, at the very least, precludes criminal prosecutions for sales such as those involved in this case.7 Dissent*514ing in Smith v. United States, 431 U. S. 291 (1977), I explained my view:
“The question of offensiveness to community standards, whether national or local, is not one that the average juror can be expected to answer with e'venhanded consistency. The average juror may well have one reaction to sexually oriented materials in a completely private setting and an entirely different reaction in a social context. Studies have shown that an opinion held by a large majority of a group concerning a neutral and objective subject has a significant impact in distorting the perceptions of group members who would normally take a different position. Since obscenity is by no means a neutral subject, and since the ascertainment of a community standard is such a subjective task, the expression of individual jurors’ sentiments will inevitably influence the perceptions of other jurors, particularly those who would normally be in the minority. Moreover, because the record never discloses the obscenity standards which the jurors actually apply, their decisions in these cases are effectively unreviewable by an appellate court. In the final analysis, the guilt or innocence of a criminal defendant in an obscenity trial is determined primarily by individual jurors’ subjective reactions to the materials in question rather than by the predictable application of rules of law.
“This conclusion is especially troubling because the same image — whether created by words, sounds, or pictures — may produce such a wide variety of reactions. As Mr. Justice Harlan noted: ‘[It is] often true that one *515man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric. Indeed, we think it is largely because government officials [or jurors] cannot make principled distinctions in this area that the Constitution leaves matters of taste and style so largely to the individual.’ Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 25. In my judgment, the line between communications which ‘offend’ and those which do not is too blurred to identify criminal conduct. It is also too blurred to delimit the protections of the First Amendment.” Id., at 315-316 (footnotes omitted).
The Court has repeatedly recognized that the Constitution “requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, 357 (1983).8 These two requirements serve overlapping functions. Not only do vague statutes tend to give rise to selective and arbitrary prosecution, but selective and arbitrary prosecution often lessens the degree to which an actor is on notice that his or her conduct is illegal.
When petitioners Pope and Morrison accepted part-time employment as clerks in the bookstores, they could hardly have been expected to examine the stores’ entire inventories, and even if they had, they would have had no way of knowing which, if any, of the magazines being sold were legally “obscene.” Perhaps if the enterprise were being carried out in a *516clandestine manner, it might be fair to impute to them knowledge that something illegal was going on. But these stores both had large signs indicating the nature of the enterprise, one claiming that the store had “The Largest Selection of Adult Merchandise in Northern Illinois.” See People’s Exhibit No. 3, People v. Morrison, No. 84-cm-4114 (17th Jud. Cir. Ill. 1984).9 The Illinois Appellate Court found that Pope had the necessary scienter because it was “difficult to believe that [he] would not be fully apprised of the type and character of the three magazines simply by looking at them.” App. to Pet. for Cert/19. It is obvious that Pope knew that the magazines were “pornographic,” but that does not mean he knew, or should have known, that they were legally “obscene” under the Illinois statute and our precedents.10 It would have been quite reasonable for him to conclude that if sale of the magazines were indeed against the law, then the police would never allow the store to remain in operation, much less publicly advertise its goods.11 Nor *517would an examination of the statute have given him much guidance.
Under ordinary circumstances, ignorance of the law is no excuse for committing a crime. But that principle presupposes a penal statute that adequately puts citizens on notice of what is illegal. The Constitution cannot tolerate schemes that criminalize categories of speech that the Court has conceded to be so vague and uncertain that they cannot “be defined legislatively.” Smith v. United States, 431 U. S., at 303. If a legislature cannot define the crime, Richard Pope and Michael Morrison should not be expected to. Criminal prosecution under these circumstances “may be as much of a trap for the innocent as the ancient laws of Caligula.” United States v. Cardiff, 344 U. S. 174, 176 (1952).
Concern with the vagueness inherent in criminal obscenity statutes is not the only constitutional objection to the criminalization of the sale of sexually explicit material (not involving children) to consenting adults. In Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557 (1969), the Court held that Georgia could not criminalize the mere possession of obscene matter. The decision was grounded upon a recognition that “[o]ur whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.” Id., at 565. The only justification we could find for the law there was *518Georgia’s desire to “protect the individual’s mind from the effects of obscenity,” ibid., and we concluded that such a desire to “control the moral content of a person’s thoughts ... is wholly inconsistent with the philosophy of the First Amendment.” Id., at 565-566.
The Court has adopted a restrictive reading of Stanley, opining that it has no implications to the criminalization of the sale or distribution of obscenity. See United States v. Reidel, 402 U. S. 351 (1971); United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U. S. 123 (1973). But such a crabbed approach offends the overarching First Amendment principles discussed in Stanley, almost as much as it insults the citizenry by declaring its right to read and possess material which it may not legally obtain.12 In Stanley, the Court recognized that there are legitimate reasons for the State to regulate obscenity: protecting children and protecting the sensibilities of unwilling viewers. 394 U. S., at 507. But surely a broad criminal prohibition on all sale of obscene material cannot survive simply because the State may constitutionally restrict public display or prohibit sale of the material to minors.
As was the case in Smith, “I do not know whether the ugly pictures in this record have any beneficial value.” 431 U. S., at 319 (Stevens, J., dissenting). I do know though:
“The fact that there is a large demand for comparable materials indicates that they do provide amusement or information, or at least satisfy the curiosity of interested persons. Moreover, there are serious well-intentioned *519people who are persuaded that they serve a worthwhile purpose. Others believe they arouse passions that lead to the commission of crimes; if that be true, surely there is a mountain of material just within the protected zone that is equally capable of motivating comparable conduct. Moreover, the baneful effects of these materials are disturbingly reminiscent of arguments formerly made about what are now valued as works of art. In the end, I believe we must rely on the capacity of the free marketplace of ideas to distinguish that which is useful or beautiful from that which is ugly or worthless.” Id., at 320-321 (footnotes omitted).
I respectfully dissent.

