Court Opinion

ID: 9772907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:32:48.544121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:49.177134
License: Public Domain

LEVY, Justice,
concurring.
In his first ground of error, appellant argues that “obscene devices,” as defined by sec. 43.21(a)(7) of our Penal Code (Vernon Supp.1985), are within the protection of *931the First Amendment, requiring a prior judicial determination of probable obscenity before such material is seized. The State does not dispute appellant’s contentions that the arrest and seizure were made without warrant and were based solely upon the observations and decisions of the officers made within a few minutes before the arrest.
Whether obscenity is utterance within the area of protected speech is the disposi-tive question. Expressions found in numerous opinions indicate that Texas courts have consistently assumed that obscenity is not protected by the freedom of speech. See Hoyle v. State, 672 S.W.2d 233 (Tex.Crim.App.1984); Shealy v. State, 675 S.W.2d 215 (Tex.Crim.App.1984); Hall v. State, 661 S.W.2d 101 (Tex.Crim.App.1983) (per curiam); Davis v. State, 658 S.W.2d 572 (Tex.Crim.App.1983).
The guarantees of freedom of expression in effect in 10 of the 14 States which by 1792 had ratified the Constitution, gave no absolute protection for every utterance. Thirteen of the 14 States provided for the prosecution of libel, and all of those States made either blasphemy or profanity, or both, statutory crimes. As early as 1712, Massachusetts made it criminal to publish “any filthy, obscene, or profane song, pamphlet, libel or mock sermon” in imitation or mimicking of religious services. Acts and Laws of the Province of Mass. Bay, c. CV, sec. 8 (1712), Mass. Bay Colony Charters & Laws 399 (1814).
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 482-83, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1307-08, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957) (footnotes omitted). In light of our early constitutional history, it is apparent that even the unconditional phrasing of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance. But there is a respectable body of scholars who argue that the First Amendment puts free speech in a preferred position, and that, with its prohibition in terms absolute, it was designed to preclude courts as well as legislatures from weighing the values of speech against silence.
It seems at first blush almost absurd to claim that the promotion of “obscene devices” is a form of communication that is entitled to draw to its protection the First Amendment of the federal constitution. Implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance. All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance — unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion1 — have the full protection of the First Amendment. In order to fulfill its historic function, freedom of discussion must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period, see Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 101-102, 60 S.Ct. 736, 743-744, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940), and to make well-balanced, thoroughly considered decisions with respect to public policy.
To recognize the existence of a problem with obscenity does not require that this Court sustain any and all measures adopted to meet that problem. The history of the application of laws designed to suppress the obscene demonstrates convincingly that the power of government can be invoked under them against great art or literature (e.g., Picasso, Bosch, Toulouse-Lautrec, Shakespeare, Bocaccio, Milton, Chaucer, Henry Miller, James Joyce), scientific treatises (e.g., Galileo, Darwin, Robert Oppenheimer), or works exciting social controversy (e.g., Marx, Veblen, Bertrand Russell, Eugene V. Debs). The distinction between the obscene and literature or science is not clear and unwavering. Obscene material deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest, but sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. at 487, 77 S.Ct. at 1310. All a literary gem need do, to be regarded as at least partly obscene, is arouse a lust*932ful desire or incite a lascivious thought. The list of books or paintings that judges and juries can place in that category is endless. If a work does arouse - such thought or desire, and yet, taken as a whole, it has serious literary, artistic, political, or social value, is it constitutionally “obscene”?
In short, I have severe misgivings in upholding sec. 43.23, because the history of legislation dealing with “obscenity,” “profanity,” or “libel” shows such legislation to be inimical to unfettered and robust expression. I would like to give the broad sweep of the First Amendment full support, inasmuch as I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject “obscene devices” and noxious literature as I have in their capacity to sort out the true from the false in philosophy, politics, theology, economics, or any other field. And I think that the State, in its penal code, should be concerned with antisocial conduct, not with utterances or impure thoughts. The law must draw a distinction between a criminal act and yielding to a vice. To allow the State to intrude upon individual privacy and punish mere possession of devices that a judge or jury thinks have an undesirable impact on thoughts — but that is not shown to be a part of unlawful action — is drastically to curtail the First Amendment. This issue cannot be resolved merely by saying that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. The fundamental, and intimidating, question remains: what is the constitutional test of obscenity?
Having expressed these misgivings, I must agree with the majority that we are bound to follow the Court of Criminal Appeals in its Shealy, Hall, and Hoyle decisions that “obscene devices” are not behind the shield of the First Amendment. That is really all that this case presents to us, and that is all we need to decide.

. “[I]f there is any principle of the constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 654-55, 49 S.Ct. 448, 451, 73 L.Ed. 889 (1929) (Holmes, J., dissenting).