Court Opinion

ID: 9665719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:55:32.77412+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:18.170702
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
ONION, Presiding Judge.
Appellant was convicted on June 23, 1971, of the offense of exhibiting obscene matter, to-wit: a sixteen (16) mm. motion picture under the provisions of Article 527, Vernon’s Ann.P.C., in effect on the date of the offense-November 18, 1969 (Acts 1969, 61st Leg., p. 1547, Ch. 468, effective *442June 10, 1969.1 The conviction was affirmed in 489 S.W.2d 597 (Tex.Cr.App.1972). Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court granted his petition for writ of certiorari, West v. Texas, 414 U.S. 961, 94 S.Ct. 268, 38 L.Ed.2d 209, vacated the judgment of this court and remanded the cause on October 23, 1973/for further consideration in light of Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973); Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 93 S.Ct. 2628, 37 L.Ed.2d 446 (1973); United States v. Orito, 413 U.S. 139, 93 S.Ct. 2674, 37 L.Ed.2d 513 (1973); Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115, 93 S.Ct. 2680, 37 L.Ed.2d 492 (1973); United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Super 8mm. Film, 413 U.S. 123, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (1973); Heller v. New York, 413 U.S. 483, 93 S.Ct. 2789, 37 L.Ed.2d 745 (1973); Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 93 S.Ct. 2796, 37 L.Ed.2d 757 (1973); and Alexander v. Virginia, 413 U.S. 836, 93 S.Ct. 2803, 37 L.Ed.2d 993 (1973).
The remand to this court appears to have been made by the Supreme Court to determine whether the statute as written or as authoritatively construed would pass muster under the requirements of Miller.
On February 13, 1974, this court did reconsider the cause in light of the Miller cluster or series of cases and again affirmed the conviction by written opinion. Appellant’s motion for leave to file a motion for rehearing was granted and oral argument permitted. In his motion for rehearing appellant contends that once this court recognized the “specifically defined” requirement of Miller was to provide fair notice and avoid the vice of vagueness this court’s analysis and conclusion were in error by saying construction of the term “sexual matters” as used in the statute is specifically defined by construing it to include “all” sexual matters, which would even encompass courtship, kissing, petting, birth and birth control, etc. He urges that Article 527, Vernon’s Ann.P.C., on its face does not meet the “specifically defined” requirement of Miller and that it should be declared unconstitutional, permitting the Legislature to re-draft the statute in light of the Miller cluster of cases. He further urges that if this court is to authoritatively construe the statute, it should confine the proscribable words to those which depict or describe patently offensive hard-core sexual conduct, and if it is so confined, then such standard should apply only prospectively and have no application to him. The State Attorney General, et al., have filed an amicus curiae brief which urges that this court give a more limited construction to the term “sexual matters” as used in the statute and hold it to mean hard-core sexual conduct consisting of either patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, or patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals in order to meet the test of constitutionality and to provide the prosecutors of this State and prospective purveyors of material which may be characterized as obscene or not obscene with more definite guidelines.
Miller involved a California statute which incorporated the three-pronged *443Roth-Memoirs test, just as the Texas statute in question has. In writing for the majority in Miller, Chief Justice Burger wrote:
“ . . . But now the Memoirs test has been abandoned as unworkable by its author and no member of the Court today supports the Memoirs formulation.”
In repudiating the Memoirs test and noting that it had never commanded a majority of the courts, the Court stated that one part of the test:
“ . . . called on the prosecution to prove a negative, i. e., that the material was ‘utterly without redeeming social value’ — a burden virtually impossible to discharge under our criminal standards of proof.”
