Court Opinion

ID: 5024263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2021-10-01 04:36:20.469658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:53.421217
License: Public Domain

*127On Application for Hearing before the Court en Banc
PER CURIAM.
In their supplemental brief filed for the hearing before the court en banc the appellants in their points relied on make this additional contention:
“The divisional opinion holding the warrants to sufficiently describe the items to be seized is erroneous in condoning the issuance of a general warrant for the seizure of publications and thereby violates appellants’ freedom of speech and press under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and deprives them of their property without due process of law and their privileges and immunities as citizens as guaranteed by the due process and privileges and immunities clause of Amendment Fourteen of the United States Constitution.”
This adds nothing to the scope of the contentions previously made and disposed of in the divisional opinion.
Appellants also cite Smith v. People of State of California, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205, decided since the decision in division. In the Smith case an ordinance which had the effect of imposing a strict criminal liability upon a bookseller possessing an obscene book without a showing that he had knowledge of its contents was struck down as infringing upon constitutional rights. This is not a criminal proceeding and a lack of guilty knowledge is not claimed. Our attention is also called to Kingsley International Pictures Corp. v. Regents of University of State of New York, 360 U.S. 684, 79 S.Ct. 1362, 3 L.Ed.2d 1512. Neither - these nor the other cases cited repudiate previous holdings of the Supreme Court of the United States that obscene material is not within the protection of the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and the press. Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498. In fact the Smith case reaffirms that proposition. Thus the purpose of the Missouri statute is not unlawful and we hold the procedures employed are in compliance with due process of law and not violative of other constitutional rights. The divisional opinion correctly rules the contentions made.