 “The First Amendment protects works which, taken as a whole, have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, regardless of whether the government or a majority of the people approve of the ideas these works represent.” Miller v. California, 413 U. S., 15, 34 (1973). See ante, at 500.

 In Section II, infra, I explain my disagreement with the Court’s formulation of the obscenity standard, and in Section III, infra, I elaborate on my reasons for believing that the Constitution does not tolerate criminal prosecution in cases such as this. For purposes of the harmless-error discussion, however, those disagreements are irrelevant.

 See, e. g., Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S. 570 (1986) (instruction on permissive presumption may be found to have been “superfluous”); Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U. S. 673 (1986) (failure to permit cross-examination on witness’ bias); Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967) (improper comment on defendant’s failure to testify); but see Rose, supra, at 587 (Stevens, J., concurring) (harmless-error analysis may be inappropriate even when error does not implicate reliability and accuracy of factual findings). These cases are consistent with the theory that “the Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one.” Van Arsdall, supra, at 681.

 Notwithstanding the Court’s rejection of the community values test, the Court’s standard would still, in effect, require a juror to apply community values, unless the juror were to find that an ordinary member of his or her community is not “a reasonable person.” While this is, of course, not an impossible conclusion, it surely conflicts with the Court’s admonition that the value of works does not “vary from community to community based on the degree of local acceptance it has won,” and that whether a majority of the people find value in the material is immaterial. Ante, at 500, and n. 3. Indeed, as applied in the tort context, to which the Court analogizes, ante, at 501, n. 3, the reasonable man standard is extolled as enabling the “triers of fact ... to look to a community standard.” Re*512statement (Second) of Torts § 283, Comment c (1965). Absent intolerable orthodoxy, First Amendment protection cannot be circumscribed by the attitudes of a “reasonable man,” who has been described as an “ ‘excellent’ ” character who “ ‘stands like a monument in our Courts of Justice, vainly appealing to his fellow-citizens to order their lives after his own example.’ ” W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts 174 (5th ed. 1984), quoting A. Herbert, Misleading Cases in the Common Law 12 (3d ed. 1928).

 The problems with the Court’s formulation are accentuated when expert evidence is adduced about the value that the material has to a discrete segment of the population — be they art scholars, scientists, or literary crit*513ics. Certainly a jury could conclude that although those people reasonably find value in the material, the ordinary “reasonable person” would not.

 The definitional problems the Court confronts buttress the conclusion that:
“none of the available formulas, including the one announced today, can reduce the vagueness to a tolerable level while at the same time striking an acceptable balance between the protections of the First and Fourteenth Amendments on the one hand, and on the other, the asserted state interest in regulating the dissemination of certain sexually oriented materials.” Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U. S. 49, 84 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).