In laying down new tests for determining obscene material, the Court recognized that obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment and States have a legitimate interest in prohibiting dissemination or exhibition of obscene material when the mode of dissemination carries with it a significant danger of offending the sensibilities of unwilling recipients or of exposure to juveniles. The Court then said:
“We acknowledge, however, the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression. State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited. See Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, supra, [390 U.S. 676] at 682-685, 88 S.Ct. [1298] at 1302-1305 (1968) [20 L.Ed.2d 225]. As a result, we now confine the permissible scope of such regulation to works which depict or describe sexual conduct. That conduct must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed. A state offense must also be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” 93 S.Ct. at 2614-2615 (Emphasis supplied)
The Court then laid down the constitutional test for control of obscenity by saying:
“The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. . ..(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” 93 S.Ct. at p. 2615 (Emphasis supplied)
The Court further added:
“If a state law that regulates obscene material is thus limited, as written or construed, the First Amendment values applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment are adequately protected by the ultimate power of appellate courts to conduct an independent review of constitutional claims when necessary ....
“We emphasize that it is not our function to propose regulatory schemes for the States. That must await their concrete legislative efforts. It is possible, however, to give a few plain examples of what a state statute could define for regulation under the second part (b) of the standard announced in this opinion, supra:
“(a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.
“(b) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.”
“Under the holdings announced today, no one will be subject to prosecution for *444the sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive ‘hard core’ sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law, as written or construed. We are satisfied that these specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution . . . . ”2
Applying the Miller standards of specificity to Article 527, Vernon’s Ann.P.C., it is manifest that Section 1 thereof does not define the sexual conduct whose display or description is intended to be prohibited. If Miller had been issued without mention of the possibility of authoritative judicial construction of an obscenity statute which may fulfill the constitutional requirement that State law specify the sexual conduct which is prohibited, then there would be no question but that Article 527, supra, would be unconstitutional.3 And while authoritative judicial construction appears to be an available tool to save some obscenity statutes,4 some State courts have declined to use such tool to save statutes which by their very terms fail to meet the Miller requirement of specificity.5 Many of these courts considered that it was their function to interpret a statute and not to usurp the prerogatives of the Legislature by supplying essential elements to a statute which were omitted. See, i. e., Art Theater Guild, Inc. v. State, 510 S.W.2d 258 (Tenn.1974). They declined to add a judicial gloss by engrafting onto such statutes the missing specificity. In the post-Miller era other State courts have been able to uphold the validity of their obscenity statutes by concluding that previous judicial construction of the applicable statute (which lacked specificity itself) had already provided the specificity required by Miller.6
Still other State courts have read into the applicable obscenity statute involved those plain examples or definitions of specific sexual conduct which a State statute could define for regulation under the second part (b) of the standard announced in Miller.7
*445Abandoning and putting aside what we said on original submission about the specificity requirement of Miller as it related to Article 527, supra, we now interpret and restrict by judicial construction the term “sexual matters” used therein in Section 1 thereof to the examples set forth in Miller as follows:
“(a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.
“(b) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.”
Further, we note that in Phelper v. State, 396 S.W.2d 396 (Tex.Cr.App.1965), this court held that pictures showing men and women in the nude engaged in acts of sexual intercourse were obscene under Article 527, Vernon’s Ann.P.C. (with the record reflecting that the offense occurred in November 1963).
In Moore v. State, 470 S.W.2d 391 (Tex.Civ.App.-San Antonio 1971, writ ref’d n. r. e.), it was held that specific magazines containing photographs or depictions of nudity, including unclothed human male and female genitalia in close proximity, and acts of sexual perversion, specific books consisting of detailed verbal descriptions in course and vulgar language of sexual acts, and specific movie films containing similar matter and running the gamut of sexual experience and bizarre descriptions of different acts of sexual intercourse were obscene.
And in Bryers v. State, 480 S.W.2d 712 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), it was held that where “pandering” is shown material may be found constitutionally obscene even though not in violation of the standard defining obscenity.
Further, this court, in Hunt v. State, 475 S.W.2d 935 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), held that a magazine containing pictures of young females naked as to their genital areas was not obscene in the constitutional sense, in absence of suggestion of assault upon individual privacy by publication in the manner so obtrusive as to make it impossible for an unwilling individual to avoid exposure or evidence of pandering. And in Thacker v. State, 490 S.W.2d 854 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), the court held that a magazine containing photographs portraying nude females and photographs appearing to show some contact between sexes was not obscene where the magazine contained no overt portrayals of sexual activity.
