Court Opinion

ID: 9696274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:43:24.067037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:20.523877
License: Public Domain

*115HornEy, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Syb^rt, J., concurred before retirement.
It seems to me that the majority of the members of this Court, in approving a film portraying overt acts of illicit sexual intercourse, has gone further than even the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States has required, and, in so doing, has disregarded the Maryland statute which prohibits the showing of unlawful and immoral sexual relations. If such illicit acts are not obscene, it is difficult to envisage what, other than hard-core pornography, would constitute obscenity.
In my opinion, the order of the lower court affirming the refusal of the State Board of Censors to license the motion picture, “A Stranger Knocks,” should not have been reversed. For, when these illicit acts of sexual gratification, the elimination of which, as the producer admitted, “would virtually destroy the film as a serious motion picture,” are considered (either with or without the remainder of the film), it is clear that the dominant effect of the film, even assuming this was not its calculated purpose, is to arouse lascivious thoughts or desires which is expressly prohibited by § 6(b) of Art. 66A. Surely, a film such as this, wherein the exhibition of inhibited acts of sexual immorality between an unmarried man and woman leaves nothing to be surmised, will indubitably be taken by the viewing public as sanctioning or approving such acts as desirable, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior contrary to the provisions of § 6(c) of Art. 66A. Such a portrayal of immorality can hardly be said, as the majority hold, to be a serious work of art dealing with a subject of social importance that does not appeal to prurient interest.
On the contrary, for the reasons stated above, it seems obvious to me that the film goes far beyond what is permitted under the Roth-Alberts test — set forth in Roth v. United States (and Alberts v. California), 354 U. S. 476 (1957) — which, as amplified in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184 (1964), is still the law of the land, and the standards to be applied in determining what is and what is not obscene are still those of the local community and not those of the nation as a whole. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the case at bar is clearly distinguishable from Jacobellis on the facts in that in Jacobellis *116the sexual act was a fleeting one while in this case both acts were not only protracted but were deliberately over-emphasized by extraordinary demonstrations of satisfaction on the part of the female participant. Other than this, as Judge Prendergast pointed out, there is a vast difference between what is written as poetry or prose and that which is vividly portrayed on a motion picture screen. On the one hand that which is written may be so phrased as not to be erotic or pornographic, while on the other hand sexual activity shown on a screen could be, as it was here, unlawful obscenity.
Judge Sybert, who participated in the consideration of this case, collaborated in the writing of this dissent before his retirement.