 See Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 508 (1957) (Douglas and Black, JJ., dissenting); Sewell v. Georgia, 435 U. S. 982, 988 (1978) (Stewart, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Paris Adult Theatre I, supra (Brennan, Stewart, and Marshall, JJ., dissenting); Smith v. United States, 431 U. S. 291, 311 (1977) (Stevens, J., dissenting). It has been recognized recently that the “the bulk of scholarly commentary is of the opinion that the Supreme Court’s resolution of and basic approach to the First Amendment issues” involved in obscenity laws “is incorrect,” in that it fails to adequately protect First Amendment values. See Attorney General’s Comm’n on Pornography, Final Report 261 (July 1986).
On the state level, the Oregon Supreme Court recently held that its State Constitution gives people in Oregon the right to “write, print, read, say, show, or sell anything to a consenting adult even though that expression may be generally or universally considered ‘obscene.’” State v. Henry, 302 Ore. 510, 525, 732 P. 2d 9, 18 (1987). At least five States do *514not have adult obscenity statutes, although they do criminalize certain materials harmful to minors. See Alaska Stat. Ann. §11.61.125 (1983); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17, §2911 et seq. (1983); N. M. Stat. Ann. § 30-37-1 et seq. (1980 and Supp. 1986); S. D. Comp. Laws Ann. § 22-24-1 et seq. (1979); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, §2801 et seq. (1974 and Supp. 1987).

 See also Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156, 162-163, 168-169 (1972); Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451, 453 (1939); Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391-393 (1926). We have been especially intolerant of vague statutes in the First Amendment area. See Smith v. Goguen, 415 U. S. 566, 573 (1974); Grayned v. Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 108-109 (1972); Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, 390 U. S. 676, 684-690 (1968); Cramp v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County, 368 U. S. 278, 283-284 (1961); Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 151 (1959); Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 515 (1948).

 In both trials, the State used the fact that the stores were open only to those over 18 years of age as proof that respondents knew the materials were obscene. See Tr. in People v. Pope, No. 83-em-4116, pp. 317-318 (17th Jud. Cir. Ill. 1984); Tr. in People v. Morrison, No. 84-cm-4114, p. 303 (17th Jud. Cir. Ill. 1984). As I explained in Splawn v. California, 431 U. S. 595 (1977):
“Signs which identify the ‘adult’ character of a motion picture theatre or a bookstore convey the message that sexually provocative entertainment is to be found within .... Such signs, however, also provide a warning to those who find erotic materials offensive that they should shop elsewhere for other kinds of books, magazines, or entertainment. Under any sensible regulatory scheme, truthful description of subject matter that is pleasing to some and offensive to others ought to be encouraged, not punished.” Id., at 604 (dissenting opinion).

 “The statements did make it clear that the films were ‘sexually provocative,’ but that is hardly a confession that they were obscene.” Id., at 603.

 The insurmountable vagueness problems involved in criminalization are not, in my view, implicated with respect to civil regulation of sexually explicit material, an area in which the States retain substantial leeway. See Smith v. United States, 431 U. S., at 317-321 (Stevens, J., dissent*517ing); see generally Winters, supra, at 515 (“The standards of certainty in statutes punishing for offenses is higher than in those depending primarily upon civil sanction for enforcement”). Moreover, as long as it does not deny “access to the market,” and allows “the viewing public” to “satisfy its appetite for sexually explicit fare,” I believe that the State may regulate the sale and exhibition of even nonobscene material. See Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50 (1976); Schad v. Mount Ephraim, 452 U. S. 61, 79 (1981) (Stevens, J., concurring). As for prohibiting sale or exhibition of sexually explicit material to minors or material containing depiction of minors, it has long been established that the State may go beyond the constitutional definition of obscenity. See New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747 (1982); Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629 (1968); see also Ferber, supra, at 777 (Stevens, J., concurring).

 “After all, if a person has the right to receive information without regard to its social worth — that is, without regard to its obscenity — then it would seem to follow that a State could not constitutionally punish one who undertakes to provide that information to a willing, adult recipient." Paris Adult Theatre I, 413 U. S., at 86, n. 9 (Brennan, J., dissenting); see also United States v. Reidel, 402 U. S. 351, 360 (1971) (Marshall, J., dissenting); United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U. S. 123, 137 (1973) (Douglas, J., dissenting).