It is clear from these cases that Article 527, supra, has been authoritatively construed so as to meet the requirements of Miller. It is, of course, true that only the Phelper case had been handed down at the time of the alleged offense in the instant case, but we observe that the Legislature expressly incorporated the Roth-Memoirs test in the statute in an attempt to satisfy constitutional requirements and the statute as construed. Phelper was applicable to the appellant, given the film here in question, which contained sequences of a nude man and woman engaged in explicit sexual activity and two nude women also engaged in such activity. The conduct here was clearly prohibited by the existing statute and prior case law, and as applied to such matter, the potential vagueness of the statute has been cured by prior judicial construction.
Only recently the United States Supreme Court in Hamling et al. v. United States, *446_ U.S. _, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974), wrote:
“At no point does Miller or any of the other obscenity decisions decided last term intimate that the constitutionality of pre-Miller convictions under statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 1461 was to be cast in doubt. Indeed, the contrary is readily apparent from the opinions in those cases. We made clear in Miller, 413 U.S., at 24, n. 6, 93 S.Ct. 2607, at 2615 that our decision was not intended to hold all state statutes inadequate, and we clearly recognized that existing statutes ‘as construed heretofore or hereafter, may well be adequate.’ That recognition is emphasized in our opinion in United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (1973).
Later, the Court said:
“Miller undertook to set forth examples of the types of material which a statute might proscribe as portraying sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, 413 U.S., at 25-26, 93 S.Ct. 2607, at 2615-2616, and went on to say that no one could be prosecuted for the ‘sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive “hard core” sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law, as written or construed.’ Id., at 27, 93 S.Ct., at 2616. As noted above, we indicated in United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S., at 130 n. 7, 93 S.Ct. 2665, at 2670, that we were prepared to construe the generic terms in 18 U.S.C. § 1462 to be limited to the sort of ‘patently offensive representations or description of that specific “hard core” sexual conduct given as examples in Miller v. California.’ We now so construe the companion provision in 18 U.S.C. § 1461, the statute under which this prosecution was brought. As so construed, we do not believe that petitioners’ attack on the statute as unconstitutionally vague can be sustained.
“Miller, in describing the type of material which might be constitutionally proscribed, 413 U.S., at 25, 93 S.Ct. 2607, at 2615 was speaking in terms of substantive constitutional law of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. See Jenkins v. Georgia, _ U.S. _, 94 S.Ct. 2750, 40 L.Ed.2d _. While the particular descriptions there contained were not intended to be exhaustive, they clearly indicate that there is a limit beyond which neither legislative draftsmen nor juries may go in concluding that particular material is ‘patently offensive’ within the meaning of the obscenity test set forth in the Miller cases. And while the Court in Miller did refer to ‘specific prerequisites’ which ‘will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials,’ 413 U.S., at 27, 93 S.Ct. 2607, at 2616, the Court immediately thereafter quoted the language of the Court in Roth v. United States, 354 U.S., at 491-492, 77 S.Ct. 1304, at 1312-1313, concluding with these words:
“ ‘That there may be marginal cases in which it is difficult to determine the side of the line on which a particular fact situation falls is no sufficient reason to hold the language too ambiguous to define a criminal offense . . . .’ 413 U.S., at 28 n. 10, 93 S.Ct. 2607, at 2617.
“The Miller cases, important as they were in enunciating a constitutional test for obscenity to which a majority of the Court subscribed for the first time in a number of years, were intended neither as legislative drafting handbooks or as manuals of jury instructions. 18 U.S.C. § 1461 had been held invulnerable to a challenge on the ground of unconstitutional vagueness in Roth; the language of Roth was repeated in Miller, along with a description of the types of material which could constitutionally be proscribed and the adjuration that such statutory proscriptions be made explicit either by their own language or by judicial construction; and United States v. 12 *447200-ft. Reels of Film, supra, made clear our willingness to construe federal statutes dealing with obscenity to be limited to material such as that described in Miller. It is plain from the Court of Appeals’ description of the brochure’ involved here that it is a form of hardcore pornography well within the types of permissibly proscribed depictions described in Miller, and which we now hold § 1461 to cover. Whatever complaint the distributor of material which presented a more difficult question of obscenity vel non might have as to the lack of a previous limiting construction of 18 U.S.C. § 1461, these petitioners have none. See Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 511-515, 71 S.Ct. 857, 95 L.Ed. 1137 (1951) (opinion of Vinson, C. J.).
