Court Opinion

ID: 9464257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:28:57.55188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:32.360387
License: Public Domain

SNEED, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result):
I concur in the result reached by Judge Goodwin and with all of his opinion save those portions which discuss in general terms the circumstances in which probable cause can be established even though there is no examination “of at least a fair sample of the material itself.” As I read Judge Goodwin, such circumstances are virtually non-existent. A “searching focus” on the question of obscenity requires this result, Judge Goodwin appears to say.
I believe this is too demanding. For example, I would affirm this conviction had Agent Murray viewed at the book store film contained in boxes similar to those discovered by the employee of Trans World Airlines, and in his affidavit had described what he saw in a manner that would permit the magistrate to have probable cause to believe that it was obscene. Obviously, the film shipped could have been different from the film Agent Murray would have viewed. But this possibility, in the light of the surrounding circumstances, to me is sufficiently remote to permit it to be ignored in determining the existence of probable cause to believe the material obscene. I doubt Judge Goodwin’s opinion would permit me to reach this result.
We must not permit the “focus searchingly” requirement to become an elaborate ceremonial ritual useful only to the defendant by providing to him one more opportunity with which to extract himself from his difficulty by showing that the ceremony was not performed precisely as it should have been. The fundamental issue is whether there exists probable cause to believe the material obscene.
The “focus searchingly” requirement is rooted in the First Amendment. However, in complying with this standard we must not forget that the focus an erotic novel, for example, would require should be more demanding than that required by the film in this case. In applying the requirement we should be entitled to consider the nature of the market in which the material is being sold. Material destined for a market known to be one in which unquestionably obscene materials are sold should require a “focus” less “searching” than that destined for more artistically discriminating markets. After all, each of us knows that an adult book store does not stock cook books and Victorian novels. The First Amendment should not require us to ignore commercial realities; however, I fear Judge Goodwin’s opinion literally construed may require us to do so.