Court Opinion

ID: 9687267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:20:56.097976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:25.294085
License: Public Domain

T. M. Kavanagh, C. J.
(dissenting). Defendants, having been charged ih three separate actions on single count informations with violation, of MCLA 750.343a; MSA 28.575(1), were convicted upon non-jury trials. Each charge included pandering of the allegedly obscene publications.
In a lengthy opinion by Judge J. H. Gillis, the Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions, promulgating a new obscenity test:
"Given that the published material is obscene within the meaning of a state statute, not void for vagueness, the publisher of the material loses any claim to protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments if his primary intent in publishing the material is to appeal to the recipient’s prurient interest in sex.” 27 Mich App 687, 701 (1970).
We granted leave to appeal. 384 Mich 802. On appeal to this Court, defendants raise the following four issues:
1. Is the Michigan statute MSA 28.575(1), (2), being MCLA 750.343a and b unconstitutional on its face and as applied to defendants?
2. Are the materials involved in the three cases consolidated herein obscene in the constitutional sense as defined by the United States Supreme Court?
3. Does the rule now laid down by the Court of Appeals and applied to the defendants-appellants after trial deny to them due process and equal protection in violation of their constitutional rights?
4. Is there a conflict in the decisions of the *426Michigan Court of Appeals which ought to be resolved by this Court?
With respect to the issue of constitutionality, defendants argue that MCLA 750.343b, which comprises the test for determination of violations of MCLA 750.343a, fails to incorporate fully the tests of Roth v United States, 354 US 476; 77 S Ct 1304; 1 L Ed 2d 1498 (1957). They point to three alleged deficiencies.
First, they claim the statutory test fails to refer to prurient interest specifically. We know of no instance in which the United States Supreme Court has required as a matter of constitutional law the embodiment in state obscenity statutes of all Federal explanatory rationales justifying the suppression of obscene publications. Cf. Roth, supra, 354 US at 491; 77 S Ct at 1312; 1 L Ed 2d at 1510 (1957).
Second, they contend that a national community standard is not expressly required by the statute, citing Jacobellis v Ohio, 378 US 184; 84 S Ct 1676; 12 L Ed 2d 793 (1964). We can only observe that our statutory test is in precisely the language of Roth, supra.
Third, they attack the statute for failing to incorporate the standard in Roth, supra, that the material be utterly without redeeming social value. Examination of Roth, however, dictates the observation that such test is implicit in any proscription of obscenity, for it is the character of being utterly without redeeming social value which places obscenity outside the protections of the First Amendment.
Defendants’ next issue in effect addresses itself to the sufficiency of the evidence. In each instance, however, the trial courts, sitting as the triers of fact, made unassailable findings that beyond a *427reasonable doubt: (1) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appealed to the prurient interest in sex; (2) the material was patently offensive because it affronted contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and (3) the material was utterly without redeeming social value. Those findings of fact are fully supported by the record.
In addition to such clear evidentiary basis for those findings, which, standing alone, would warrant convictions for trafficking in obscene material, there was also sufficient evidence, as found by the trial courts, of pandering of the sort condemned by the United States Supreme Court in Ginzburg v United States, 383 US 463; 86 S Ct 942; 16 L Ed 2d 31 (1966). In fact, the Court of Appeals even concluded with this observation:
"The issue of pandering was clearly before the court in each case and both sides introduced evidence on the proposition and it was argued to the court. We could affirm the convictions solely on the basis of Ginzburg, as the trial courts indicated that they had done.” 27 Mich App 687, 712-713.
We are of the opinion that the Court of Appeals not only could have, but should have, affirmed on the basis of Ginzburg, there being no necessity in the instant cases to promulgate a new test, further muddying the waters of the flood of obscenity cases.
As the United States Supreme Court indicated in Ginzburg:
"[T]he circumstances of presentation and dissemination of material are equally relevant to determining [the] social importance claimed for material * * * . Where the purveyor’s sole emphasis is on the sexually *428provocative aspects of his publications, that fact may be decisive in the determination of obscenity. Certainly * * * the fact that they originate or are used as a subject of pandering is relevant to the application of the Roth test.” 383 US 463, 470-471; 86 S Ct 942, 947; 16 L Ed 2d 31, 38 (1966).
The caveat expressed by the Court makes clear that a finding of pandering supports the determination that the material is obscene. As they put it:
"It is important to stress that this analysis simply elaborates the test by which the obscenity vel non of the material must be judged. Where an exploitation of interests in titillation by pornography is shown with respect to material lending itself to such exploitation through pervasive treatment or description of sexual matters, such evidence may support the determination that the material is obscene even though in other contexts the material would escape such condemnation.” 383 US 463, 475-476; 86 S Ct 942, 950; 16 L Ed 2d 31, 41 (1966).
Notwithstanding the foregoing, defendants would have us rule that the materials involved are not obscene in the constitutional sense. This we cannot do. Guided by the rule in Ginzburg, we are compelled to conclude that the circumstances under which defendants commercially offered the instant publications rendered conclusive the determination that such publications are obscene.
The primary thrust of defendants’ argument on appeal rests on Redrup v New York, 386 US 767; 87 S Ct 1414; 18 L Ed 2d 515 (1967), and cases decided thereunder. Such a misguided approach to this case presents but a partial perspective, for in Redrup, the United States Supreme Court held, inter alia, that there was "[no] evidence of the sort of 'pandering’ which the Court found significant in Ginzburg v United States, 383 U.S. 463 [; 86 S Ct *429942; 16 L Ed 2d 31 (1966)].” Thus, Redrup not being a pandering case, we do not consider it, or its progeny, applicable here.
In view of our disposition of the first two issues, discussion of the last two is unnecessary. Defendants’ convictions are affirmed.
T. E. Brennan, J., concurred with T. M. Kavanagh, C. J.
Black, J., concurred in the result.