“Nor do we find merit in petitioners’ contention that cases such as Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964), require reversal of their convictions. The Court in Bo-uie held that since the crime for which the petitioners there stood convicted was ‘not enumerated in the statute’ at the time of their conduct, their conviction could not be sustained. Id., at 363, 84 S.Ct. 1697, at 1707. The Court noted that ‘a deprivation of the right of fair warning can result not only from vague statutory language but also from an unforeseeable and retroactive judicial expansion of narrow and precise statutory language.’ 378 U.S., at 352, 84 S.Ct. 1697, at 1702. But the enumeration of specific categories of material in Miller which might be found obscene did not purport to make criminal, for the purpose of 18 U.S.C. § 1461, conduct which had not previously been thought criminal. That requirement instead added a ‘clarifying gloss’ to the prior construction and therefore made the meaning of the federal statute involved here ‘more definite’ in its application to federal obscenity prosecutions. Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S., at 353, 84 S.Ct. 1697, at 1702. Judged by both the judicial construction of § 1461 prior to Miller, and by the construction of that section which we adopt today in the light of Miller, petitioners’ claims of vagueness and lack of fair notice as to the proscription of the material which they were distributing must fail.”
For the same reason set forth above, we find appellant’s reliance in the instant case upon Bouie v. City of Columbia, supra, to be misplaced, and find no merit to his claims of vagueness and lack of fair notice as to the proscription of the film here in question.
One further problem presents itself. In Hamling v. United States, supra, the Supreme Court held that defendants convicted prior to the announcement of the Miller decisions but whose convictions were on direct appeal at the time should receive any benefit available to them from those decisions. See Jenkins v. Georgia, _ U. S. _, 94 S.Ct. 2750, 41 L.Ed.2d 640, 15 Cr.L. 3259 (1974).
The Miller decisions held it was no longer necessary as a matter of federal constitutional law to meet the “utterly without social value” test — the third part of the three-pronged Roth-Memoirs formulation— and that the prosecution need only prove, to satisfy federal constitutional standards, the matter has no “serious literary, artistic, etc., value.”
Whether this part of the Miller decisions benefits the appellant in the instant case is answered by the Supreme Court in Hamling v. United States, supra, where it was said:
“Petitioners’ final Miller-based contention is that our rejection of the third part of the Memoirs test and our revision of that test in Miller indicates that 18 U.S.C. § 1461 was at the time of their conviction unconstitutionally vague for the additional reason that it provided insufficient guidance to them as to the proper test of ‘social value.’ But our *448opinion in Miller plainly indicates that we rejected the Memoirs ‘social value’ formulation, not because it was so vague as to deprive criminal defendants of adequate notice, but instead because it represented a departure from the definition of obscenity in Roth, and because in calling on the prosecution to ‘prove a negative,’ it imposed a ‘[prosecutorial] burden virtually impossible to discharge’ and which was not constitutionally required. Miller v. California, 413 U.S., at 22, 93 S.Ct. 2607, at 2613. Since Miller permits the imposition of a lesser burden on the prosecution in this phase of the proof of obscenity than did Memoirs, and since the jury convicted these petitioners on the basis of an instruction concededly based on the Memoirs test, petitioners derive no benefit from the revision of that test in Miller."
In the instant case the appellant was convicted by the trial court following a waiver of trial by jury under a statute expressly incorporating the Memoirs test, and we cannot conclude that he derives any benefit from the Miller decision.
To recapitulate in part: On rehearing we abandon our interpretation on original submission of the term “sexual matters” as used in Article 527, supra, under which this conviction was obtained and now interpret and limit and restrict by judicial construction such term to the examples set forth in Miller as follows:
“(a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.
“(b) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.”
