Court Opinion

ID: 9738404
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:52:17.96588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:05.949062
License: Public Domain

Lindemer, J.
(dissenting). The construction of criminal statutes is always more rigidly examined than that of civil statutes. Justice Levin asks us to believe that the Legislature desired to regulate that which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting more extensively through the criminal process than the civil. It is my opinion that the statute’s distribution of such material covers the exhibition of "The Devil in Miss Jones”. It is my further opinion that the reading of the statute to eliminate motion picture film is strained. The statute does not say that the words "picture, photograph, figure or image” mean a picture, photograph, figure or image on writing paper or book paper. To so hold brings to mind Mr. Bumble who remarked:
"If the law supposes that, * * * the law is a ass, a idiot.” Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
Miller v California, 413 US 15; 93 S Ct 2607; 37 L Ed 2d 419 (1973), establishes the standards applicable here. The civil obscenity statute is directed to the exhibition of a motion picture film.
The Court of Appeals should be reversed.
Coleman, J., concurred with Lindemer, J.