For the reasons stated, the appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.

. Section 1 of such Act provides in part as follows:
“(A) ‘Obscene’ material means material (a) the dominant theme of which, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient interest; (b) which is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and (c) which is utterly without redeeming social value.
“(B) ‘Prurient interest’ means a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or exeretion, which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters. If it appears from the character of the material or the circumstances of its dissemination that the subject matter is designed for a specially susceptible audience, the appeal of the subject matter shall be judged with reference to such audience.” (Emphasis supplied)

. It would thus appear that the Supreme Court limited the scope of State regulation of obscenity to “sexual conduct specifically described,” but apparently invited courts to cure defects in statutes by judicial construction, and the Court eliminates the “utterly without redeeming social value” constitutional test, which it acknowledges was very difficult to meet, and replaces it with a new constitutional test — the “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” test, which is a standard less difficult for the prosecution to meet.

. A cursory examination of the Oregon and Hawaii statutes referred to approvingly in Miller points out the inadequacy of the Texas statute.

. Although Miller declared that an otherwise vague State obscenity statute may be saved by “authoritative construction,” Miller never exactly defined what “authoritative construction” is. See Miller v. Goodrich Corp., 218 N.W.2d 771 (1974-Mich. Court of Appeals).

. Commonwealth v. Horton, Mass., 310 N.E.2d 316 (1974); Stroud v. State, 300 N.E.2d 100 (Ind.1973); State v. Wedelstedt, 213 N.W.2d 652 (Iowa 1973); State v. Shreveport News Agency, Inc., 287 So.2d 464 (La.1973); Art Theater Guild, Inc. v. State, 510 S.W.2d 258 (Tenn.1974).

. Rhodes v. State, 283 So.2d 351, 355-356 (Fla.1973); State ex rel. Wampler v. Bird, 499 S.W.2d 780, 784 (Mo.1973); People v. Heller, 33 N.Y.2d 314, 327, 329, 352 N.Y.S.2d 601, 307 N.E.2d 805 (1973); State ex rel. Keating v. A Motion Picture Film Entitled “Vixen,” 35 Ohio St.2d 215, 301 N.E.2d 880 (1973); Price v. Commonwealth, 201 S.E.2d 798 (Va.1974); People v. Enskat, 33 Cal.App.3d 900, 908, 109 Cal.Rptr. 433 (1973), cert. denied sub nom. Enskat v. California, _ U.S. _, 94 S.Ct. 3225, 41 L.Ed.2d 1172 (March 19, 1974); Miranda v. Hicks, 15 Cr.L. 2309 (C.D.Cal. June 4, 1974). See also Jenkins v. State, 230 Ga. 726, 199 S.E.2d 183 (1973), rev’d Jenkins v. Georgia, _ U.S. _, 94 S.Ct. 2750, 41 L.Ed.2d 640 (1974).

. McCrary v. State, Cr.L. (Okl.Cr.App.1974); Gibbs v. State, 504 S.W.2d 719 (Ark.1974); State v. J-R Distributors, Inc., 82 Wash.2d 584, 512 P.2d 1049, 1060 (1973), cert. denied sub nom. J-R Distributors, Inc. v. Washington, _ U.S. _, 94 S.Ct. 3217, 41 L.Ed.2d 1166 (December 17, 1973). See State v. Welke, 216 N.W.2d 641 (Minn.1974) (Miller standard said to be applicable but not retroactively.)
*445For federal cases to the same effect see United States v. 12 200 Ft. Reels of Super 8mm. Film, 413 U.S. 123, 130, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (footnote #7) (1973). See also United States v. One Reel of Film, 481 F.2d 206, 209 (1st Cir. 1973); United States v. One Reel of 35MM Color Motion Picture Film Entitled “Sinderella,” Sherpix, Inc., 491 F.2d 956 (2d Cir. 1974). Cf. United States v. Thevis, 484 F.2d 1149, 1155 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied sub nom. Thevis v. United States, _ U.S. _, 94 S.Ct. 3222, 41 L.Ed.2d 1170 (1974).